A fierce storm during the night came and went – first light rain, then distant thunder (which Mo ignored), then harder and harder rain and thunder so loud it sounded like we were in the very middle of it – Mo did not ignore that!

By morning it had all passed and the day on the side of the mountain dawned bright and clear. We were joined by a small white van, and discovered a car behind it as well. There were several adults and some kids and they were joined by more of each. Our quiet little corner was not so quiet anymore.

Some official fellows in a van stopped just up around the corner from us – they put up ‘2 km to the top’ signs, so we knew exactly where we were in relation to the rest of the climb.

As the morning progressed the usual amateur riders started coming up – first by ones and twos, then whole groups. We noticed more and more electric bikes, especially with the organized tour groups, but at least they’re out riding and not sitting at home eating peanuts and potato chips.

At one point I saw a young rider standing bent over his bike on the side of the road below us. He was there for several minutes, then slowly pushed his bike towards us. As he got near I asked if he was ok – did he need water – aqua? He said yes please! I ran into the campervan and brought out our partially full 2 litre bottle – he filled his bidon and gulped the whole thing down. I went back inside and grabbed another bottle and he filled his up again, all the while saying thank you – thank you so much.

No cavalcade came through – we figured it was far too steep for them, and they don’t throw out many goodies anyway.

The first racers arrived at 4:18 and they were spaced out every couple of minutes after that – the main contenders were mostly in one group almost 12 minutes behind.

I got some pretty decent photos, but what I noticed is that it’s difficult to tell by looking at them just how steep the road really is.

It took quite a while for all of the racers to pass – I got irritated with some of the amateur cyclists that were coming down the hill before the last racer had even gone by. I yelled at them that the race was still on and they actually stopped until the last ambulance had passed. What jerks – they come all the way to see the race, likely waiting for at least a couple of hours, then can’t even show the decency and respect to watch the whole thing.

We weren’t able to see the end on tv as reception wasn’t great, so we took down the flags, said goodbye to the neighbours and headed back down to Bibiana, then on to Cavour.

We made a quick stop at the wine store, walked around and saw that the painted cow was still there, then made our way – the ‘scenic route’ as it turned out – up to our near our next watching spot.

We got past Torino and continued north to Pont Canavese where we stopped at another place with electricity and water dump but no other facilities. We had a fairly early night as plan to get up very early to head up the mountain in the morning.

I was just nodding off – with Mo tucked beside me – when we heard a loud bang, followed by another. Mo started barking fiercely, and continued to bark and growl every few seconds – the town was having a fireworks show, likely in honour of the Giro. It went on for 15 or 20 minutes, with Mo echoing the bangs, then finally peace and quiet.

We got an early start on the next leg of our journey – headed straight to the motorway northwest towards Torino, where we turned southwest past Pinerolo and on to our favourite camping place at the fruit farm near Cavour.

They still have the adorable little chihuahuas Momma Maya and baby Spreet, as well as a new golden lab named Jorga. This is the first time – out of five or six visits by me now – that they’ve actually had children there. The place is a fruit farm, as well as agriturismo, but one of their main sources of income is a children’s day-care type of place. They have a large playground with swings and things but every other time I’ve been there has been ‘out of season’ for the kids. No such luck this time.

I must say most of the kids were pretty well behaved most of the time – the large lab came over to us to get away from the kids as they weren’t allowed on our side of the fence. They occasionally threw a ball over in order to provide an excuse to cross the fence line, but generally weren’t bothersome, although I must admit I was glad when the two buses that were parked there all day loaded them up and took them away.

We took a foray into the town of Cavour and filled up an empty water bottle from the wine shop with the hose from the large vat, then headed to my favourite cafe.

Unfortunately even though it had lots of Giro decorations in the window, it was closed. We headed further down the street to another cafe where we got some excellent cappucinnos – also had good wi-fi.

The race on Thursday actually passes right in front of the campground not once, but twice, and the folks in the campervan next to us were staying there for that reason.

We, however, wanted a more exciting place to watch from so left the next morning for Mount Montoso, which is between Bibiana and Bagnolo Piemonte (both of which I’ve ridden my bike to on previous visits).

We stopped in Cavour again, but the cafe was still not open so went to the other one again for another excellent capuccinno. After about an hour we left to find our spot on the mountain.

We had no trouble finding Bibiana, and once there just followed all of the pink decorations – there’s only one road that goes up to Mt. Montoso, and it’s very steep and winding. And just like in Cavour the folks have done a great job decorating in honour of the Giro – it’s really nice to see. At the very least the locals got some of the crappy roads re-surfaced for the race.

We passed several places where campervans were already parked and several more possible spots. We went all the way to the village at the top, then turned back and tried one spot but got no tv reception, so continued a little further back down to another corner – perfect. It’s about 2 km from the top and at a sharp corner that is very steep – an excellent place to watch from.

Today is a rest day for the race, and it was beautiful and sunny, of course. We left our camping spot on the side of the road fairly early and drove as close as we could to the town of San Marino, which is on a large rock outcropping and not accessible to campervans.

There was a camping/parking area at the bottom – one campervan had a cat in the window. I walked closer to take a photo – it was one of the ugliest cats I’ve ever seen as it was a hairless one – good for folks with allergies, I guess, but looked more like a large rat than a cat. It must be a good traveller, though, and seemed very calm.

It was a short walk to the cable-car that goes to the top and it wasn’t cheap – 8 euros each! – and poor little Mo had to go in a cage, which was thoughtfully provided. She’d never been in a cage before so didn’t really struggle. The view on the way up was fantastic although the ride was not that long – at least not for the price.

There was a large viewing area right as you left the cable car and those views were even more spectacular. There was a bunch of statues and placques as well. The tourist info office was right around the corner so I promptly headed there to get my passport stamped. As the lady was applying the beautiful stamp Colin ‘joked’ that it was 5 euros – I laughed, but he wasn’t actually joking. At least it was a nice stamp, and very different from all of the other ones I’ve accumulated.

We strolled up and down the narrow, winding roads – the place is already crawling with tour groups and filled with shops selling made-in-China junk. Also some nice stuff and some decent looking restaurants, although rather pricey. There are museums as well, including at least two ‘torture’ museums – we passed on those.

There was one free museum that we enjoyed – all the exhibits were about Pantini – aka ‘il Pirato’ – a great Italian cycling legend. We have a flag of the pirate that we usually fly in honour of him, especially when we’re in Italy.

The town apparently suffered considerable damage towards the end of WWII – likely by the Americans or the Brits, although I couldn’t read the plaque as it was surrounded by hoards of tourists listening to their guide, who I couldn’t understand.

All in all it was a very expensive passport stamp – we agreed that we wouldn’t bother going to the town again even if we were in the area. Our roadside camping in nearby Fiorentino was much more satisfying.

The ride down the cable car almost didn’t happen – Mo now knew what going into the cage was like and didn’t want anything to do with it. The cable car operator was getting impatient – even though we were the only ones there – but eventually Colin managed to shove little Mo in and get the door closed. It was so stupid – Mo is so well behaved, and there was no one else in with us.

Anyway, we made it in and to the bottom and continued back down to the campervan park. We originally planned to take the lesser highway northwest to a campground south of Cremona, but the slowness of the traffic got to us and we headed onto the nearby motorway.

A few hours later we arrived in Fiorenzuola D’Arda and found the campground just outside the town. It’s a lovely place with just a few camping spots – mostly I think they make their money from agritourismo and selling asparagus. Apparently their restaurant is very good but unfortunately wasn’t open for the season yet.

Shortly after arrival I decided a shower would be nice – big mistake. It was the opposite of the problem I had when I was almost scalded by the hot water at the place in Belgium – it was fridgedley cold. I managed to splash a bit of water here and there, then gave up – washing the hair will have to wait.

Race day dawned chilly and cloudy – rain forecast throughout the day. We walked to the store first and got a paper that shows the start order for the ITT, then back to the bar across the road from us for a delicious cappuccino.

I chose to continue further back down the road and around a few corners to see the top of that climb – it’s just about at the ‘7km to go’ sign and has booths setup selling over-priced food and beer.

I decided against taking a chair and watching from there as the spot we’d parked at overnight, being almost across the road from a bar with food was just too good to move from.

The beagle that belonged to the folks in one of the campervans just down from us agreed.

We went to the bar and sat inside until the first riders started arriving, then went outside and sat at a table under an awning. It was drizzling off and on so sometimes we were right at the roadside and sometimes under the awning.

At one point I noticed that one of my earrings were missing – they were made for me by Tony, a friend of Colin’s, and I have two pairs – one with regular bikes, and one with time trial bikes which I was wearing. Some of the bar folks saw me looking around on the ground and asked why – when I told them they all pitched in to help look. Half of the people that were sitting outside were all scouring the ground for my lost treasure – but alas, not one of us was successful.

By the time the last 15 or so racers came by it was pouring so hard we could barely see across the road – they still had over 6 km to go to the top at the town of San Marino.

As soon as the last one passed we scurried back inside the bar to watch the finale on tv. They started serving tapas, which I, of course, tried several of – they were quite tasty.

We got going a little later than originally planned because Alessandro wasn’t able to meet us for dinner in Fano so there was no real rush to leave. We took our time getting packed up and loaded into the campervan before tidying up the house and terrace.

I took some nice ‘after’ shots of the painting and the terrace with the lovely new furniture, then we were on our way.

First stop was returning the cat carrier that had transported Chairman Meow to the vet’s and back, then headed north to Perugia and on to Gubbio. Shortly after there the mountains opened up to a beautiful wide valley, then the road went down and into Fano on the Adriatic coast.

We found a campervan spot right across from the sea – it was totally basic/no frills and ended up being free. The sign said it was six euros for the night but there was nowhere to buy a ticket from or anything so we just parked it. We took a walk north along the sea and found a nice looking restaurant – it wasn’t open for business for an hour or so, and the staff seemed to be having their dinner beforehand.

We kept walking a bit, then eventually turned back. There were guys fishing all along the shore, and a fellow was kite surfing out on the water – he looked like he was really working it, full wetsuit and all. By the time we got back to the restaurant they had just opened so we went in.

As usual we shared an order of bruschetta, which because we are on the Adriatic was four large pieces with different seafood. I loved three of them, but ended up offering the topping of the very salty anchovie-type one to Colin.

For the main dish we both got the seafood risotto, which was very delicious. I took at least half of mine home for breakfast.

We got a fairly early start the next morning and took a rather meandering route towards San Marino to get onto the ITT route. We eventually found the pink arrows and just followed them up and around, passing into the principality of San Marino.

We found a lovely spot in the village of Fiorentino, almost across from a bar/restaurant and with an excellent view of the valley below.

We’re on top of a ridge so actually have views from both sides. We ventured into the bar and had a drink, then decided to stay for lunch, which was a good decision. The menu was hand written on a tiny pink (ha ha) post-it note pad, and the waitress – who we thought could speak english, but didn’t really – showed us the two or three dishes of the day. Colin had the pasta with marscapone and spinache, while I chose the pasta with ragu – both good choices.

After lunch we managed to find out that the bar would be open tomorrow on race day, but the kitchen would not be doing hot meals, but rather just paninis, etc. The decor is very diverse – it seems that the owner likes all things american and/or mexican, including Harleys.

Most of the last week was spent doing things around the house – painting railings and outside walls, topping up plants, etc.

The weather has generally been lousy – not a lot of sunshine or warmth. Had a couple of bad storms – really hard rain, lightening and thunder one night that Mo had to bark at, and a fierce wind storm all day long a couple of days ago – even the pigeons took shelter.

The bell tower is chiming once again, although it’s 2 hours and 40 minutes slow. It doesn’t matter in the mornings but can be a bit annoying at night when it doesn’t quit counting the time until 20 to 1 in the morning.

Chairman Meow has been spending more and more time at the house – his human Angelo has been away a lot and he likes it here because we let him in the house out of the rain and wind – oh, and we feed him too. A few of the other neighbourhood cats have realized that there’s food here, so we are now feeding another little one as well from time to time.

One day we were out on the terrace doing some things and I heard a buzzing – I said it sounds like some bees, and wondered where they were. I went inside while Colin and Mo were still outside, then I heard them rush in and shut the door tight. Colin was looking out the window and told me to come quick – it wasn’t just a few bees, but thousands and thousands in a slow-moving swarm that came right down the lane on the lower side of the house.

They hovered for awhile just across and down a bit, then slowly moved on – they sounded like a freight train there were so many of them. A little later we were heading down to the bar and Colin had to take something down to the campervan – Mo and I took the short route to meet him at the bottom. We got partway down the ‘78 steps’ portion and I came to a dead stop. The bees were hovering quite low very near where the ‘short way’ and the ‘long way’ met.

I scooped Mo up and made a quick backtrack all the way up and around the long way that Colin had taken. When we got to where the short way and the long way met we managed to scurry by the hovering mass without getting attacked.

Despite a couple more days of crappy weather we managed to get all of the painting done that we wanted. We even managed to get Chairman Meow in a carrier case – with Colin wearing heavy-duty work gloves – and then taking him to the vets to get ‘fixed’.

Angelo had given his blessing to the venture, but was too scared of Meow’s vicious claws to try to get him in a box. Several hours later Colin collected him but no matter how much Meow begged we couldn’t yet feed him, following the vet’s instructions to wait until evening. Poor fellow – losing his balls and then being denied food all in the same day.

Leaving the campground at a decent time we ignored both of the GPS systems and took the road above us rather than following their directions back through the maze of Valeggio.

After only a short climb we emerged onto a lovely plain and went a bit west/southwest before veering southeast. The road wasn’t too bad, and the traffic wasn’t overly heavy, except it is a holiday so there were a fair number of motorcycles.

We made good time, passing Modena, then Bologna, where we turned south to cross the Apennines. Rather than continue on the motorway we exited onto a smaller highway that was slower, of course, but more scenic. Part way along there was a diversion due to road work, which slowed us down even more, although we weren’t really in a hurry having made such good progress the previous day.

We rejoined the motorway just west of Firenza and arrived home to Papiano just after 5:00. Our trip north was just short of six weeks, and in that time we saw ten days of excellent racing and covered thousands of kilometres. It was a hugely successful and exciting journey but we’re both very glad to be back in Italy.

Since getting back Colin has started doing little fix-ups around the house. I helped him take the shutters down, some of which had to be lowered by rope as they wouldn’t fit through the window frames. He’s sanded and painted one so far – they’re going to look fantastic, especially after the house itself gets a fresh coat of paint. He does have to be careful about the sanding, however, as a couple of them are very weathered and are at risk of falling apart.

One day we took a day-trip, starting with outdoor furniture shopping in Marsciano. I sat on dozens of chairs to test for comfort, and we both agreed on a bright red set that had wide seats – there must be room for a person as well as a dog, after all – with nice comfy cushions. When the fellow showed us the total we both registered our shock, but then he indicated ‘wait’ and hit another button – the set was on sale for half-price as that model has been discontinued and the display set is the last one. He also gave us a present – a back cushion for one of the chairs – he apologized profusely for only having one, not two to give us.

After piling the new furniture into the back of the campervan we continued our day-trip to Trevi, ignoring both of the GPS’s again, so we drove almost straight east and past Montefalco instead of taking the main road up past Perugia.

We went to our favourite restaurant but had to get an inside table as it was pretty chilly out. We shared a plate of bruschetta for an appy – it was such a large portion I wondered if I was going to have room for my main course. There were five different toppings, each as delicious as the others – plain with olive oil, pesto, creamy cheese, tomatoes, and pate.

Luckily I was able to finish my main, with a little help. I got the roast wild boar with baked potato and it was so tender I barely needed a knife to cut it with. As usual I had no room for dessert, although I did manage more than one glass of very nice red wine.

The return trip back home was via Leroy and Merlin near Perugia where Colin got the rest of the supplies needed for the painting.

We watched another movie – the first one a couple of nights ago was ‘V for Vendetta’, the next night was ‘Capricorn One’ and this one was ‘The Usual Suspects’. I hadn’t seen any of them before and was pleasantly surprised each time.

One afternoon as we were heading down the hill to the bar I noticed one of the local cats up in a tree – not clinging to the trunk or climbing up or down, but roosting comfortably right near the top.

We had some rain and the weather had turned quite chilly again – I got my winter coat out but it was actually a bit over-the-top. The shutter painting had to be put off until things dry out a bit.

Chairman Meow next door hadn’t visited in a couple of days and we were a bit worried about him – he usually shows up for food as soon as he knows someone’s up and about. One day we encountered his owner, Angelo, when shopping for groceries – he assured us that Meow is fine – he’s just been ‘out loving it up’.
He does need to be ‘fixed’ – Meow, not Angelo – but he’s scared to try to put him in a box to take him to the vet.

The morning promised much better weather than there was yesterday for the race – the field across from us was totally misty in the rising sun while the sky behind and above us was beautiful blue.

The sheep were all grazing in the field, and further over Mr. Fox was back rooting around near the fence.

We left our excellent little spot fairly early so as not to overstay our welcome in the village parking area. We drove back through Stavelot to get to the motorway south. This time I got a photo of the ‘pinocchio’ statue in the middle of the large roundabout.

We made good progress down and into Germany, with the weather deteriorating along the way. By the time we reached the campground, between Stuttgart and Ulm, it had turned fairly cold and wet.

The campground is smaller than the last few we’ve been at, but has very nice facilities, including heated washrooms and showers. You have to pay for the wi-fi, which is unusual, but it was a very strong, fast signal, which is also somewhat unusual.

I looked up what the story was about Stavelot as I’d also seen a ‘Hansel and Gretel’ cafe in addition to the pinocchio statue. I don’t know about the cafe, as the writers of Hansel and Gretel were the Brothers Grimm who were German, but the pinocchio was actually based on an annual carnaval where some of the men dress up in white with long pointed red noses. They are called the Blancs Moussis, and would hit bystanders with inflated pig’s bladders – glad it wasn’t that time of year! As with all of the towns in the area, Stavelot was heavily involved in the Battle of the Bulge, and sustained a lot of damage.

Had a nice pasta dinner, then fairly early night.

Next morning was grey and drizzly, but the further south we went the lighter and brighter it got.

By the time we passed into Italy via the Brenner Pass the temperature was rising and the sun was coming out.

We had a bit of a frustrating time finding the campground we’d chosen as it involved navigating through very narrow streets in the town of Valeggio Sul Mincio, just southwest of Verona.

The campground is actually across the river Mincio in the very small village of Borghetto. In addition to the river there is also a fair-sized canal, as well as lots of little ones going thru the farmers’ fields for irrigation.

The frustration was worth it in more than one way – the campground is very basic, although quite nice. And Borghetto is really charming, if a bit touristy even at this time of year.

The medieval fortress across the river in Valeggio overlooks everything and there are still quite a few walls/parts of walls and gates still standing.

We setup the campervan and took a walk around. We decided to go for Colin’s birthday dinner a little later at one of the many restaurants on the river.

When we went back to the village we chose a really nice looking little place and sat down – Mo included. We ordered some bruschetta to start with and it was four pieces with different toppings, all of which were just delicious. We shared them, each eating half – salmon, creamy cheese, smoked beef, and pike from Lago Garda – I think the pike was my favourite, but maybe it was the salmon – no the beef! Oh – I couldn’t decide as they were all so good.

For the main course I got the ‘suckling pig with crackling skin’ and it was one of the best pork dishes I’ve ever had. It was a fairly large portion, complete with vegetables and salad, but I managed to clean the plate – with a little help from Colin and Mo.

It was dark by the time we finished and walked back to the campground, but it wasn’t cold. I only had my sweater on for warmth, and remembered that only 3 days ago I was bundled in my winter coat, boots and gloves.

The almost six weeks in Belgium (and Holland) were awesome and we loved them, but both agree it’s good to be back in Italy.

Race day – which happens to be Colin’s birthday – started much the same as yesterday – grey, cold and rainy. Mid-morning we took the short walk up to the top of the climb to see where we might want to be for the race.

At about 11:30 one of the ladies’ team cars pulled in beside us – I asked the young fellow when they would be coming by and he said about an hour. I took that time to walk down the road to where the men’s and ladies’ routes diverge – the men go straight while the ladies take a left.

I was curious what was down the other route so walked about 1 km before turning back – I was pretty wet but not overly cold. I hustled back to the campervan, collected my camera and Colin and I went back to the turning point to wait for the ladies.

There’s not nearly so much fanfare involved – no caravan, no helis and only a few motos, none of which is a tv moto. I took my extra ground cover with me so I could spread it out and keep my backpack covered, and kept my camera and flash dry by wrapping them in my scarf.

This time I did get cold – my feet were soaking wet even with my good water resistant runners and thermal socks. Back at the campervan we had a bite to eat and a nice cup of coffee.

I just had to jump up and throw on my wet socks and runners when suddenly the caravan came by – I hate to miss freebies so ran out with laces undone and not even my sweater on. There weren’t many people around at the time so several of the folks threw things my way. A couple of things landed in the mud, but they can be washed.

There was a small family with a horse that came up to the fence across the road from us – the man called and called for the larger horse in the field to come – we wondered if it was his horse, especially when he went over the fence and down into the field. The horse finally noticed him – or maybe his white horse, and came running up. The two horses whinnied at each other a bit, then the family took their white horse and walked away. The brown horse in the field was quite upset – it ran back and forth along the fence several times before giving up and running back down the hill.

Knowing that the race is usually within an hour of the caravan’s passing we got our bags ready again and headed up the hill. There was a fairly steady stream of people doing the same thing although with the rain and cold it wasn’t that bad.

We picked a great spot and covered up our bags with my ground cover – the rain came and went, and at one point we even thought it was going to clear up completely and be sunny. No such luck – it started pouring again a few minutes later.

We’d been waiting some time when a blue and white van tried to pull in on the side of the road – there really wasn’t proper room for them and we and another fellow were already standing right there. The asshole backed up and almost ran the other guy over – he pounded on the back of the van so they would stop but all they did was pull forward again so they could back up a little further off the road.

We screamed at them because our bags were almost crushed under the back wheels – what an arrogant bunch of jerks. They’re on a VIP – as in Very Ignorant Pr!cks – trip and thought it was just fine to pull in at the last minute and take someone else’s place. We told them what we thought, picked up our bags and moved across the road and down a bit.

On the other side two other people agreed that the van was in the wrong, and they turned out to be british. Colin chatted with them a bit while I moved further on down the road to find another spot.

Trying to keep the camera and flash dry was a bit of a challenge – I wrapped them in the scarf again but my hands were starting to get very cold. The race finally arrived just before 3:00. I got a couple of not bad shots but an abundance of blurred ones. I think that the cold made the focussing and shutter react more slowly.

As soon as most of the riders had passed we gathered our things together – I gave the blue and white van the finger as they pulled out, just in case they hadn’t understood my earlier shouted comments.

We scurried back to the campervan, dried off our cameras and flashes, and spread everything else out to dry. Luckily we have a good satellite signal so were able to watch the rest of the race on tv.

When I loaded my photos onto my ipad I picked out one of the better ones and showed it to Colin, who had to laugh – the team sponsor was the same company whose van it was that almost ran us over and stole our spot – ha ha! Well, it’s not the riders fault, and the van was not his ‘team support’ vehicle.

For the 16 days of racing we’ve seen so far this year today was the only day with such horrible weather – we’ve been very fortunate.

The sheep in the field below us were very funny – a lady walked across the pasture and a few followed her. She reached up to a lilac bush at the fence-line on the left, grabbed a few bunches and waved them at the sheep – they all came running and she led them into a different field. Who needs sheepdogs when you have lilac? The horses apparently don’t care as much for lilac as the sheep do – they ignored the lady and the running sheep and just kept grazing.

Once my shoes were dry I went for another little walk and saw another beautiful horse, some cute little calves and a couple of beautiful guard dogs.

A little more walking and I was near the big church – I found it kind of funny to have a children’s playground right next to the graveyard.

Back towards the campervan there’s a large map of the local hiking trails – lots of hikers come here. There’s more than one B&B in this little town and lots of trails connecting all of the nearby villages.

There’s also a helpful poster of the digestive system of a cow, just in case any of the hikers was wondering where the grass goes. Shortly after I returned from my walk Colin saw something moving in the field – I jumped out with my camera to have a look and it was a fox – a very large and scruffy one by the looks of it.

We left the campground around 10:30 to find a place to watch tomorrow’s race from – it poured rain almost the whole way. The first half of the race is pretty ordinary – going from Liege down to Bastogne with only one climb. The return trip to Liege is much more interesting – there are 10 categorized climbs and we headed to an area that has 3 of them within about 20 miles.

As soon as we reached to town of Vielsalm we started to see the race arrows so we just followed them. The second climb seemed promising as there was a small town just past the crest and there was even a paved parking area within easy walking distance. Since we were so close to the third climb we kept going so we could have a look at the stele to Eddy Merckx that is at the top – he won this race a record 5 times.

We had started to pass sportif riders now and then along the way, and the road was getting thick with them by the time we reached the town of Stavelot, which is the start of the climb. We started up the hill but turned back after only a short way – the road is extremely narrow and the sportif riders were in the way.

We drove back down and through the town, stopped for gas, then pulled over in front of another memorial. This one is to the miners, by which they mean the brave men who went and found and defused the land mines that the Germans planted everywhere as they retreated.

We pondered continuing to follow the race route to the next climb, but decided instead to go up to the Merckx stele on the road the race will come on. Still dodging sportif riders that were coming down we made it up after only one wrong turn. The view from the top is spectacular – you can see the town of Stavelot down below.

The stele is really neat and I’m very glad we made the effort to get to it. We actually parked on the side of the road and thought we might stay there for the race.

As we ate lunch we saw that more and more sportif riders were arriving – and we spent the next couple of hours marvelling at how stupid some of them were.

Many of them were stopping, of course, to see the stele, and they were just standing in the middle of the road even as cars were trying to pass by – the roads aren’t closed during sportifs, and there was no course marshall there or anything. Other riders that didn’t stop turned the sharp corner to the road down without even looking for oncoming traffic – I was sure one of them was going to get run over. And one stupid guy actually leaned his bike against Eddy’s on the stele, thinking maybe it would make an interesting selfie or something – Colin told him have some respect and move it.

Then there were the stupid drivers that were waiting for someone that was riding up – they could all use some parking lessons. One ignorant asshole actually parked right in the middle of the road – when I opened the campervan door and shouted at him to move he argued with me ‘cars can still get by’ and refused to move. Colin eventually had to go over to his window and explain that it was an open public road and he must move. I thought for a minute that Colin might get hit in the face but the jerk just wound up his window – he did end up moving, but was still half on the road.

The local people must just hate events like this, although we were surprised by their restraint in not honking and cursing as much as I would have. The stupidness of so many riders made me embarrassed and I decided I might have to email the organizers of the event to express my overall displeasure. I’ve seen many sportifs now and have several times been annoyed by the clogged roads, but never this disgusted.

I also wasn’t impressed with the garbage – many riders tried to hit the garbage can that was right there, but others didn’t bother. I went out with a large black bag and picked up a bunch of discarded gel wrappers, etc and put the bag next to the can.

And finally, what impressed me the least, was all the pissing that was going on. Riders stopping on the side of the road – at least they weren’t in the middle, small blessing I guess – pulling out their ‘equipment’ and letting loose a stream. It’s not just dogs that do that!

We decided we didn’t want to stay in that spot after all so once the throngs of sportif riders had thinned out a bit we went back down to Stavelot and re-traced the route back to the town of Wanne that is just past the one climb.

We tried out a couple of different places on the side of the road but weren’t satisfied. During this time we kept seeing vintage sports cars whizzing by – a nearby photographer confirmed that there was a rally happening. It seemed to mostly be beautiful old Porches, but there were also other makes.

We ended up back at the parking area at the end of the village. The rain had come and gone a few times, even hailing for a bit. Then, of course, the rainbow came.

We walked over to a lovely restaurant thinking to have a nice meal to celebrate Colin’s birthday which is tomorrow, but they were fully booked.

Across the road was a nice park area that has a small memorial to the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team USA, and there’s also a museum that’s open twice a week.

We’re right across the road from a lovely field full of sheep and a couple of horses – not a bad spot at all.