Day 16 - Piacenza to Carpaneto - Tuesday June 30, 2015

The B&B San Francesco had no air conditioning, and our room had only one window. There was a fan making an intermittent sound like a typewriter, but being on the 6^th floor, it was very warm. Got a pretty good night’s sleep though. Neither of us ever once went to the bathroom all night. It was a miracle. I guess having to fumble around with 2 keys and be descent enough in case of running into the other roomer was enough. Too bad they can’t make that into a pill.

We could hear the lady in the kitchen so we went to breakfast at 6:50am and were on the road at 7:30am. We went past the Cathedral, Santa Maria Assunta, some famous cloisters in Piazza Sant’Antonio, and a huge statue of Romolus and Remus and the she-wolf feeding them.

It took us 6.5 km to get out of Piacenza, down a main thoroughfare, through a lot of very busy round abouts (being rush hour traffic), then along the side of a busy highway. It was not only scary but extremely dangerous. It was also all on pavement. Finally we got on to a road going through an industrial area, still paved but not too much traffic.

At 10km we were in a small town and our route notes said the regular itinerary was along the banks of the river Nure, including a ford, but continuous floods for the past two years have made the ford impassible. Our alternative was the main road through San Polo and the bridge over the river.

After a pleasant 1.5km beside trees and then through a farmer’s field of corn, we reached the SP6, and walked along that for about 3km. That was even more scary and dangerous than the walk out of Piacenza this morning. It was like walking on the Queensway, except there are no shoulders. I’m surprised pedestrians are even allowed.

I started getting creative, walking between rows of corn in the fields beside us, to get off the highway, but that only worked to a small extent. When we got to the bridge over the river Nure, the river was completely dry. Too bad we didn’t go the regular way!

After that we walked past several small towns, along fields of tomatoes, corn, and wheat.

At 20 km we stopped and sat on a low wall surrounding a lovely church, where I put my heel pad into my sock. We have walked almost the whole 20 km on pavement today and my foot has had it!

Soon after we were back on the SP6 for a spell, then walking down a slightly less busy highway to the turnoff for Carpaneto and our hotel, La Maison de Vi.

In total we walked 24.4km today, mostly on pavement, and it was 34 degrees. The scenery is getting much nicer, with hills in the distance, and some climbing today.

We walked down a lovely tree lined lane to the hotel, which is absolutely beautiful stone and wood. Of course the door was locked, but there were Hellenic Project cars in the parking lot and people were inside. Russell pounded on the door and a man opened, saying he was just a guest, no ‘one’ was there. The Greek bike team were having a rather lavish lunch at around 2:30pm in the dining room.

We got a card for the establishment, the number for which matched the number we had, and we called. We are just glad we have a phone on this trip. We would be in serious trouble without it. We are also learning the drill in Italy getting into our hotels. Anyway, the lady spoke absolutely no English except ‘your name’, the answer to which did the trick, and she said ‘be there in 2 minutes’. Ten minutes later she was there, and we got signed in – she had no stamp for our credenzia’s.  The Greek’s were still eating away.

No air conditioner again, but the shutters were all closed and the room was quite cool compared to outside. 

This place was totally in the middle of nowhere, so our only option was to ask for a two beer. She came back with two very tall beer glasses and three bowls of snack food and proceeded to pour the beer into the glasses, even though I tried to say ‘no’. I wanted to put the beer in the fridge and have it after we had a shower, but oh well. She left with the beer bottles, which I think was her main objective in the first place.

We had dinner outside under the wonderful umbrella covered patio areas they had. The dinner consisted of bread with a soft cheese, tomatoes, and basil drizzled in olive oil – a type of bruschetta, then two crepes each stuffed with mozzarella and prosciutto, followed by a salad, some cheese, and sliced meats like prosciutto. We would have gotten salami, but an Italian guest who spoke English was there when we were ‘ordering’, and told her I didn’t like salami, so she changed it. It was a very minimal dinner, consisting really of nothing but appetizers. We also ordered a bottle of red wine, and had cappuccino’s and fruit after – because we were both pretty hungry after that dinner.  When we checked out the next day, those few things added up to 42 euros. It was unbelievable. The wine was 25 euros alone! Better ask next time!

During dinner Russell said he really wasn’t enjoying our trip, because I was always complaining about my foot and we were having such a hassle getting into our rooms. I suggested he was going to have to relax a bit about walking every meter of the via Francigena, and we were going to just have to realize that we would need to use our wits and the phone to get into our lodging. Good thing we have the Vodaphone SIM card! On the bright side, it seems the harder it is to find/get into our room, the better the room is. We also knew in advance that we would need to take days off, it’s not realistic to expect to walk every day with no breaks. I feel bad about my foot, I think it’s primarily because of the new orthodics. I’m hoping things will improve as I get more distance on. In the short term, I just need to rest my foot a bit.

After dinner I found a very large spider in the room, which Russell declared to be dead – but still – this was evidence that there were big spiders like that there. Then I noticed a few bugs crawling in and out between the wall and the floor and got a bit paranoid, so I decided to sleep in my bedbug bag. That lasted about two hours. I was dying of the heat, so abandoned caution to the wind.