It's time for the fat lady to sing

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Asti was nice to walk around both in the evening and during the day.

I prefer old cities with a bit or a lot of history to glass and concrete and skyskrapers.

The hotels breakfast was ok , not German style but ok.

The breakfast hostess was alaugh though, some old tart dressed up to kill with 12 cm heels and made up to go, a red lamp would have made it complete.

Last day are boring, you just mope about waiting for your train, ferry,flight.

I decided on taking a detour to Alessandria, to check it out for future reference.

France has nice name for it's cities but methinks that Italy beats the frogs hands down.

Costliglioe d'Asti, Nizza Monferato, Aquiterme. Inchisa Scappino, Castel nuovo Belbo just to mention a few.

Note to self: most places are closed on mondays, so no open wineries, wail.

but it's very beautiful in Piemonte.

hving very limited access to computors I booked my train trip in Asti on thehotels one and only machine and took a pic of the screen with my booking number thinking this would be ok.

The lady in charge at the train station in Alessandria almost had a nervous breakdown and generally was the caricature of a distraught Italian, about the only she did not do was pulling her hair.

Not having papers was a disaster no less.

I told her I didn't care I could easily stay another week or so in Piemonte.

She : No no you can't stay you have a ticket.

Me : let me board the train then.

She: no you have to wait because you don't have a ticket.

Me: I don't give a ......( fill in nice expletive)

She: Come back in a couple of hours.

Two hours later I come back and then she's really distraught and totally stressed out, what a laugh.

I'm told to come back in another two hours, I ask another lady who's hanging around where I can get a sip of the local plonk, and get directions and recommendations of what to drink.

That lady is cool and tells me not to worry and drink my wine in peace

The plonk is ok, so just to be sure I have another glass, equally ok.

Long before my two hours are up the nice lady comes and fetches me.

But I still got and hour I say, no no come back now the train lady is just about to have a rupture.

In the end I get on the train with a hand written ticket, so much for orderly paper work.

I give my two Italian friends a kiss on the cheek and I'm off, I want to stay, keep on riding.

Keep on having fun....

The kid on my motorbike is some German or other who really looked as he'd like to sit on my bike.

His legs are a bit short for when he stops at the red lights.

Bye for now

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