February 4, 2026

Sondrio, Italia

Another good night’s sleep. Breakfast at 07:30. Cappuccino, brioche and yogurt. Wake Mary up at 08:45. Mariagiulia is coming for coffee at 10:30. We meet Mariagiulia in the Libby of the hotel at 10:30. We walk over to the Caffé Mokio on Corso Italia. We walk past Pasticceria Gelateria la Milanese, which is sadly closed for renovations. However, it does actually look like people might be in there working. The pastries there were wonderful.

Caffé Mokio is a small “bar” run by two women. There are only two or three tables, but we find one where we can sit, have coffee and brioche. Mary & I order cappuccini, Mariagiulia orders just a coffee, for Americans that means espresso. We each have a brioche. We make arrangements to meet tomorrow for lunch, some of Mariagiulia’s lasagna, and make arrangement to meet again for dinner at Trattoria Olmo, located in Piazza Cavour, at 19:30.

We head back towards the hotel. Mariagiulia goes off to do her marketing. Back at the hotel we rest for a bit and then go down to the Caffé Felix on the first floor, and into one of the rooms at the back of the caffé where we split a toast of ham and cheese and a bottle of water. We then stay and play a game of cards.

The question is what do we know about the building at Piazza Garibaldi, 19 which houses the Grand Hotel della Posta? Why is it even called “della posta?” Well, we know it was completed in the mid-19th century. Construction took place between 1855 and 1862 at the request of Francesco Foianini. Who he was, or why he was important has been elusive. We do know that this very time period is when the country of Italy was formed.

While the building has served multiple purposes over the last 164 years, one purpose hasn’t changed, it has always been a hotel. Part of the hotel was a postal station (probably the reason for della posta), it was the town’s first post office, a telegraph office and even the railway baggage agency. Due to its strategic location on the Stelvio Pass, the highest mountain pass in the eastern alps, Sondrio has been the capital of the province. It is even pre-Italy. Sondrio was the administrative center when the province was created in 1815 under the Austrian Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia. As it does today, it included the districts of Valtellina, Valchiavenna, and Bormio. It remained the capital of the province even after the area was ceded by the Austrian Empire after the Third Italian War for Independence in 1866.

The line of ownership is a little obscured by history. We do know in 1896 the Vitali family inherited the hotel and operated in for decades. In 1947 it was sold to the Banca Piccolo Credito Valtellinese.

We know it was the Grand Hotel della Posta from direct experiences as early as 2000. The hotel was restored between 2006 and 2008 to bring it back to its original 19th-century look. The original architectural details, which were hidden by various renovations over time were revealed. There are 19th-century frescoes on the staircases, exposed stone walls in the meeting rooms, and high ceiling with wooden beams. Today, is is operated by the Saint Jane Group as a 4-star boutique hotel. Staying here one easily sees and feels all four of those stars.

Before we parted with Mariagiulia we actually walked to Trattoria Olmo and actually made the dinner reservations for tonight. Mariagiulia was going to call Pina and arrange a time for us to stop by tomorrow and visit for a little bit. Then after, or maybe before, we will have lunch at her and Alfio’s house in Berbenno di Valtellina.

After our game of cards, we returned to the room. It was nap time. After nap time it was time to get dressed and ready for dinner. Ok, maybe there was sometime available to look at emails, write in the blog and do a few other things.

However, we did get dressed for dinner and headed down to the lobby of the hotel about 19:15. Trattoria Olmo is only a short distance from the hotel, maybe 500 meters. It didn’t take us long to get there. We arrive just before 19:30 in typical Falk “be on time” fashion. The hostess recognized us from our stopping by earlier in the day and immediately took us to our table.

We ordered a liter of vino rosso della casa and a bottle each of sparkling and natural water. They brought us menus in Italian and English to look at while we waited for the family to show up. It had gone 19:30 before the family showed up in good Italian time.

Mattia looks more and more like his cousin Harry IV. We started with Mattia ordering a tagliere di salumi, sciatt ed insalata. Well, maybe yes and maybe no, four plates showed up. Two of them were definitely tagliere di salumi, worth two different salami. All four plates had sciatt and salad. Two of the plates were probably more local in that they had bresaola as well as salami.

Sciatt is a traditional antipasto here in the Valtellina. The quick answer is that sciatt is a crispy, deep-fried cheese ball which has been coated with a layer of buckwheat batter, although traditionally it may have been chestnut flour. They weren’t always an antipasto. Remo, Mattia’s grandfather, once told me a story that his mother used to take the cheese, coat it in flour, probably corn or chestnut, and put them in the coals of the morning fire. These would bake and then she would give them to the children for their lunch at school. This was probably the late 1930’s or early 1940’s. Remo was born in 1932.

Like much of the food of the poor in Italy in the early 20th or late 19th century, sciatt has become a hot foodie item. Polenta is another other. In the case of sciatt, fancy places use a beer batter, buckwheat is expensive, so they use corn meal or flour or some mixture thereof. The traditional method is, of course, better. It is highly probable that the traditional method of roasting it in coals of the fire actually gives you an even better product, but today’s health standards won’t allow that. Honestly, chestnut flour is even more difficult to come by now days, but the flavor imparted by the chestnut would probably make it better. What cheese you use will also make a difference. Should it be young or old? Again, traditionally for the children to take to school, it was probably some older cheese that needed the heat to soften it.

I ordered the Manzo brasato, but instead of getting potatoes with it, I asked to swap the potatoes with polenta taragna, fortunately the waitress said yes. Manzo brasato is simply breasted beef, often brisket. It came with a wonderful gravy which was the perfect accompaniment to the polenta.

Mary chose the gnocchi al mirtillo, or blueberry potato dumplings. Mary has long been a fan of blueberries, so this was a chance to try something different. The gnocchi weren’t like we make, the ingredients are the same, but they were much smaller in size and, of course, blue (more purple than blue) due to the blueberries. The portions were huge and although I had some of the gnocchi, I had sufficient trouble finishing mine, especially after the antipasto.

We caught up taking about family. Shared photos and the video of my plunge into the Antarctic sea. We made plans for tomorrow. Mariagiulia had made the connection with Pina so we’ll stop and see her tomorrow. We are going to have lunch at Mariagiulia’s tomorrow, she is making lasagna for us, and maybe Tiramisù.

Speaking of dolci, Mary skipped dessert, but everyone else had gelato al fiord i latter con mirtilli caramellati. Vanilla nice cream with carmalized blueberries. There was an interesting item in the dolce section of the menu called “Crema Catalana”.  Apparently it is the Spanish version of crème brûlé. I tried that just to be different. It was as advertised, a version of crème brûlé. The structure is the same, the taste a little different, it had a slight lemony tang. Consistent with being Spanish.

They walked us back to the hotel. We setup a meeting point in the morning for Alfio to pick us up at 10:30. Said goodnight and headed upstairs to our room with our bellies full.

Buonanotte e Ciao,

Enrico & Maria