Customers testimonials: Marilena Bardelli

Marilena Bardelli is a pharmacist who lives in Sesto San Giovanni and is passionate about mountains and yoga. Even though she is afraid of heights, her bond with mountains began when she was young: “when I was a teenager I started to spend time with a group of people who were going to the mountains. With these friends for years we rented a house in Valsesia, near Mount Rosa. “The turning point in her relationship with the mountain happened in 1983. In that year together with her husband and 3 friends they trained for the Sentier de Grande Randonne 20 in Corsica (GR20), a trail of 180 km which crosses the North-West of Corsica and is considered to be the hardest trail in Europe. “It was one of the most beautiful and exciting experience in my whole life. From there you just can’t go back and you learn to win the many fears that hide inside you. From that moment the love for the mountains has been unconditional.” From that moment, in fact, Marilena has never stopped: last summer she has been in Val di Fassa (Dolomites) between Marmolada, Catinaccio and Sasso Lungo.

Marilena is a customer of Bivo from the first hour and tells us that she find it to be very convenient “especially when you need to rationalize well the weight of your backpack for trekking lasting more than a single day, but I use it also during one day hikes. To use Bivo you just need breaks of a few minutes or you can drink it when you are walking. It fills you up without weighing you down.” We are particularly proud of her words because Marilena is vegan and in mountain shelters often menus includes only meat and cheese: Bivo is able to solve a problem which is very common among mountain lovers who chose to be vegan, like Marilena. Marilena considers Bivo to be a convenient solution and she drinks it also in other situations, like lunch breaks: “it happened that I used Bivo during the day, instead of a sandwich or a pizza, in order to eat healthier.”

The next project of Marilena is the most challenging one: remake, after 35 years, the trekking which started it all, the GR20. “It is an ambitious project” – she tells us – “also considering that we are no longer so young, but if you truly believe in something you work at your best to achieve your goal“.

We can only agree with Marilena and thank her for her support and for the trust she shows us.