Monday, 22 July, 2024 – Tuesday, 30 July, 2024
On Monday we again had a WarmShowers host, third time on this journey! Giuseppe invited us to his home near Vercelli. A little bit of D-tour, but it was 100% worth it. Alongside Giuseppe, we’ve also met his daughter Elena, with whom we connected immediately. She was charming and full of energy, with a pleasantly different view of the world. Also, making dinner together is for sure a nice bonding experience, and a couch was a pleasant upgrade over our inflatable mattresses. It was extremely easy to talk to both of them, and in a blink of an eye, 3 hours have passed.
We slept until 7 a.m., packed most of our gear back on the bikes, then had breakfast with Giuseppe. Our initial plan was to start a little later than usual since we didn’t plan to do many kilometers that day, so when Elena suggested visiting a local private pool, we couldn’t say “no” to her. After that, it’s not hard to see why we decided to stay one more day with them; we had so much fun through the day, and a day off the bikes was more than welcome. After making lunch at their house, we headed back to the swimming pool. We couldn’t let go of an opportunity like this. Getting a new round of sunburns on our backs was a price we were willing to pay.
We must admit that a lot of times, it’s hard for us to say goodbye since we know that most people we meet, we will never see again. For Elena and Giuseppe, this was even more true. After just two days, we’ve already felt at home at their house, and they were quickly getting close to our hearts. We really hope that they’re one of that small percentage of people that we will have an opportunity to meet again! Now it’s only a few days later, and we already miss someone who would ask us to cut perfectly even pieces of vegetables 😉
Because we extended our stay near Vercelli, we should cycle almost 90 km on Wednesday to reach Torino, where we had another host, but (un)fortunately he canceled last minute, so we didn’t have to hurry that much. On this day we also hit 1000 kilometers of distance cycled alongside spending exactly one month on the road. But unfortunately, also on this day, Primož’s legs started to hurt a little bit. Hopefully nothing will come out of this, but it for sure scared us a little, so we will need to spend more time on stretching and massaging our muscles. Also, we will go a bit slower, and hopefully we will get another rest day in the near future.
The flat Italy has come to an end when we passed Torino. Now, the hills that were seen in the distance are right next to us, and they’re a sign of what is coming for us in the following days. We both agree that this part of Italy is definitely the nicest. The nature is more beautiful; there are hills and forests, and it’s the first time that we’ve seen cows in Italy! Some parts look very similar to our home country of Slovenia. Everything also seems a bit cleaner; there is less trash laying around, and there are almost no mosquitoes in the middle of the day. Also, we’re happy that the flat part is over because after a while, everything looked the same—cities everywhere, with fields of corn or rice in between them. Goodbye flatness, hello hills. And the drinking water that we find along the way? It’s ice cold!
Giuseppe and Elena were our last WarmShower hosts in Italy. We have written to every host on our way, but we didn’t get any more positive responses. Oh well, sometimes it’s better to end things while they’re going great. Because we’ve left big cities behind us, it is also easier to find a place to camp each evening. For almost every night we found a good place to sleep, but because we were early, we’ve decided to go a bit further and save the spot as a backup. Then we would find an even better spot waiting for us. And this pattern could repeat a couple of times every evening.
The only time we’ve again asked someone if we could sleep outside was on Saturday evening, right before our climb into the Alps started. It was getting late; we were stuck in the middle of a small city, and we didn’t want to go further because in 3 kilometers a large, steep hill would start, and we would probably spend 1-2 hours on it, especially if we would have to push our bikes in the steepest parts. There were also no good places to set up a tent, unless we would wait a couple of hours for the dark and then get up in the morning before dawn. So we went to the monastery and asked the nuns there if we could set up a tent in their parking lot, and they allowed us. Lesson learned: cemeteries for drinking water and monasteries for sleeping.
Sunday was our first real day of climbing uphill. In a span of 15 kilometers, we have climbed over 500 vertical meters. After this, both of us had a little sore knees, and we’ve decided to call it a day. The road uphill was not very cyclist friendly; it had a lot of traffic (luckily there are no trucks on the road on Sunday), and there was almost nowhere to have a break. On one side of the road was a rock wall; on the other side, a cliff. We were painstakingly slow, and because of the traffic, we couldn’t even push our bikes on more steep parts of the hill because there wasn’t any shoulder next to the road. We started at an altitude of 500 meters in the city of Susa, in the valley, just below the mountains. After all the climbing, we ended up at an altitude of around 1050 meters. After that, we would have around 20 kilometers of more modest hills with ups and downs before reaching the next steep part. Also, there were only about 25–30 kilometers of Italy left.
But all this climbing took its toll on us. Both of us felt some sort of pain in our knees, and our muscles were aching. That’s why we have decided to go into camp Gran Bosco near Oulx. Our main reason was that we would get more rest, do some stretching, and heal our knees. But a shower after 5 days and electricity to charge our devices were also welcomed.
Now, as we look back, we’re really happy that we went to that camp. Up until now, we’ve always had some specific goal in mind: what we still have to do, how much more we have to cycle, or where we will find a place to sleep. But here, in this beautiful place on the hills between the mountains, it was the first time that we’ve actually realized what we’ve achieved. We’ve been cycling and living on the bikes for a whole month; we’re crazy!
This was also the time for some introspection. Up until now, we were rushing things too much; too much of our focus was placed solely on cycling, and we slowly stopped appreciating small things in our days. Also, after a month, we have developed sort of a routine in our days. Well, now it’s time to go back, to change all this and remember why we have decided to do this trip. Cycling wasn’t our main goal; it was solely a means of transportation. Uncontiously, we were in a fight-or-flight mentality most of the time, always worrying about what might happen, who might find us in the night, or how dangerous a specific situation is. Having this mentality all the time is very draining, and with a combination of not enough sleep, it slowly started to show in our everyday lives. We were so tired that during our breaks, we would just sit somewhere and wait for time to pass, without energy to use this time for anything productive.
Our new goal is to relax more, stop with unnecessary worries, and try and enjoy every moment of our tour. If this means going even more slowly, so be it.
So, on Sunday, we arrived in the camp, took a shower, recharged our electronics, stretched, called our families, and in general appreciated the moment. And on Monday? Well, we’ve decided to stay one more night here. We still have enough time to get to Barcelona and catch our flight, so our priority right now is to not get injured. On Monday we cycled to a nearby shop to get a small supply of food, then we had to wash most of our clothes, dry them on our improvised cloth hanger, and spend some time working on blog and Instagram pages.
What about the weather? We have sun almost all the time; short periods of cloudy weather feel like a relief. But now that we have reached a more hilly region, the air is not that hot anymore. It’s still burning hot while the sun shines directly on you, but in shadows, it can get a little chilly. We also have some more wind, which is a nice change. The night in the camp was the first one during which we were cold even though we were in our sleeping bags (up until now, we usually didn’t even cover ourselves).
On Tuesday we left the camp after lunch, then we did about 20 kilometers, stopping before our biggest climb. In the evening, we set up a tent right before the storm started, taking shelter at the moment the heavier raindrops started to fall. The storm lasted about an hour, but we were nervous because in the mountains, every thunder sounds a lot closer and louder. Even colder night and morning than before, but this is our last night in Italy; we’re excited to enter France tomorrow.
Hi Iris and Primož,
Glad to know that your adventure is going very well and enjoying it. Congratulations. You are ‘bravi’ as we say in Italian. We are religiously reading your posts and wish you both again the best in your World Tour!!!
A big hug, Beatrice/Luiz