Day 51: Crema to Milan

September 10, 2015

Dodie had a crack at asking for "hot chocolate" again this morning at breakfast. What appeared was a pot of warm milk and a cup of mystery powder. The mystery powder had a chance of being what we know as "Swiss Miss" instant hot chocolate mix, and if so would be a prized commodity to keep for later. Dodie decided that it was more like Nestle's Quick, so she just went for it, mixing all with the milk. She says the result was "fine", in short - faint praise.

One more try to have hot chocolate. When will we give up and become more Italian

The rest of the breakfast was also "fine", so suitably fortified, we set off for a look at Crema, before our major assault on Milan. As has happened before, we found we had kind of seen it, the night before, so we just cruised around absorbing the morning ambiance. Before long, and even without taking a lot of photos, we set off on our track north, toward Treviglio.

The Crema gate - we seem to be already leaving!

The track was one of the ones recommended by Elena at the Tourist Information, and for which we had the gpx. This started off as a paved path separated from the road, and we were really happy. Thoughts of cycling all over Italy on paths like this in future years began to emerge. After not long, a check of the GPS revealed we were off course. But we were on a road that headed straight for Treviglio, and it had a great bikeway beside it. Cool!, we thought. You can guess what's coming, right?

We are off track, but look, Italy must have provisions for bikes everywhere! (?)

Our lovely path went for another km or two and then unceremoniously dumped us onto a shoulderless busy road. We were reluctant to go back, but there was no way forward! So we got off our bikes and walked facing traffic for a km, until we could get on a quieter road that headed back toward our track. We found the track alright, but it had turned to gravel. So off we went down the gravel.

The cycle provisions dumped out into this! (We came from the left in this photo)

Back on the planned track, which had become this.

Always the optimists, while we might not have been plotting any longer to cycle all Italy on tracks like this, we were saying "Boy, this sure is better than being on that road!" Well sure enough, the track worsened, until finally it was really not passable. We asked ourselves if this was really the official track - i.e. the blue line on our GPS, and yes, it was. But sheesh!

This is where Dodie took one of her famous precipitous turns, and headed into town. From there, we found the faintest, whitest road on our map to carry on with. This is where the real problem with Italy cycling really comes in. Even the whitest roads can end up with big trucks, and reckless drivers. So (when uploaded) you shoud see a series of shots of Dodie up ahead on various shoulderless roads and/or dangerous situations.

When we got to within 1 km of Treviglio a large overpass loomed. It was crossing a giant highway that was not even on our maps - must have been new. Dodie took one look and exclaimed 'I am notgoing on that thing!". So we retired to a shady corner with the GPS to consider our options. Sure enough, 5 minutes later we were up on the thing. The devil of it is there was a perfectly wide and safe sidewalk on the overpass. But this was really and truly barricaded, and an extra high railing kept us from hopping over to safety. Fortunately, there was just enough shoulder beside the driving lane that we made it ok.

This and the following two photos show how it ended up for us.

Now our travel tale for the day (isn't every day a travel tale?) shifted from track, trail, and highway to rail. This had all the classical ingredients: figure out where we are going, buy the correct tickets, understand the stations and transfer points and times and track numbers, and carry the fully loaded touring bikes up and down all kinds of stairs. Fortunately (as usual) all the brain work parts were done by Dodie, so I only had to lift the impossible weights.

The train into Milan looks beat up, but she was empty, and fast!

Changed trains once - first train was not beat up enough?

But, as they say on late night TV ads, that's not all. The train dropped us 10 km from the camping. So out came the GPS and we wended our way through intersections, round roundabouts, on sidewalks, for a long time. With Milan we are no longer talking about a village or even a big town. This is a major city. So that means it has kms of soul destroying nondescript nothingness. (Technically that would be roadways, apartment buildings and offices, car dealerships, beauty salons, etc. etc. - we all know this universal landscape).

10 km of city driving on the bikes, through nondescript cityscape

Another random shot of what it was like cycleing to the camping - yeech

Finally, we did arrive at the Milan city camping, way out on the west side of the city. We asked about a cabin (where we could secure our stuff) but Expo 2015 has caused them to be continually booked up. So we found a patch of dirt - technically tent spot number 17, and pitched. Honey, we're home! Here we will stick for long enough to bus in to see Milan's old town and to bus up to Expo 2015.

Expo 2015 will be interesting, not only for whatever it is, but because I worked at Expo 67. That was the year we got married. Expo therefore kick started the Grampies (financially at least). Other kicks may have come from other directions.

Bonus : Ted and Jane

Remember back at Cremona I remarked that we had pitched our tent in a tent neighbourhood made upper class by the presence of a Hilleberg tunnel tent? At first we were avoiding talking to the interesting looking couple with the tent, because we had the blog to write. But the blog got done, and we bcame acquainted with Ted and Jane. These two Australians, older than us, have a long list of cycle tours done, mostly in France. This time, they, like us, we following the Po. After Milan, where we head north, they wll head south and west, to the Mediterranean.

We all talked for a long time, about of course every aspect of cycle touring, not to mention the political situations in our respective countries, and in Europe. We were having a jolly time, until I remarked taht we were turning into one of those noisy gorups that annoy us at campgrounds. So we all turned in, and when we left early next morning, Ted and Jane were still snoozing.

So we were surprised when, as we sat eating pizza at the camping restaurant, along sauntered Ted and Jane. They missed being in the blog last time, 'cause it was done, but this time - well here they are:

We will both be hanging around for a couple of days, so watch this space for more of Ted and Jane!(Watch for photo captions - tomorrow)

Jane and Ted - go over routing with Dodie

Today's ride: 50 km (31 miles)
Total: 2,466 km (1,531 miles)

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