One last week in Italy
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We started the final of our two weeks in Italy in the little town of Gaiole in Chianti. Which as you can guess by the name, is in the Chianti region of Tuscany. We arrived here in the mid afternoon in the sun and went for a wander into the town. Somehow, we had arrived just as an event hosted by the Petit Dakar was coming to an end! the Dust and Gloria event saw adventure bikes (and a few others) rolling across a finish line in the centre of this tiny town that we just happened to find a great free Aire to stop at!
After watching some of the bikes come in, we went for a wander through the town and spent far too much money at the ceramics shop where the lady was very accommodating and chatty. The next day, we had a chill in the van day and waited out some rain showers. Not a lot happened that day, a nice lazy Sunday.
Monday, we were going to head on in the afternoon after Ellen's meetings. She got up bright and early and headed on a multi-hour, very sweaty/muggy hike around the vineyards in the area. She did her meetings but by the time she was done it was getting late. We liked it here very much, so saw no reason to push on just yet and so stayed one last night.
The next morning, we got up, all van chores sorted and hit the road toward Bologna. We tried to stop in Greve in Chianti for lunch, but limited parking abruptly ended all hope of that. We pushed on to Strada in Chianti in the rain. Here we managed to park up and resupply at a local carrefour. One thing we've noticed here in Italy is that larger supermarkets seem to be less common than other countries, so we had to get what we could from this little town's local store. After unpacking the shopping, we wandered down to the only restaurant that was open today in the hope that they were open, and any good.
Wow! What an unexpected surprise! Ristorante da Padellina was bustling with local people on their lunch break. Chaotic, joyful energy abounded in the dining room and we were welcomed with open arms by the proprietors (who seemed to know everyone). As we sat down for a spectacular meal, Ellen did some more digging online. It turns out that people come here deliberately to eat at this very restaurant! The host of awards on the window that we missed on the way in should have been the give away, but that people come here as some sort of pilgrimage? We couldn't believe our luck!
After an amazing lunch, we set back off toward Bologna which, avoiding tolls, took us through the eastern side of Florence. We even got sight of the Duomo as we crossed the bridge!
We wound ever onward for hours through tight twisty mountain roads and smooth tarmac until we crossed into Emilia Romagna halfway across the Apennines. The road immediately became potholed and torn up and our speed was reduced to try and save the tyres and suspension from too much of a battering.
Eventually we found the strange little paid Aire on the outskirts of the city just as they were about to close. Luckily the lady at the desk was able to check us in before she left for the day and we set ourselves up for a day in Bologna the next morning.
Yet again, the bus came at whatever time it liked and we completely missed it. It was there 10 minutes early, and didn't bother waiting. Apparently this is a thing in Italy! Not the best start, but we managed to get a rather expensive Uber into the city and then walked in toward the Piazza in the centre.
Our first impressions of Bologna were not great, though I must stress that this did not last very long. A very brutal, no nonsense approach to the architecture (they love a good colonnade!), and a couple of dodgy looking people in some of the less visited areas (pick pockety types) just put us on edge. But after wandering past the two towers that dominate the skyline, down through the student areas and a stop for a decent lunch, we were starting to come round to the place.
We wandered back into town, around the medieval market and its tall narrow streets bustling with tables outside the bars and cafes. We visited the archeological museum with its vast collection of Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Etruscan artifacts. Then next into the half-finished Basilica. Half-finished due to the commune having funded most of the construction instead of the church, and when the pope said the facades would be "a bit much" (Had he seen some of the stuff in Spain?! Probably not, they were much later... I digress) the work ground to a halt. This was evident on the front facade where the white ornate fronting stops halfway up and the bare underlying jagged brick can be seen like some great medieval-come-1800's London Docklands warehouse! Inside was similar, ornate and beautifully painted in parts. Then the painting literally stops halfway. It's like the building is frozen in time.
Leaving the Basilica we found ourselves outside the academic operating theatre and university Library. Whilst the latter was not open to the public, the former was. So we headed into this building, decorated ornately with the coats of arms of each student to have passed through it's halls decorating every surface of the walls and ceiling. We rounded up the staircase and to the operating theatre, one the best preserved in Europe. Ornate wooden carvings on the walls included statues of notable individuals from medical history, and on the ceiling representing signs of the zodiac. A great marble slab lay in the centre of the room where the surgeons would operate in full view of the students and faculty on the surrounding benches and podium seats.
We headed out of the theatre and back to the medieval market to grab some drinks and wandered back round toward the piazza for another whilst watching the musicians busking in the now radiant sunshine. As the sun began to go down we considered heading back to the van for dinner, but we were still very full from lunch and the past few days and besides we were now loving the vibe here in Bologna! So we instead headed back into the medieval market yet again for one last drink before we booked ourselves another uber back to the van.
Next morning we were on our way again by midday and headed westward. A brief stop at the Ducati Factory museum at Panigale was a nice treat, despite not really being a Ducati fan, it's always fun to look at motorbikes!
Then we were off on the long drive north-west in the direction of Asti, stopping only for a minor detour to pick up some bona fide Parmigianno Reggiano straight from the creamery! (It's so good!) We finally arrived at a little free Aire on the outskirts of the village of Costigliole d'Asti.
The next morning saw us exploring this beautiful little village and the exterior of it's impressive castle that now houses a culinary school. One notable feature of this village are the old skybridges that link from the castle gardens high up on the walls and the rooftops of the houses in the village below. I've never seen this before, it was certainly distinctive. We walked down the main street and pulled into a lovely little bakery/cafe for a coffee, a slice of focaccia and one last gelato for the road. Then back to the van and south through the mountains toward the Mediterranean once more.
We eventually reached a rather non-descript Aire at a town who's name escapes me. It did the job for the night and we went for a walk to see if we could get onto any semblance of a beach on the other side of the railway embankment that ran right along the shoreline. We could not. Mainly because there was no real beach, only little outcrops here and there where a small tunnel in the embankment spat you out onto a small platform or a dirty patch of stones with an overflowing bin. We returned to the van, had dinner and went to bed.
The next day was van chores and get back to France day. Ellen had a flight to catch to the UK the next day. So we needed to be within a reasonable distance from Nice airport and make sure she had clean clothes to take back for the week. It was now warming up considerably and after a few hours of shopping at Carrefour and sat at a petrol station doing all our laundry (it was bedding too this time, so a LONG job with only 2 machines) we then hit the road up the hills above Nice to what seemed to be an unassuming little town at the end of the road and on a hill. It apparently had some nice castles and a bar so we pushed on, planning to park in the car park and have a drink or two, maybe walk round a castle, then get a good night's kip ready for Ellen's flight the next day.
Well, that was the plan at least...
