It has rained during
the night.
The sky looks down
glumly on the hills. The café next door is closed, just as expected. We manage,
with mixed success, to operate the capsule coffee machine that seems to come
with every Italian accommodation. Its defining feature appears to be the amount
of rubbish it produces. The first coffee comes out cold. The second is hot, but
instant. Alongside the underwhelming coffee there are jam-filled biscuits and
something vaguely resembling candy. My stomach is already protesting. To quote
an Italian language-learning video: La colazione in Italia è dolce e veloce.
Left at the church. We spend almost the entire day on asphalt roads with barely any traffic. Columns of mist curl up from between the hills, and even our breath hangs in the air. The grapevines stand motionless in the haze, while villages seem frozen onto the hilltops. Every now and then a church bell rings out, sounding almost mournful. Before long it starts to drizzle. We pull on our silver rain ponchos. Downhill, uphill, then downhill again. Slugs and snails have come out to chill on the roads.
Around eleven we pass an osteria. Naturally, it's closed. It opens in an hour. A cat strolls beneath the dripping outdoor tables. We don't feel like waiting an hour, there's hope of pizza a couple of kilometres farther on.
Rinaldi turns out to be a long village. There's a place to eat by the tennis courts, about 650 metres off our route. No pizza just yet, but we do get a generous plate of tomatoes, mozzarella, prosciutto, and long loaves of rich white bread. And coffee. It helps.
The drizzle stops, and somewhere in the distance the sun even makes an appearance. One more climb and we reach our accommodation. It's perched on a hillside, with chairs in the garden and a view across the valley. Diano d'Alba rises above us. There are trees here, and birds in the trees. A great spotted cuckoo preens on a high branch and briefly fluffs up its crest when a wood pigeon lands nearby. A large flock of starlings bustles beneath the vines, blackbirds sing, and we also hear a common redstart, a Eurasian blackcap, and a European robin. I count fifteen species in all, although I'm a little doubtful about the black woodpecker. There are hardly any dead trees to be seen, what would a woodpecker be doing here? And really, without fallen logs, where do all the decomposers live?
It's a bit too chilly to sit outside and read, although it's not exactly warmer indoors. At least inside we can wrap ourselves in a blanket. Kalle keeps his rain jacket on as well.
In the evening we wander up to the village for a wine and cheese tasting. Warm bread and olives appear on the table as well. A group of Italians are making plenty of noise in the corner, while Bob Dylan hums in the background. Outside, the locust trees are in bloom, swallows and swifts flash overhead, and the sunset is purple once again. In the end, it never really does start raining.
Distance walked: 15.5 km, plus another 2 km to the village and back.
Left at the church. We spend almost the entire day on asphalt roads with barely any traffic. Columns of mist curl up from between the hills, and even our breath hangs in the air. The grapevines stand motionless in the haze, while villages seem frozen onto the hilltops. Every now and then a church bell rings out, sounding almost mournful. Before long it starts to drizzle. We pull on our silver rain ponchos. Downhill, uphill, then downhill again. Slugs and snails have come out to chill on the roads.
Around eleven we pass an osteria. Naturally, it's closed. It opens in an hour. A cat strolls beneath the dripping outdoor tables. We don't feel like waiting an hour, there's hope of pizza a couple of kilometres farther on.
Rinaldi turns out to be a long village. There's a place to eat by the tennis courts, about 650 metres off our route. No pizza just yet, but we do get a generous plate of tomatoes, mozzarella, prosciutto, and long loaves of rich white bread. And coffee. It helps.
The drizzle stops, and somewhere in the distance the sun even makes an appearance. One more climb and we reach our accommodation. It's perched on a hillside, with chairs in the garden and a view across the valley. Diano d'Alba rises above us. There are trees here, and birds in the trees. A great spotted cuckoo preens on a high branch and briefly fluffs up its crest when a wood pigeon lands nearby. A large flock of starlings bustles beneath the vines, blackbirds sing, and we also hear a common redstart, a Eurasian blackcap, and a European robin. I count fifteen species in all, although I'm a little doubtful about the black woodpecker. There are hardly any dead trees to be seen, what would a woodpecker be doing here? And really, without fallen logs, where do all the decomposers live?
It's a bit too chilly to sit outside and read, although it's not exactly warmer indoors. At least inside we can wrap ourselves in a blanket. Kalle keeps his rain jacket on as well.
In the evening we wander up to the village for a wine and cheese tasting. Warm bread and olives appear on the table as well. A group of Italians are making plenty of noise in the corner, while Bob Dylan hums in the background. Outside, the locust trees are in bloom, swallows and swifts flash overhead, and the sunset is purple once again. In the end, it never really does start raining.
Distance walked: 15.5 km, plus another 2 km to the village and back.
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