Those Venetians were a clever bunch. Not satisfied with building an entire city of marble on a boggy lagoon that served as the epicentre of world trade for over 1,000 years, in the late 16th century they decided it was high time to flex their engineering muscles elsewhere. Having conquered the sea, they turned their attention to the sky.
The city of Bergamo at the base of the Val Brembana valley was under the control of the Venetian Republic at the time, and one of the city’s major trading partners was the Swiss Canton of Grisons, which sat in the parallel Valtellina valley. The issue was that for the houses to reach one another to trade, they had to cross the Duchy of Milan and therefore pay a hefty levy for the privilege.
With good reason for wanting to better connect the two valleys, the Venetians set about constructing a road over the mountains, an impressive flagstoned pass that rose to almost 2,000m in the sky. The valleys were connected and the Passo San Marco, named after the patron saint of Venice, Saint Mark, and the centrepiece of today’s ride, was born.
‘Forza Inter, vaffanculo Juve’
It’s the kind of morning that requires a light jacket in the Valtellina valley. The cloud is low, the sun is yet to burn through and, despite it being July, a damp dew lingers on the air and brings with it a touch of freshness. The town of Morbegno is quiet, its people yet to start the day save for a few early risers sipping coffee and browsing the pink pages of Gazzetta dello Sport in Bar Orobia.
Absorbing the sounds and smells of the coffee machine, I sit opposite my day’s guide, local expert and owner of BikeItBellagio!,
