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After all the practice of speaking French for the last month Nic started to brush up on his rusty Italian: “Excuse moi monsieur – une cafe latte sil vous plait – scusa per favore – aaarrrggghh”. The last week Nic’s been going around with a permanent grin on his face – Italian food, climate, and, yes you know, coffee! After a sweeping 58 mile descent from Etroubles down to Ivrea (where we had a quick rest and a sightseeing trip to Turin – where we did not see the shroud – what shroud? – but found a fantastic restaurant called Stars and Roses where Nic had a fish egg pizza – mention us if you go there! :p )
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The road from Ivrea took us through the rice fields around Vercelli (main source of rice in Europe) and over some hilly countryside towards the coast. One of the hills we climbed three times in search of the campsite – why? Italians seem to think road signs are redundant in this part of the country. At last when we got to the site we were greeted by the friendly receptionist and a huge swarm of mossies which descended on our sweaty hot bodies – the chef’s reccomendation for the day according to the Mosquiline Guide. Within 15 minutes we were covered with 57 bites and pitched up our tent in record time!
Couple of days later we arrived at another campsite where a local guy’s birthday party was taking place. He looked about 40, and bizarrely enough the guests bandaged him up, and then unravelled him -amazing what some people do for kicks in the sticks. Various oldies were dancing the tango and the swing to old tunes, whilst we resolutely sat at the only table in the room playing Macao and refused to join. Hats off to “Mr Duracell” – a 60 year old who danced like Fred Astaire with every lady, all night!
Next day we reached the coast – cycling illegally through tunnels one of which over 2kms long (and had Nic singing at the top of his voice all the way down, drowning the noise of traffic!) Sedef is happy to have reached the coast since she can cycle in her bikini tops now to even up the horrible neopolitan icecream tan she has acquired on her torso through France (darkbrown – pink – and white) – though she has a long way to match Nic.
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We had a rest day on the coast to see the Cinque Terre – five isolated coastal villages very lovely and typically Italian. It was the hottest day so far – reaching 34C in the shade and 38C in the sun!
