Category Archives: General

There was a spectacular red sunrise this morning, visible to the left of our balcony, and the sky was clear over Collecchio though it was cloudy to the north-west. The weather forecasts have been contradictory, some predicting showers and some saying it will be fine today, so we just hoped for the best. On the […]

We woke late and were pleased to see that it has stopped raining. There was a little sunshine in the middle of the day, but otherwise it has been overcast all day. But we really didn’t care what the weather did today as we weren’t planning on doing much! Breakfast, blog, emails, and laundry done […]

We left our hotel in drizzle with an overcast sky, and it rained nearly all day. We’ve done very well with the weather so far, starting off with days of sunshine and temperatures of 23 degrees centigrade, at least until the sun went down when an autumn chill descended. We’ve been comfortable walking in shorts […]

This morning started with full cloud cover, but it was neither cold nor raining. What a great place the Hotel Mathis is. We had slept well and breakfast was one of the best we’ve had so far. It didn’t take long to get out of Fiorenzuola and into the countryside. Again, the walking was easy […]

We were loath to get up and leave our lodgings this morning, such was the luxury of our room. Moreover Piacenza seemed like our sort of place. After a campers’ breakfast in our room (breakfast is served late on a Sunday), we dragged ourselves away. The streets were Sunday-empty as we headed on our way […]

Last night’s lodgings were not one of the best. Apart from the restaurant being closed, the wifi didn’t work, the beds were small and hard, the room wasn’t very clean, and the sound-proofing between rooms was poor. The man in the adjacent room held a long and loud telephone conversation all evening until well after […]

Today started very foggy, but the sun eventually broke through around midday. We made an early start, taking a train back to Santa Cristina where we had left off walking two days ago. This morning’s train was a little newer than the one we took back to Pavia the other evening, and the graffiti ‘artists’ […]

We were very much in need of our rest today! We remembered to re-set our watch alarms, but were woken at 0700 anyway when the workmen started resurfacing the road outside our window. Fortunately the combination of double glazing and shutters keeps out the worst of the noise. Laundry done and spread out on and […]

We felt quite daunted at the prospect of today’s walk of about 30 kilometres after a long and tiring day yesterday, but hauled ourselves out of bed soon after the alarm went off at 6am. The good part was that we were going to be able to carry just daypacks, leaving most of our stuff […]

The manager of our hotel was very helpful and suggested two restaurants within a short walk which were open on Mondays, when many places are closed. We had to negotiate a road improvement scheme to get there, with no provision at all for pedestrians, so it was tricky to say the least! The seafood place […]