17th June 2017

17th June 2017

Robbio to Tromello -31kms

This morning we got up at 04:45, had breakfast and were on our way by 6:00am, in order to try and get as many kms in before the sun got too hot. By 08:45 the temperature was already around 25C! By 1:00pm it was an unbearable 30C rising gradually to 36C. It took a lot of will power and sheer tenacity to complete the last few kms. I must confess that in these situations Ana Maria is much stronger than me, urging me on when I started to flag a little!

The path today again was pretty monotamous, winding our way through more rice fields with the occasional small empty village along the way. In all we took 10 hours, having to carry the extra weight of water as we were not sure if any of the villages had bars or fountains where we could refill our hydration sacks etc. In the village of Montana we came across our Catalan friends Juan and Ramon. It was Juan's 60th birthday. They are only going on for three more days and will then go to Milan as simple tourists. Our French pals Collette and Olivier turned up later, and refused to carry on because of the heat. We think they will probably call it a day as They are both finding it very difficult to cope with the heat. Later in the afternoon we were stopped by a very elderly nun on a bicycle who wanted to warn us about the road ahead. She was very sweet and insisted we give her a kiss goodbye.

We had hoped to carry on to Pavia in one go but we feel it's wiser to split this into two days as the temperature is scheduled to rise even more over the next few days.

And so....tomorrow we carry on to Gropello Cairoli (don't you just love these names!).