Escape from the Giro d’Italia – Life and death at the top of Monte Grappa

The Giro d’Italia, the climb to Monte Grappa and all that life you feel in the face of all that death

Up there at the top, on the summit of Monte Grappa, in one of the most beautiful places in the Veneto, where looking south-east, with the clear sky, the wind and the right light, you lose yourself with your eyes far beyond Venice and its thousand bell towers and spaces down towards Istria and perhaps further , but you need good eyesight; up there at the top, on the summit of Monte Grappa, in one of the most beautiful places, where when you arrive you feel the taste of life and all of life entering you, up there at the top, I was saying, instead you find yourself in the presence of death.

And in the face of death, in the place of life one finds a ghostly, melancholic, very happy peace. Because perhaps it is paradoxical, perhaps just disrespectful, but riding a bicycle to the top of Monte Grappa, finding yourself in front of a military shrine after 22,910 people are buried, of which only 2,631 have a name and surname, gives you the idea of being more alive than you are, it amplifies the perception of your breathing, of the beats of that heart of yours that still follows you on your bicycle.

Then, after having savored life in the most intense way possible, bad mood sets in, a bad mood that wavers between disgust for that enormous, all-too-human imbecility called war, and dejection for what has been, what is and what will be. , because after all, wars have always existed, continue to exist and it is difficult for things to go differently.

“My grandfather should be here. My grandfather is one of many of those who do not have a first and last name. And my wife’s grandfather could also be there, provided they also buried those who wore other uniforms: he was Austrian,” says Adelio Pramolin, 85 years old.

“I used to come up to Monte Grappa on my bicycle once a year. When I was young I was strong and it was said that I had the talent of champions. Legs and lungs and heart worked, but not so much. And it takes brains to be a runner. I wasn’t a runner. But I kept pedaling. And once a year I went up to the Shrine. The last time was in 2016, then I never felt like it again. I come here, say hello to the grandfather I never met and my wife’s grandfather. I don’t know why I keep coming here, when I used to get on my bike first and then I had fun, now it’s just a bad thing.”