Two middle-aged Italian couples turned up the next evening for dinner, they were there for a long weekend’s walking in the hills, disappointed that the weather forecast was rain for Friday. They were cheerful and jokey, shared a bottle of wine with me.
For a while I think that I may get away with no serious rain despite the gloomy forecast. But then some time after the eleven o’clock bell it starts. It pours down too. I have a good waterproof jacket which keeps my body dry but I am soon completely soaked from the waist down and the rain on the jacket cools me further. This starts quite near the top, so soon I am descending on a narrow road diving steeply down, switchback after switchback. Luckily very few cars go past since the road is narrow and passing on the sharp bends is tricky. The roadway becomes a little river, sometimes a couple of inches dep where water flows across. Not needing to pedal now, so sitting quite still, though with tense arms and legs, rain flowing over me and wind rushing past, I cool down and soon feel shivery. If there was any shelter I would stop to eat some of that crostini, but there is no shelter, the trees are now so soaked that they provide none and this is not livestock country, so no barns.
Starting the sat-nav I see that I am still high up, I started at 1,150 metres, here it is still 700 metres, loads of descending still to come. I’m still cold and there is just enough room to stretch out on the floor so I do sets of press-ups and squat-jumps to warm up.
There are a few small villages and about half an hour after the shrine there appears an open cafe!
Inside there are two customers and a young woman behind the bar, she is wearing a black T-shirt revealing elaborate tattoos down both arms, one has two lovers in eachothers arms, in the other a windswept woman looks up at a castle wall. Rather good.
I have an americano – nice hot water! Peeling off the wet jacket I realise that quite a bit of water has leaked inside, so I’m pretty damp all over. I start to warm up though, have another americano and an apricot jam-filled croissant. Beginning to feel better. The girl’s boyfriend comes in and they canoodle over the bar, then disappear round the back. I am the only one in the bar now, an old guy shuffles in, unshaven, portly, sits down for a while then shuffles round the back too, returns a little later, shaking his head. He spoke a little english with a good accent, on which I complemented him. Turned out he learned English many years ago when courting a Scottish girl, in Italy. They were going to get married but then she changed her mind. He has not married anyone else since, he is now 77. The barmaid made him spaghetti with pesto, though food was not advertised, so that’s what she was doing out the back with her boyfriend.