Last night I tried posting directly using WordPress. Tonight I’m returning to posting by email: watching the ‘donut of despair’ spinning for five minutes to upload a photo (and then to have the caption obscure the photo in my mobile view of the blog) was too much to bear. WordPress Isa piece of crap when it comes to it’s mobile ux.
Today was a splendid day, particularly if you are I to either castles or things Roman, as there was plenty of both. As previous posts have had pics of castles, I’ll do the Roman angle tonight.
Several of the villages we passed through today felt so medieval that we almost anticipated horses and carts to appear at any moment. These towns are old. Bard was the first, and while the fort is comparatively new, the town is far from it. The main street is more or less an alley.
Further along the trail, Pont St Martin is famous for it’s bridge – otherwise it would just be St Martin. Unfortunately, Italian state planners decided it was also a good place for a hydro-electric facility, so it is challenging to get a good photo of the Roman bridge.
We passed through so areas where the hillside terracing is incredible, and others where the terraces are no longer being used for farming. Closer to Ivrea, the path leads through what are presumably the residences of Ivrea’s better paid residences: magnificent former farms (for want of a better description) that are now restored houses with terraced lawns.
Ivrea is also a pleasant surprise, but that impression was influenced by the entry:I stead of a long slog through industrial areas and/or housing estates, you are quite suddenly staring at the brick castle at the center of the city. We didn’t dally to admire the views, as continuous thunder inspired us to maintain our pace. The deluge arrived 10 minutes after we’d checked in at the Ivrea Canoe Club hostel. And yes, it really is a canoe club, with an awesome Olympic type kayak course right outside. I watched a couple of guys training – very impressive. Maybe one was on the Italian national team, based on his helmet and kayak colour scheme. I’ll try to post a short video to Instagram.
Day km: 27
2saunter 
Andrew this is inspirational amazing. Go man go
LikeLike