Sunday, August 24th
Our walk today was supposed to be18.5 miles, but we decided to shorten it by @ 5 miles and took the train to the small town of San Germano Vercellese and walked to Vercelli from there. We were accompanied by a Swiss gentleman we had briefly met yesterday (Yvio). Minimal elevation gain (or sights to see) as we zigzagged our way through numerous fields of rice. We did see flocks of egrets and some other bird that might have been a type of heron. Other than that, it was rice field after rice field.
 |
| Exterior of San Germano Church |
 |
| Interior of San Germano Church |
 |
The pipe organ in the San German Church was built
in 1775 and is still in working condition |
 |
| Rice fields |
 |
| Looks like they're draining these rice fields |
 |
Saying good-bye to Yvio as he returns home
to Bern tomorrow |
Monday, August 25th
We are definitely in the flatlands now! During our 13.5 mile walk today we crossed from the Piedmont region of Italy into Lombardy. The scenery hasn’t changed much, however. We walked by rice field after rice field after rice field. Since it was warmer today the mosquitoes decided to join us also. I won’t know until the middle of the night how many new bites I have.
Rich walked with us to the town of Palestro, about 7 miles into our walk. He was then able to catch a train back to Vercelli, which is where we’re staying again tonight. We walked another 6.5 miles to Robbio and caught a train from there to Vercelli. Our train was close to on time, but Rich’s train was over an hour late and that was in addition to initially getting to the train station an hour before the train was scheduled. By the time I got back to our accommodations, he had been here less than an hour.
On our way from the train station to our bed & breakfast, we stopped at the beautiful 13th century Sant’Andrea Basilica.
 |
| We're getting closer and closer to Rome |
 |
| Rice field and poplar grove |
 |
| Rice fields as far as the eye can see |
 |
| Some of the birds we've been seeing |
 |
| A difficult crossing |
 |
Blazing a trail - we had at least a mile of this
type of track |
 |
| Happy we're through the jungle |
 |
Welcome to Vercelli with view of
Sant' Andrea Basilica in the background |
 |
| Exterior of Sant' Andrea Basilica |
 |
| Interior of Sant' Andrea Basilica |
No comments:
Post a Comment