After a rest day we head into the heat towards Mantova
After the bumpy roads along the Po the past few days (Mary Ellen, Seavo and Buster say ouch to that!) and the high heat touching on 40 degrees, we stayed an extra night at Hotel Bifi in Casalmaggiore. There is nothing for us to do here, and we don’t mind a bit. The important thing is that the room is air conditioned, the Internet is good, and we have a large room and great bathroom to stretch out in. Mary Ellen is slowly recovering, but the constant bumps of the road are taking a toll.
The other frustration we need to deal with is the fact that we have been hopelessly behind in our journal. Sure, internet has been spotty but the real problem is that we cannot load our photos to the ipad...and in our little world, that is a big problem. It turns out that the SD card is malfunctioning and Barry has had to become very creative in finding ways to painstakingly transfer single photos. He is having some success, but we are going to have to accept that many of the photos through the Appenines, Bobbio and Piacenza are lost to us until we get home and can directly connect our camera to our computer. As you can imagine, we will not be bringing just an ipad on our next trip - the MacBook Air will be traveling with us next time.
Hotel Bifi is a 4* hotel which is pretty much empty, except for a bus load of Chinese tourists who arrive every afternoon and then move on after breakfast. This confirms our thought that Casalmaggiore has passed its prime as a tourist destination. We basically have the hotel to ourselves. When we checked in the price quoted was pretty high, and we asked her to match the greatly reduced price at an online booking site, which she did, and then she included the breakfast buffet gratis.
Our version of a selfie -thanks to Hotel Bifi for a relaxing, comfortable stay and break from the heat.
We have been debating about how best to approach the time we have left in Italy and for us that means fine tuning the priorities of our route and lightening our load. Camping has been an on and off opportunity for us on this trip. Along the Rhine in Germany and in France, the opportunities were plentiful and we took advantage of them. But when we got to the beach towns on the French Mediterranean and the Costa Brava in Spain, the camping became more available but the reality of it entered a dimension and scale new to us. To call them campgrounds is a misnomer as there is very little camping done there. Typically there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of mobile homes for rent, “glamping” tents for rent, motor homes and if you’re lucky, a square of dirt or grass in a corner for a tent. The cost is very high to camp and we couldn’t justify the cost nor could we bring our selves to stay there. With the enormous amenities and “Play Palaces” at these campgrounds, they are more like their own city. Anyway, for that reason, we found ourselves choosing hotels or pensions, which incidentally were not that much more in cost.
Now that we are in Italy, the camping has not been as plentiful as we would like, and the mosquitoes are flourishing with the rain and humidity, so we are throwing in the towel and are sending our camping gear home. We don’t want to haul our heavy load through the Alps if we aren’t using the gear enough to justify the wear and tear on us and Seavo.
On another note, we gave up camping for a few weeks after Mary Ellen suffered a bad fall in the shower as we were leaving France. Sleeping on the ground, getting up and down were not happening for her - too painful.
Well, the day has come to do a big mailing to Canada.we are very pleasantly surprised at the low cost of postage for a parcel and the improvements we see to the postal system since we were here last.
We thought we would need 2 boxes, but we got it all in. Maybe Mary Ellen should get a job with Poste Italiane. Imagine, a tent, double sleeping bag, sleeping mat, books and maps...all in this box. Gracia Tilde who was a great help with the complicated task of sending an international parcel. She was very kind to us and a good ambassador for the Italian postal system.
Our adventure continues - a new route. We are no longer following the Po and for the first time since Barcelona we will be following a GPS Route we installed at home. We will be following Ciclovia Tirrenicia to Verona (which we would have taken from Livorno) and our route corresponds with this route to Mantova. Italy has an abundance of local routes for cyclists.
The little village of Sabbioneta is another gem that we have stumbled upon in our travels. It is renowned for its historic Unesco buildings and the remaining fortified wall with a moat.
The route today is taking us through interesting villages. We prefer this route to following the region of the Po a few days ago. Note the copper dome to the right of the church.
And then, gravel out of town with big stones thrown in to make it interesting. We must be feeling our “advanced” years as we do prefer pavement. But the real problem is Seavo gets upset that we ask him to carry us and a load of panniers when the going is not smooth.
This bridge is a unique sight - we are calling them “pontoon bridges”. It’s a great idea to use boats to support a bridge and this one is very pretty with flowers on the railings.
A pontoon doing what it was built to do. Perhaps it is a form of retirement for pontoons to move on to do bridge duty when their boating days are finished.
Another “pontoon bridge” - the platform of the bridge makes the most amazing clacking sound as each board is loosely attached and moves as you step or drive on it. As well, there is a bit of movement to the bridge.
We enjoyed talking to this fellow from Florence who is on a biking holiday from Piacenza to Verona with his girlfriend and dog on their Brompton folding bikes. He clearly loves his dog and said that basically the dog is lazy and loves to ride.
A happy family.....he told us that we have “ruined his life!” as his girlfriend liked our bike and wants one. He said, that’s all I need, a 3 seater for the dog and us.
An auspicious day for Buster - he has made a Canadian friend in Italy. Cornelius the Canadian gnome is about to go on a cycling adventure as well with a Canadian woman we met in the square. She takes Cornelius with her wherever she goes and is off on her Brompton bike soon for a trip.
The two women are sisters and the one on the right travels with Cornelius. The couple on the left live half of the year in Montreal and the other half in France.
When we arrived in Mantova we literally couldn’t move forward as there were many people wanting to talk to us about our bike and tour. This was a bit alarming as thunder was getting louder and the storm was near. However we met interesting people. This wonderful couple from Australia were a highlight for us as we had such a good visit with them. The rains and thunder are about to begin and in the excitement, we have forgotten both of their names.Sorry about that, but we do recall that his name is Don and they are from Melbourne.
