Walking with Angels Col Saint Bernard

KGoing to the dogs. Today is a rest day. We were completely exhausted after reaching the top yesterday. It was a combination of thin air and nine hours of continually climbing to 8100 feet. We walked around the lake for exercise in the afternoon after the sun came out. You will see the picture of Charlotte holding onto chains in an especially tricky spot. The morning was completely socked in with a cold strong wind blowing. In the morning we paid our senior rate of 8chf each and went through the museum which also had about a dozen Saint Bernard dogs in their kennels. The museum has items going back many hundreds of years and was very interesting. The road through the pass was started by the emperor Augustus in 12 BC and there was always someone in control of the pass demanding passage money. We attended prayers at 6:15pm and there were about 20 of us. It was held in the depths of the basement in a chapel like setting. There were three priests there and one did most of the singing. There were about two dozen for dinner all around a long table with benches. I had paid our bill in the afternoon. I spread out all our chf including the coin and asked Father Fredricho if there was enough for wine at supper. After much deliberation he showed us how much wine by indicating on a glass decanter. We have finally got over our jet lag and are anxious to get walking again. This pass is approximately half way between Canterbury and Rome. We met Alison Raju an author of one of our guide books. She just arrived there to serve as a volunteer. All the help other than the chef are volunteers. One of the young women there was from Russia.