Due to the traffic I was quite thrilled to finally leave the road and get into a small country road. Only downside. It was marked as private road. I found in Italy a lot of roads are marked as private, and I can't believe that they're indeed all private. My host from two days ago mentioned as well, that many people simply put up the signs without owning the property. But these signs make me always worried about dogs. So I went already in with not the best feeling. I continued and passed a dairy farm and then landed under a bridge which was clearly used by people as a place to drink beer and sleep. Feelings didn't get better, but I continued. Until I came to an absolute roadblock, a torn down bridge. There was no way continuing. So I had to return. Back to the main road. Really did not enjoy that.
Day 16 - from Fidenza to Spessa
My worst day yet. It started out all fine and dandy, but turned pretty quick. First stop, as almost always, a little village, Alseno. With a cafe and an abbey. Continued to Piacenza where I found a great farmers market and went on a little stroll around the city to then get going direction Spessa.
And wow, a very busy street. Cars basically being far less polite than I have experienced them earlier on my trip. Might have been as well simply the nature of the road. I'm usually not too worried about cars, I would go even so far, that I prefer some roads with cars over bike roads. Actually quite often. But that was simply too much.
The road got even more busy and then I had to cross the Po. I was very thankful to see that there was at least a sidewalk that I could use. But man, this sidewalk was a death trap in itself. It had these concrete blanks that formed it, and many of them were broken. If I would have just biked through, I would have fallen badly. So I had to push, no way around that. The welcome sign for Lombardy was not necessarily enticing either. Once I reached the end of the bridge, I was supposed to go left. But again blocked and private. In the tree in front of me they had disposed the sign for the bicycle path, which I found quite telling.
I still had a bit to go to Spessa, which was then alrightish, but really overall, bad day. In Spessa I found a real nice accomodation, but unfortunately no restaurant. Just a local cafe. And I sat down and had some beers and watched the old local men. Talked with them as well. I find this always quite entertaining. My food for the day, some gummi bears and crisps.
