Black Paw Heads East to Pizzighettone

Zagan the motorhome is basking in the sunshine after a push east to escape the snow, mist and cold. He’s resting his shaken tyres in the small, but perfectly formed, free sosta just outside the walled town of Pizzighettone (N45.18534 E9.79400) – a stone’s throw from a Lidl.

Last night as Jay wrote his blog post the huge, empty car park around us filled up. Where was everyone going on a Sunday evening? We had to find out, so we ventured out into the cold, foggy night to investigate. We came to the conclusion they may have been in the cathedral (there was a mass at 5pm), but it looked unlikely as the other churches were open but virtually empty apart from a few nuns. A few of the shops had opened, leading to people walking around the main shopping area clutching carrier bags, the posh cardboard kind of course.

It appeared that most people were in the numerous small bars and cafes. Each one we passed was packed full, window steaming up as people drank coffee and waved their hands in animated conversation – perhaps this is the winter version of the passeggiata? We retreated back to Zagan to warm up and I had a fitful night of sleep. Listening to see if the market was actually on Mondays and were setting up stalls around us, but more importantly I lost count of the number of times I looked at the heater controller to check that the gas hadn’t run out.

This morning I was in a bit of a grumpy mood as I looked out of the curtains. The car park was shrouded in mist, the white snow on the roofs blending in with the white sky and a cold feeling sank into my bones. Looking at fellow travellers on Facebook, I could see photos of them smiling in the sunshine wearing t-shirts and having a great time. Sure they were in Spain, New Zealand and other warmer places, but I really didn’t fancy another day dressed in thermals and wrapped up in a sleeping bag and wearing a hat, even in bed. Maybe I jinxed us the other day when I was packing away the laundry by saying I won’t need my thermals again for a while, but I don’t think I’m the only one getting sick of the cold. Each morning when Charlie gets out of bed he walks over and plonks himself down so his big furry behind covers one of the warm-air heater vents.

We’d planned a 30 minute drive to a small sosta today, but it would still be cold and snowy. After finding only one thing listed on tripadvisor as something to do there, we decided to pass. Instead we plotted a course for a large monastery north of Pavia. Stopping at the first petrol station we could find to be filled up with lovely, warming LPG (GPL) gas we then drove alongside miles of misty, flat fields of brown mud and puddles.

Just south of Pavia I spotted a sign for Decathlon and since Jay is in need of a lightweight jacket (he only brought his big ski jacket with him, a sneaky ploy for a new jacket methinks!), we stopped off. Finding nothing he liked we popped into the huge Bennett supermarket next door to see if it had clothes, it did but they would be more suited to the 1980’s, so we left. Or rather we tried to leave, via the checkouts, only to be told we had to go back to the entrance to leave as we haven’t bought anything. There our exit was watched over by a security guard with a machine designed to wrap in plastic any items you wish to take into the store that the store also sells. I’m not sure if they have a big problem with theft from supermarkets in Italy, or they don’t have a problem because of the precautions they take, either way they don’t make us feel particularly welcome.

Getting out of Bennett we were both in a bit of a bad mood by now. Neither of us fancied going to Pavia, we didn’t particularly fancy sitting in the van in the monastery car park either as it wouldn’t be open until tomorrow. Out came the maps and a decision was made to go for a blatt. We’re heading in the direction of Mantua as it sounds nice in the Rough Guide write up, so we picked a free sosta about halfway between us and Mantua and set off for a long run on ‘yellow’ roads.

Italian roads are like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get. I’ve been involved with a discussion on a Facebook forum about the state of the roads in Italy, I’ll be honest, generally they aren’t great. We don’t use the Autostrada (motorway) unless it’s a toll free one, preferring to stick to the ‘red’ roads (this is how they are coloured in our Michelin map) which run alongside the Autostrada. Then as we home into somewhere, we use the ‘yellow’ or as a last resort ‘white’ roads to reach our destination. The width of the roads tends to get narrower as you go through the colours, but also the state of the surface degrades too.

Today’s run saw us juddering along for mile after mile on rutted and pot-holed tarmac, rattled by badly sunk railway crossings and meandering across both lanes following locals who knew where the worst bits lay ahead. At one point the wardrobe door flung open sending my jeans into Charlie’s water bowl. Later we heard a thumperty-bang and assumed my drying out jeans had fallen off the rail in the bathroom, only to find when we reached our destination that we’d lost a wheel trim – and they were cable tied on!  So, Zagan is now know as Black Paw with one black, untrimmed wheel a reminder of Italian roads and a throwback to Dave (our previous motorhome), who always had one black wheel caused by the smoke from the exhaust.

The road was bad, but as we got closer to Pizzighettone the mist cleared, the sun peeped through, the snow was gone and the temperature rose. In the cab it peaked around 28°C, prompting me to take off my thermal socks! Parking up we stripped off layers and had a bite to eat before setting off for a walk in the sunshine. We had no idea what to expect of the town but we were very pleasantly surprised. About twenty years ago, a group of volunteers started to clean the walls of this ancient military city, and as they took away the vegetation and trees they uncovered one of the most well-preserved and original rampart walls in northern Italy.

The town is divided into two parts by the river Adda and is completely surrounded by ancient walls. But the walls aren’t solid like in most other Italian walled cities, but they are hollow, housing a series of inter-connecting rooms, once able to house more than 2000 soldiers.

Being Monday pretty much everything was shut, but we didn’t care, here we could wander around the small city in about an hour. The road system is in the process of being changed to a one way system, presumably to support the increased traffic which to new tourist attraction has brought, but not today. Today it was sunny and quiet and all ours.

We spotted a church ahead of us and joked about the huge façade at the front of it, as we turned to see the façade we were taken aback as the sun glinted off a wall of golden mosaics. It looked so out of place sat among the houses, next to the old defensive walls, but it felt like we had discovered something no one else had ever seen and the warm feeling of why I love travelling, and travelling in Italy came back to me.

Back in Zagan, the sun streaming through the windows, we all had an afternoon nap – maybe no one slept well last night. Jay is cooking one of my favourites – Spanish Chicken and we’ve cracked open our €1.19 bottle of Asti (if it’s nice we don’t have far to walk to replace it!).  The weather forecast says rain tomorrow, but I don’t mind. I’ve had a bit of sunshine and there is no more snow on the ground – I’m a happy bunny.

Ju x

PS – I spotted this memorial in the town today, when I translated the text it seems that it is a rock from Kefalonia in Greece. If you have seen the film Captain Correlli’s Mandolin you’ll know the fate of the Italian officers at the end. This rock was from the pit they were thrown in after being shot. We can only guess that some of them came from here.