Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Fiorenzuola to Fidenza May 20

Song of the Day: Saved by a woman by Ray LaMontagne

Sometimes I swear it feels like this worry is my only friend
Well I've been saved by a woman
I've been saved by a woman
I've been saved by a woman

                                                                       Current Day.                        Trip to date

Distance Traveled- Miles.                                  17.1                                      75.4

Gross Climb- feet.                                              210                                       825

Net Climb- feet.                                                    8                                           36

This morning, we awoke early to take the train from Parma to Fiorenzuola to begin our walk to Fidenza.  Interestingly, the train from Parma to Fiorenzuola stops at Fidenza on the way!  It was very tempting to get off at Fidenza and call it a day.  But we decided to tough it out and stayed on the train for another 8 minutes to Fiorenzuola.  We then proceeded to walk back to Fidenza for the the next 6 1/2 hours!  8 minutes vs 6 1/2 hours is the difference between 3 miles per hour and 120 miles per hour.  Sort of depressing.  Of course those poor people on the train have to endure a comfortable seat in an air conditioned car, whereas we got to walk on a hot sunny day through some smelly farmland!  

The computers for the train tickets were apparently not working this morning, and so none of the ticket kiosks were working either.  There was a long line to buy tickets, and as a result, we missed the first train. Fortunately, there was another train 25 minutes later.  Last week in the USA, the United Airline computers in Chicago and Washington DC went down for a day last week and totally screwed up the schedule for several days.  It seems like the transportation system computers would be a great target for terrorists.... 

Karma continues to shine down on us.  We got lost today and were trying to figure out where we were.  A very kind woman stopped on the road to help us out. Turns out we were 3 miles off track.  She drove us back to where we left the trail, and even drove us forward a mile or so... We were indeed saved by a woman today!   As a result, we probably walked an extra mile or two today, but it would have been much worse without the kindness of this woman.

Fidenza is a nice little town, with many churches (big surprise there...).  Tonight we ate at a newly opened restaurant, specializing in glutton free food.  We did not know this when we went into the restaurant,and only chose the place because the restaurant that had been recommended to us was closed on Tuesday nights.  I think they are going to have a hard time of it here in Italy, the land of glutton! We were the only people in the restaurant, until one guy came just as we were leaving.  And we could here his surprise when they explained that it was a glutton free restaurant and as a result, they didn't serve beer!

Today was our last day in the flat farmland area.  And I'm glad, because the geography is getting a little boring after walking through it for 5 days.  Tomorrow, we begin to walk through the foothills of the Apennine Mountains.  Our total climb to date has been a little over 800 feet.  Tomorrow we will do over 2000 feet and the next day another 3000 feet.  So, these are going to much harder climbs.   Plus, we will be walking almost 20 miles tomorrow.  So, it will be a long day tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. Sorry, Mike! I burst out laughing when I read "glutten free" restaurant. I know you intended gluten-free -- It was just too funny! An interesting business in the land of pasta and marvelous breads. You didn't say how the dinner was ...

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