Friday's stage is the last but one. Will young Egan Bernal of Colombia hold on? He has worn the Maglia Rosa (and the Maglia Bianca for young riders) for 11 stages, but has looked vulnerable at times.
The race starts from the shores of Lake Maggiore at
Verbania, a commune that has only existed since 1939, when Pallanza and Intra were amalgamated. Its arms are those formerly used by Intra. Here the capo d'imperio has become half of the arms. I note with a shudder that a local speciality is mint-flavoured beer.
Blazon: Troncato: al 1° d’oro all’aquila reale di nero coronato dello stesso; al 2° d’argento all’albero di quercia al naturale poggiante su una campagna di verde. Corona comitale.
The arms of Intra were formally granted to the new commune on 8 April 1944, while the area was under the rule of the Fascist Repubblica Sociale Italiana.
The race follows the lakeside road into Switzerland at the town of
Brissago (not to be confused with the Italian town of Brissago Valtravaglia on the other side of the lake), whose arms look as though they should be English - not only the cross of St George but the saint himself in dexter chief. Or is it St Michael? Sadly I can find no blazon to give us the answer. The parish church is dedicated to SS Peter and Paul, so that doesn't give us a clue.
Next comes
Locarno, the lion rampant in whose arms has been given a modern treatment.
Apart from tourism, Locarno is best known for its annual film festival these days. In the inter-war period its name was associated with the international treaties negotiated there in 1925. These were supposed to remove any
casus belli in Europe, and resulted in Germany joining the League of Nations in 1926. Germany effectively tore up the Locarno treaties by annexing the demilitarised Rhinelend in 1936. Serving as I did for many years in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, I was of course vaguely aware that our Whitehall HQ, the magnificent Gilbert Scott building, contained something called the Locarno Suite. But as the three large rooms were subdivided into tatty offices during WW2 for the use of the cypher clerks, and later accommodated the Legal Advisers, I and thousands of my colleagues were astounded to find in 1990, that following a multi-million pound refurbishment, the FCO was in fact possessed of palatial entertainment and conference facilities. These rooms, already shabby post WW1, had been hastily tidied up to serve as the venue for the signature of the Locarno Treaties in December 1925, an event then considered of such importance that the rooms were done up and named in its honour.
But back to cycling and heraldry!
The stage, which has so far been a pleasant undulating road gradually begins to climb, and climb, and climb, eventually reaching the St Bernard Pass. But that is just the first hill. Then there is Splügenpass (Passo dello Spluga). Not content with that, the organisers have arranged the finish to be at Alpe Motta, which is in the commune of
Madesimo. Madesimo's arms are to be found on its website and also in Wikipedia, but not
in Heraldry of the World (All Hail to Heraldry of the World! - but not in this case). I think we get the point(s) of these arms.
The araldicacivica.it website gives an entirely different coat of arms that plays fast and loose with the tincture "rule". Perhaps some kind heraldist pointed this out and provided an alternative, though the "pointy" arms are just as bad from the tincture perspective.