Pilgrimage from Novi Ligure to Molini 22/07/07

I had my alarm set this morning for 5am but when it went off I felt terrible. I still wasn’t feeling good at 7am so rolled back over and finally woke again at 09:30 feeling slightly better. It was already starting to get hot so I figured I would just stroll quietly along, stopping when necessary.

Because I haven’t had a map I have been confined to the main roads. It hasn’t been nice. After about 8kms I spotted a shopping centre and stopped there.

The place was huge and luckily it was open Sundays. They also had great maps, lifting my spirit immensely. I sat down and plotted a nice course for myself through the hills to Genova.

It was great to once again be on a small winding mountain road. I had a great walk following a river and then around 19:00 I heard some music in this little village I was passing through.

Sure enough I had stumbled upon another festival. I couldn’t resist and within a minute of walking in the bar staff had bought me a drink. The Italians are so generous…it’s amazing :)

For a small village in the middle nowhere Voltaggio definitely put on a good party. I was very impressed with the turnout for a Sunday night but I think more than half the people there were staff ;)

The organizer of the festival soon heard I was around, and being an unusual specimen I was soon showered with gifts. It was great! I came away with two T-Shirts, a few free beers, a keyring, and some cakes. Amazing people…Italy is great!

So at least I will be able to walk into town tomorrow with a clean shirt. I am REALLY starting to smell. I have no clean anything :(

I decided I better drag myself away if I was going to have any chance of making it to Genova early tomorrow, so saying my farewells I was back on the road.

I only made it another 5kms before it started to get dark, so spotting a nice spot by the river I decided to call it a night.

The nice spot wasn’t so nice, but probably because of the beers I camped anyway. I was on a slope and my head was about a foot higher than my feet. The ground was also just river-rocks so half my tent pegs couldn’t go in. Lets just hope it doesn’t rain!