As I write these posts a day or so after the fact, I can truly say that I'm still so thrilled with how today went. It didn't seem like it was going to be anything more than a disaster at one stage though....
PART 1:
We finally had a better sleep - the room was cool at least and I had fly spray to kill the bees that were now invading our room! We couldn't bare the crappy breakfast again so decided that we would get up and flee this place as soon as we could. We were out just around 7.30 so going according to plan.
We had decided to drop by Pisa (a bit of a dog leg but sort of on our way by my navigation) to see some famous tower. First we had to find breakfast so we stopped at one of the first service stations we could find. Coffee and croissants again were the only option (sigh). I've promised the boys a proper hot breakfast as soon as we get home and I may not eat croissants for quite some time once were home.
Pisa was only about 90 kms away so got there pretty quickly. We did some nifty navigating through some very small side streets and somehow ended up in a bit of a square that was right next to the souvenir stalls for the tower. We've seen how Italians park, in a "I dont give a F how I park my car" kind of way so figured wed do the same. We pulled up next to the chain barricade and jumped out. Tony and I were both secretly hoping that no polizia would come by and see us parked illegally.
We walked about 100 metres and around the corner it was. We were standing towards the lean and I thought hmm not that impressive. We walked around another side of it and wow it leans badly. The Cathedral there is also beautiful and currently has quite a bit of scaffolding around it while its being renovated.
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| Pisa - picture postcard pretty |
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| these are the bigger roads in Pisa |
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| Piazza dei Miracoli - Piazza of Miracles |
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| the tower |
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| had to try the standard pic |
We took our happy snaps and then returned to the car. The car was still there and no ticket despite there being a polizia car just near it. There were hundreds and hundreds of people on the other side of the chain so were were super lucky to get where we were. We only had to go out a couple of very narrow streets and we were off again.
PART 2: luck runs out.... or does it?
We downloaded the Giro Garibaldi book which is like an instruction manual for the race. Some of it is in English but a lot is not. Certainly street names etc are Italian and sometimes hard to grasp. I had studied it hard and as we were on the way to Milan decided that a place called Parma would be a perfect place to stop to watch the race go by. The book has the times that the race goes past all the points along the way so we knew we had to be at Parma by 1230 to see it.
The drive to Milan, via Parma we knew would be spectacular as were crossing over the lower Dolomite mountains. It really was breathtaking and these road trips will be one of the favourite parts of my holiday. I take a number of photos along the way but they really dont do the scenery the justice I wish they would. Today we kept snaking our way through the mountains and following the path of a beautiful river. It was gorgeous. Along the way there would be tiny pockets of houses which just looked to be perched precariously on the mountain tops. It started to rain a little too so we were worried for the safety of the riders in the wet. We got to about 800 metres above sea level before the descent down, so lots of ear popping.
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| this one wasn't even at the top - lots of groupings like that though |
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| earily beautiful the higher up we got - just before the rain came |
The road that we were looking for was off of the Autostrada so not a toll road. Still a pretty main highway which we thought would make it easy for us to find a viewing spot. We were making good time until we hit the toll booths to get off of the autostrada. It was only turning 12pm, the carovana was supposed to go through at 1240 and we probably only had 10 minutes driving left till we were at our target spot. We were feeling positive until the people infront of us were struggling to pay their tolls. I think we lost at least 10 minutes there so suddenly lost some of our free time. We were being positive and I was quite happy I navigated us to the correct road when disaster happened.
While I cant profess to understand Italian there were a number of electronic signs along the road that seemed to say something about 1300 to 1500. We figured that meant the time of the road closures so were happy to be ahead of that. Get to the road exit to take us down to the road SS9 and they had closed it early (around 1215!!!) OMFG!!!!! No worries I said, lets go to the next exit - yup closed again!!!
We were all of a sudden lost and driving down a road that was taking us away from where we wanted to be. Talk about deflated. Tony suggested going back to get some lunch and waiting for the roads to open and just go on to Milan. My stubborn streak went into overdrive and figured that if we could find a way to get back to the Autostrada we could get way ahead of the race and see it pass through the town at the other end of their journey.
So I grabbed my phone and fired up google maps and gave Tony directions away from where we were going. We were suddenly in the middle of nowhere, on crazy roads, no laneways actually, driving behind garbage trucks and old Nonnas in clapped out Fiats. This was much slower than I hoped for and my bravado was waining. I found another tiny town on the map and set the car sat nav to it as I figured there must be a way to get back onto the freeway from there.
As we drove into the outskirts of the town the sat nav decided we should go via the main street. By this point we were all silent in the car and about to lose hope. As we got down the road a bit there were two older gentleman in yellow safety vests directing cars off this road and into a backstreet. My first thought was what the ? closely followed by NO WAY - is the giro coming through here???
I wound down the window and said to the man - is the Giro coming here? he smiled and said something like "Yes - 500 metres down there (pointing) and you can park here". Holy crap Batman - we did it. We parked the car and wandered down the street to a tiny little town with a great big grassy round about that they had cleared for the race to go through. We just could not believe our luck.
We stopped in the little bakery and bought foccacia and cookies for lunch then next door to the coffee shop for coffee and to use the toilet. While we were waiting for the coffee a lovely lady asked me if I was the mother of the man (Fernando Gaviria from Columbia) who won the race yesterday. HAHA I said no sorry and she wasn't convinced as apparently I looked just like her.
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| statue in the town square |
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| the big roundabout that they will ride around |
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| waiting patiently |
It didn't take long for Carovanna cars and the team soigneur cars to go through, and before we knew it the race was upon us. It only takes seconds for them to ride past which is a little bit of a shame - I wish it was in slo mo. We cheered like mad for the Orica guys and I got a big thumbs up from the racing Director Matt when they went past - I wore yellow so was hard to miss :-)
The rest of our journey to Milan was pretty smooth sailing - except for the broken auto toll booth that we managed to circumnavigate by using the one designed for trucks that sits directly above the car one. It didn't take us long to find the hotel and check in as were staying just out of Milan in a suburb called Bresso. Thank goodness this is a better standard hotel and it looks lovely - plus it has block out curtains, a working fridge, working controllable aircon and no bugs!!
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| the evil toll booths |
I got brave and drove to the local pizza bar to pick up pizza for dinner as Tony earned his rest today - hes had to drive on some very difficult roads, sometimes into blind corners, and like this afternoon not really knowing where were going.
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| I had trouble interpreting the pizza menu. This is not what I would have ordered had I known |
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