Friday, July 25, 2008

Arco and the trip to Edinburgh

So we headed all the way to the Dolomites through the Eastern side of Italy only to find that the weather forecast was wrong and bad weather had begun (So we missed out on climbing the Marmolada). We then drove all the way across Italy to a climbing town called Arco in the West. In the town there are climbing photos everywhere of the top sport climbers from the last 20 years and in the bars climbing videos are played on the big screens. There is climbing all around the town and it tends to be quality long very technical routes. We spent two half days and one full day climbing and i had a long endurancy battle with a hard overhung 7c (27) only to fall off just below the chains on the onsight. I got it second go and hopefully i can take that form and build on it in Ceuse. Arco is definetely a place i want to return to and spend some real time.
After Arco i got dropped off in Verona so i could make my own way to Nice and on to Edinburgh while Owen and Dan took the car on a long roadtrip to Prague. I was told all the trains were sold out and it looked like i wouldnt make my flight so i jumped on a train to Milan. From Milan i could get to Ventimiglia (which i hadnt even heard off) on the mediterranean and get a different train from there in the morning to Nice. So i made it!
Now i am in Edinburgh and have met up with Chris and Adelle. I have been to the top of Arthurs seat (a hill next to town), toured around Edinburgh castle and seen the esplanade infront of it where they have the military tattoo every year.

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