When his father returned to work, Pietro started climbing with Bruno. Though Pietro started to get altitude sickness, he overcame it. It depends.”Įventually, their mountain climbing gets more daring with Bruno sometimes joining them. “And who is bothering them there, down below?” If someone comes up this high, it’s because down below they won’t leave them in peace.” However, when Bruno had to go the Alpine pastures to look after the animals, Pietro started climbing with his father. Instead, at least while Pietro was there during the summer, the two boys played together, with Bruno the more daring. Bruno’s father spent most of the year away, while his mother was there the whole time.īruno was meant to go to school but did not. The village had had a population of a hundred but was now down to fourteen. Bruno was not only the youngest in the village, he was the last boy left, with no prospect of any others being born. It was in Grana that Pietro met Bruno Guglielmina. However, she had had enough and she persuaded her husband to rent a shack in Grana and she and Pietro could stay there, while he went up the mountains. She did not like the high mountains but Pietro seemed to be interested as from the age of six. They took their holidays in the mountains, not back in the Dolomites but towards the West, towards the Alps. She was a health worker, he worked in a chemical factory, where he disagreed with everyone on principle. They then left for Milan, where they both had jobs. Their wedding was held with only a few friends, all wearing anoraks and they had a bed in the Auronzo refuge for their first night as husband and wife. Both enjoyed the mountains, though he preferred the high peaks and she the lower areas at around fifteen hundred meters.

His parents met in the Dolomites where they grew up.

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Le otto montagne by Paolo Cognetti