| Day # | 19 | State of Legs | :-) |
| Distance (miles) | Distance (km) | Ascent (feet) | Ascent (metres) | Punctures | |
| Today | 58 miles | km | 325 feet | metres | 0 |
| Trip Totals | 901 miles | km | 36491 feet | metres | 0 |
| Today's Route |
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| Route So Far |
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Travelogue
I hadn't had a good experience trying to follow the somewhat hypothetical Eurovelo EV5 route in Italy when I crossed the border from Switzerland two days ago but decided to give it another try today. And this would be my last chance. Because heading south from Milano on route EV5, after about 25 miles you reach the city of Pavia and it's here that I would join Eurovelo route EV8 (the Mediterranean Route) and start to head west, leaving EV5 to continue its way into southern Italy. My plan is to follow EV8 all the way to Perpignan in France.
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| EV5 in pink, EV8 in brown |
I think it's fair to say that I'd hated the Milano campsite though this is not because it was a bad campsite per se. It just wasn't the kind of place I like. Everywhere else I've camped has been green, spacious, quiet and in its way, scenic. This was none of those things and being predominantly for caravans and motor homes (AKA "RVs"), it was like camping in a car park and was noisy too. Worst though were the non-human inhabitants of whom there seemed a limitless number. The Flesh Eating Mosquitoes of Milano went to town on me and made a literal meal of my poor legs which are now covered in annoyingly itchy bites! When they got bored of my legs, they moved on to other parts of my body. The damned things were everywhere and the only escape was to retreat to your tent, zip all the doors closed and suffer the heat instead.
So, I fled the campsite at 5 a.m. this morning with the sun not yet up. I was awake at 4 a.m. and it was already feeling hot. I knew it would get worse so why wait? I put everything away, loaded up the bike and headed off with my bike lights on for the first time this trip.
My first job was to rejoin EV5. This involved cycling 6 miles through the dark streets of Milano. There wasn't much traffic at that time, happily. I'm not a fan of cycling in cities in general.
By the time I joined EV5, it was light and I got a pleasant surprise. At this point, EV5 ran alongside a canal and would continue to do so for nearly 20 miles, all the way to the small city of Pavia. This made for a very easy start, cycling a flat and straight tarmac-covered path for a couple of hours.
It wasn't exactly scenic but I was happy to not have navigation issues and my legs, an entirely separate entity to the rest of me, were happy to not have to start the day with an Alpine climb again!
There were lots of birds along the way to compensate for the uninteresting scenery although most were incredibly camera shy which for me, relying on the Merlin app for bird identification as I do, is a bit of a problem. My phone takes terrible photos when you use the zoom function too, which doesn't help. But I was able to get this poor quality photo and identify it as a Gray Heron.
Another plus was the temperature. It was much cooler along the canal, with a very pleasant breeze helping a great deal.
Before crossing the river, I had one more important thing to do. Have breakfast. I'm not big on eating at 4 a.m. but I had managed to consume a banana to give my body some fuel for the ride. But now I was both hungry and thirsty. I'd filled my water bottles at the campsite but discovered it had a really musty taste when I'd drunk a little earlier on. I didn't drink much more after that!
Soon enough, I entered the city of Pavia. I was quickly impressed by the old city with its cobbled streets, old buildings and the bridge I would soon cross.
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| Yes, I look a little mad in this one :-) |
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Before crossing the river, I had one more important thing to do. Have breakfast. I'm not big on eating at 4 a.m. but I had managed to consume a banana to give my body some fuel for the ride. But now I was both hungry and thirsty. I'd filled my water bottles at the campsite but discovered it had a really musty taste when I'd drunk a little earlier on. I didn't drink much more after that!
I found a cafe called Caffe San Michele, went inside and managed to order a black coffee, a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, a brioche crema and a brioche pistacchio. Brioche are of course like croissant. But Italian :-)
Actually, I'm a little offended by that suggestion that brioche are Italy's version of the croissant. Maybe the croissant is France's version of brioche! Did you ever consider that? Hmmm?
Before leaving, I asked for water and the man working behind the counter filled both my bottles with fresh, cold water.
I carried on and crossed the river via the covered bridge I'd seen earlier.
I was immediately in countryside, farmland interspersed with the occasional village. Very nice. And it remained free of hills.
On the way out of the village of Zerbolò, I caught sight (you couldn't really miss it!) of this White Stork and its enormous nest on top of a telegraph pole.
I was navigating by periodically looking at my route on the Organic Maps app on my phone. In other words, I'm not using "turn by turn navigation" with voice prompts per an in-car SatNav system or Google Maps. This means that occasionally, I miss a turn! I'd noted on looking at the map that there was a 90 degree right turn coming but not come to a junction yet and continued straight. When I started to think it should have appeared by now, I checked the map, found I'd gone past the turn and went back. The turn was not into another road but into a small path by the side of a canal. I joined the path and it quite quickly became pretty rough and over-grown.
Not a problem. I'd cycled way rougher trails in France early in the trip and I could see that I would soon be turning left onto a road.
But this was a problem!
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| This is the end, beautiful friend. The end. |
I have to assume that wall has not been there for long! Whatever its history, it's here now and after battling along for a good half mile, I now had no choice but to go back and take the path on the other side of the canal, which I confess I had not initially noticed was there. "It's all part of the adventure" I repeated to myself, my standard mantra when things don't quite go according to plan!
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| Aha, so there's a path on both sides of the canal! |
This path lacked the progress-terminating wall of its left-bank counterpart, which I was glad about. But if it had a defining characteristic at all it was that it was very sandy. The Mule's front wheel did not like this at all, and at times I had a little fight on my hands to stop the front wheel going sideways and The Mule dumping me into the canal!
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| The Mule does not like sand |
A minute after rejoining the road, I found myself in front of an impressive church that I have since learned is the Sanctuary of the Madonna Bozzola.
There was a cafe next to it and I dropped in to buy a couple of drinks, one for me to drink now and the other, an icy can of Coke to place under my phone and keep it cool! It had grown hot once again and my phone was in danger of over-heating.
I was drinking my cold lemon tea, when a lady spoke to me in Italian. She and two others were sat at a table next to where I was stood drinking. We proceeded to have a complete conversation, with me speaking no Italian and they speaking no English! No Google Translate black magic voodoo was involved. I guess I made educated guesses as to what I was being asked, sometimes hearing words that were a bit like Spanish words I recognised. So, I was asked where I'd cycled from originally. "London". And where I'd been. "England, France, Switzerland and now Italy" (all accompanied by hand gestures describing my path across an invisible map of Europe). I was asked where I'd been in Italy. I said I'd started at "Como..... blah blah... Milano, Pavia, here" (pointing down at this last part!). And of course they wanted to know where I was going. "Torino, France, the Pyrenees, Spain". They seemed amazed at my journey but equally, they very readily accepted my personal characterisation as that of a "crazy man" (you can guess the hand gestures used to indicate this) without any argument at all!
I do love the way you can communicate without a common language like this!
Onwards.... more countryside, more birds (Egrets but what type?) and a few villages.
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| And yet more of the dreaded sand |
Yes, there was another fairly lengthy section of sandy trail. The sand was quite deep in places and I believe I'd have struggled even with my bike's original MTB tyres. It was tough and very slow going. So when, after enjoying some tarmac for a couple of miles, I found the route going over yet another, very sandy trail....
... I decided to cut my losses, consulted the map and decided to take the long way around by road rather than this much more direct short-cut. It added a few miles but was worth it.
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| Which way to the beach?! |
... I decided to cut my losses, consulted the map and decided to take the long way around by road rather than this much more direct short-cut. It added a few miles but was worth it.
About half an hour later, I entered the town of Mortara and found the bed and breakfast I'm staying in for tonight.
Having stopped the GPS, I headed back into the town looking for lunch. A sandwich and a Coke was all I wanted and I soon found just that in a local cafe.
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| In Mortara |
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| Lunch - the simple pleasures |
And here's my room. It's a very old-fashioned but comfortable place with functioning Wi-Fi. I don't need much more than that. Oh and with the window closed and air-conditioning on, there's no risk of being devoured by mosquitoes either!
It's approaching dinner time for me and I will be heading back into the town in search of pizza! Or just possibly pasta. Or both?!
Ciao for now.
And I'm back!
I haven't used restaurants at all this trip. This is due to a combination of personal choice and lack of opportunity. I'm not a big fan of eating in restaurants alone. That's the personal bit. As for opportunity, well if you consider the kinds of places I've been camping, I'm sure you'll quickly realise that there weren't restaurants on every corner. In fact.... in many cases..... there were no corners!
But today I'm in a small town and my appetite, which has been strangely up and down this trip, is decidedly up. And I'm in Italy. Home of pasta and pizza (and more of course!). So, I just couldn't resist the opportunity to eat a large, Italian meal in a local restaurant, only a 5 minute bike ride away from the bed and breakfast.
I arrived 20 minutes before the restaurant was due to open, such was my enthusiasm (and hunger!). So, I went around the corner and found myself The Department of Bakery and Social Coffee. This sounded very official and must clearly be associated with government. And anything any government is associated with, will automatically be good, right? Yup. I took my chances and do you know what? The coffee was excellent and on reflection I'm not absolutely certain the place had anything to do with the government at all. It just might have been a jokey name :-)
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| Almost certainly nothing to do with the government |
From there I went back to the restaurant, Roma. I had two of the however many courses you have at an Italian restaurant and could not eat another thing! The food was delicious and the portions very generous.
I started with Linguine Tricolore, which is linguine with a tomato, cheese and basil sauce and in this case was served with a lump of cheese on the side.
To make sure I hit two of the key food groups, I followed this with a pizza napoletana, which includes the best pizza topping ever. Anchovies. There's no point in arguing with me. I know I'm right about this.
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| No, I don't have tiny hands. I have big hands and that's one very big pizza! |
And that, dear reader, is that. Ciao for now.
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