5/05/15, Day 49, Tuesday, Italy, 5kms South of Ovarda, Hotel Bellargio on the SP456 to Castelletto di Branduzzo at Motel 7 Laghi (50 kms south of Milano).
Via Novi Ligure, Tortona & Voghera. Cloudy day, 22degC, not much wind, some hill climbs early on, PB reached of 87kms. Departed 9.30am, Arrive 5pm.
What a day, neither of us imagined it would turn out how it did, but that is part of the joy of unscheduled cycle touring.
Once we left Hotel Bellargio we had a nice 7km downhill warm up into Ovarda. Then after that about 10 kays of hilly country & small Italian villages along back roads. I hate to admit it but some walking up hills was required, our hill climb legs were still a bit burned out from yesterday's big effort.
About 1km from Hotel Belagio Jen investigates what is rubbing on her back wheel. It's the blue tarp.
While Jen is sorting out the issue I snap a pic of the Major Hwy that has been shadowing us for awhile.
Lunch situation for the day now successfully resolved.
The rest of the day we mainly spent on secondary highways (with a couple of easy back road shortcuts provided by Davo). It was easy cruising between 20 - 25km/h most of the time.
Check this sign out, the bottom section says between 15th of November to 15th of April. We are allergic to cold weather ! If we had been here 20 days earlier we would have been required to carry snow chains for our tyres...yeah righto !
Though we had 1 large Town & 2 small Cities to negotiate our way across. The first one was Novi Ligure and we stopped near the centre to reassess. At Tortona for lunch, buns, tomato, cheese & pork purchased earlier in a small village. Tortona was the town we were initially aiming for but it was only 1pm & we had finished eating. So all rested up we decided to push onto another very large town Voghera.
Car of the day ? Heaps of these 3 wheel mini Utes getting around, some have been "Pimped".
70kms down we are into Voghera we found a seat close to the centre and investigated accommodation options. There appears to be hardly any campground options at any of the inland Northern Italy towns, so we have resigned ourselves to either wild camping or Hotels. Jen & I are Warm Showers / Couch Surfing members but understandably most people want more then 2 hours notice before you crash at their home. Requires more planning then we are presently capable of !
So after investigating Voghera we have 3 options. The first Hotel we past as we entered Voghera southern city limit & that was about 5kms back. Second option was the Corona Hotel, I liked the name and it was only about 200mtrs away, upon investigating we discovered it was closed & had green doors, oh well !
So the third choice looked ok on the Internet and it was kind of on the way out of town in the direction we planned on heading tomorrow. It's called the Hotel Zenith, we reach it, just over the river after one false turn and 3.5kms of riding....OMFG....OMFG... it is gawd AWFUL !!! It's 5 stories high. There are at least 5 very dark complexion young male adults loitering on the various balconies eyeing us off, they appears to have recently arrived on a refugee boat from Africa (did I hear one say fresh meat?). There is sh*t every where, well rubbish. An old rundown servo out the front. Look enough said, Jenny & I didn't even need to have a "discussion" we just kept pedalling. I wish I'd taken a pic, but I just had my "spider senses" telling me to just keep moving Willy Boy.
So a couple of kilometres later we pulled over and between 3 of our electronic gizmos came up with Motel 7 Laghi, 10 more kms away but in the correct direction to get us around the eastern side of the Big City, Milano. You can imagine how nervous we were when we finally arrived at Motel 7 Laghi particularly when there were no cars to be observed anywhere. Oh no it had that shut appearance, but once at the Reception the nice lady there sorted us out, she said they are just quiet at the moment. The room is nice & for 60€ after a new PB of 87kms we didn't really care. Ordered in a couple of pizzas (only food available) and a few beers, now all is sweet in the world of team wiljen...except stinky clothes & no washing machines....maybe tomorrow, Arrivederci Friends !
Castelletto di Branduzzo at Motel 7 Laghi (50 kms south of Milano).
P.S. We are half watching the news (it's in Italian) while blogging & haven't seen much news on this adventure, but just noticed there are serious riots happening in Milan at the moment, (most occurred on Saturday) for anyone concerned about our well being don't be. We never planned to go there, our plan has always been to skirt around Milan's western flank and make a bee line for Como on the Italian/Swiss border.
News Grab:
On Friday afternoon, hours after the Expo 2015 opened, dozens of protesters opposed to Milan's hosting of the fair took to the streets wearing balaclavas or gas masks.
They smashed windows and torched several cars and bins during a "No Expo" march which organisers said had brought 30,000 people onto the streets.
Police responded to the violence firing tear gas. Water cannons were used to put out the blazes, including one at a bank.
"Those who seek a negative climate of uncertainty and violence at an event that inspires peace, dialogue... and citizenship have lost," Agriculture Minister Maurizio Martina told reporters.
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