Wait, let's stop here
An imagined day in the Aosta Valley, among wineries, bicycles, warm bread and an idea to build together.
“If you keep adding stops, we'll need a hotel.”
Elena had moved the espresso cup to save the map from a coffee stain. Andrea was still holding his pen above the name of a village.
“You've got the hotel.”
“Exactly. I know how much it costs to change the sheets.”
Marta laughed. Sara reached into the bread basket and took the last slice.
In the kitchen, the moka pot had started gurgling again. Elena got up, returned with the coffee and poured a little onto the map as well.
“There. Now we have a lake.”
Andrea held up the sheet. The stain had spared the very village he wanted to add. He pointed this out with a satisfaction the others thought excessive.
That is how they began, at least in the day I like to imagine.
Four people around a table, a map of the Aosta Valley and the idea of guiding someone through places they loved. The castle Andrea would happily visit for the tenth time. Marta's winery. A road through the vineyards. The bakery Elena stopped at whenever she found it open.
They had discussed electric bicycles, a vehicle for connections, bookings. Then Sara had closed the computer.
“Shall we go?”
Outside, the air made you want to zip up your jacket. The sun was already on the vines, while part of the courtyard remained in shade.
Andrea went over to the bicycles. He had chosen one for the first part of the route; the others would meet him at the winery after checking access with the manager.
“Don't stop and talk to everyone,” Elena told him.
He made a gesture that could have meant anything and set off.
Marta watched him go.
“He'll stop.”
He arrived twenty minutes after them, with a photograph and the name of someone they absolutely had to meet.
Elena opened her mouth, then looked at the photograph.
“Where is it?”
Andrea enlarged the photograph. Elena took the phone from his hands to see it better.
“It's a courtyard. They still do things there sometimes. She told me to come back.”
“Who is she?”
“The person I wasn't supposed to stop and talk to.”
At the winery, Marta searched for the keys in her bag, realised she already had them in her hand and opened the door. Inside, there was a smell of wood, of cool stone, something familiar that Elena tried to place.
Marta put a bottle, some bread and a knife on the table. She had left an old jumper there too; she pulled it on without stopping talking.
“Eat first. Then explain this new detour to me.”
Sara moved closer in her wheelchair, but a crossbar under the table stopped her getting into a comfortable position. She tried the other side. Marta looked around for another spot.
“We could go outside,” Andrea suggested.
Sara looked at the courtyard, still in shade.
“I'd stay here. I've only just started to warm up.”
Marta disappeared into the next room and returned dragging a smaller table. Elena helped her move it. When they sat down again, the bread had gone and nobody knew where the knife was.
“I like this table,” said Sara. “We're closer to the wine, too.”
Andrea held out his glass.
“You have to cycle,” Elena reminded him.
He looked at her, then at the bottle.
“I might stop too.”
“And the bicycle?”
Marta burst out laughing.
“You came to organise other people's journey.”
They stayed longer than planned.
Marta told them about a harvest that had ended in the rain. As she spoke, she ran her thumb over the bottle's label, peeling away a corner. Elena asked her about groups, timings and how much notice she would need. Marta answered, then wanted to know whether Elena had been afraid when she first opened the accommodation.
Elena lowered her eyes to the glass.
“At the beginning?”
They laughed, but more quietly this time.
“Sometimes I go back into a room I've just prepared,” Elena continued, “and move a chair. Then I put it back where it was.”
Marta nodded.
“I reread emails I've already sent.”
Sara looked at them one after the other.
“I read the ones I haven't yet dared to send.”
They stayed like that for a moment. Andrea passed the bread around. Elena took a piece and, when she looked up, her expression was less guarded.
Andrea took out his phone to photograph the table. Marta asked him to wait; she wanted to take off her apron.
“You look fine as you are,” he said.
“But it's my photograph. Wait.”
She took it off, quickly adjusted her hair and returned to Elena's side.
Sara looked at them.
“Now you look like people who always know what they're doing.”
They reached the village in the afternoon.
They had dropped one stop, discussed how much the day might cost and made a call to ask about a return service. Elena had filled two pages with figures. Andrea was still defending the detour in the photograph.
Then, near the bakery, she was the one who stopped.
“Wait. Here.”
The smell of warm bread drifted through the doorway. A woman was arranging loaves on a board and, seeing them looking in, asked how many they wanted.
Elena bought one. She held it against her jacket, wrapped in paper, the way you hold something hot that you are reluctant to put down.
“I'll carry it,” said Andrea.
“No, no. It's keeping me warm.”
The woman in the doorway watched them looking for somewhere to sit and pointed to the little square.
“You still have a little sunshine over there.”
They settled in the little square. Marta took the remaining cheese out of her bag; Sara found the knife.
“Were you looking for this?”
Andrea was checking the time.
“The castle…”
Elena broke the bread. Crumbs fell onto the map he had spread across his knees.
“We'll come back.”
A crumb had remained on Sara's sleeve. She picked it up and ate it. Marta finally took off her jumper and turned her face to the sun.
“Ten minutes,” said Elena.
Nobody asked her to time them.
When they returned, the courtyard was cold.
Andrea put the bicycle away. Sara asked him to send her the photograph taken at the winery, the one after the apron came off. Marta already had a work message to listen to. Elena was looking for her keys and, as always when she was in a hurry, found them in the last pocket.
Before saying goodbye, they looked at the route again.
There were still things to resolve. The connection between two stops. The price. That passageway to check. Marta pointed to a date on her phone.
“I'm free that day.”
Andrea nodded. Sara checked her diary.
Elena stood looking at the map for a moment.
“Next time I'll invite someone too. They have an idea I want you to hear.”
“Then book a big table,” said Marta.
The leftover bread was still in the middle. Elena divided it into four with her hands.
Marta wrapped her piece in a napkin.
“This, tomorrow morning.”
“It'll be hard,” said Andrea.
“I'll warm it up.”
They said goodbye once at the door, then again beside the car because Sara had thought of something else.
Elena was the last to return. The coffee-stained map was on the table. She was about to fold it when a photograph arrived on her phone: the four of them at the winery, Marta without her apron, Andrea half out of the frame.
Below it, a message from Sara.
“Next time I'll take it.”
The photographs show real places and products in the Aosta Valley and accompany a fictional story. They do not document the journey described.