Parking adventures

---

Geo: 44.6984, 10.63

Any day that brings you a view of the Italian countryside from your hotel window can't be all bad.

This morning fit that description just dandy. Throw open the wooden window covers, and gaze out onto rolling hills, all green and a tiny touch dewy.

Our goal for the day was to catch the Giro stage 11 as the boys tackled the first categorized climb.

The Passo della Calla is a "cat 3", meaning it's not all that terrible, comparatively. 16 km in length, about 850 meters (about 2,790 feet) in elevation gain, and an average grade of 5.2%. Easy peasy (if you're a pro).

After stopping at a local grocery store to grab something for a lunch (peanut butter and bread, with a banana, 2 Cokes and 2 huge bottles of water), we were on our way into the National Forest. Boy, was that a beautiful drive. Tons of tall trees, so that there was often a bit of a canopy effect.

We pulled up to the KOM ("King of the Mountains"😉 point, where they award a few extra points in the climbing category to the first 4 guys across the line. There was one last space at the end of a line of cars, so we pulled in, grabbed our stuff, and headed off to find a good vantage point.

The spot we chose ended up being right at the start of the barriers that they put up later, which works pretty well for us -- little chance of being crowded back onto the hill by other spectators.

I went back to the car to get something, and was advised by the area officials -- park rangers, perhaps? -- that I needed to move my car. Seems there was an unsigned reason that there was a space at the end of that line of cars.

I moved it just down the hill, to a nice pull-off area, just past the 2 signs which indicated no parking between them. Still not a bad spot.

Dejo decided to take his bike (our rented hybrid mountain bike -- not one you'd normally choose for a long climb) and go down the hill just a little, and ride back.

We'd been up there for a couple of hours by then, so Dejo went up to the top of the hill to see if they had Portia-potties around. While he was away, I noticed an official-looking man asking people something, group by group. I had this....feeling. I opened up my Google Translate app, and typed in a question for it to translate into Italian for me.

"Scusi, stai cercando il proprietario di un'auto?" ("Scusi, are you looking for the owner of a car?"😉
"Si, si!!"

I got out my rental car key, and they informed that it was me they were looking for.

He was just coming up from the other side of the hill, looking for me, as the police were about to ticket -- and then probably tow -- our car. One of the local officials was very nice to him, noticing his American accent. He learned we were from Colorado, and was naturally a little friendlier to us (he'd cycled there previously, and just loved it).

As we were starting to turn our car around to head up the side road where we *could* park, the police came by, being quite shouty.
Our new friend helped explain that we were moving the car, but they didn't want us to go an inch further until we had lowered the bike rack that was sticking out, posing a hazard to anyone who might walk into it.

After finally getting the rack just removed altogether (we had decided to move the bikes into the car yesterday, for better sight lines), we found a spot and headed back to our vantage point.

Then the race came through, and we left.
The End.

Just kidding. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful (for us, anyway -- I'm sure the pro cyclists had plenty to talk about). We found our way to Barberino di Mugello, where our next hotel was booked.

We walked around this nice little town, and as we hadn't spotted any place that really grabbed our attention for dinner, we hopped in the car to head for a well-reviewed place just out of town.

Well, just 15 minutes out of town.
And....um.....closed for the day.

Back to town.

That pizza place across from the hotel looks okay, let's try that.

It was really tasty, and we could've saved ourselves about half an hour by just going there first.
Ah, well.

A little local news on the TV ("Did they just say Trump was loco in the cabesa??"😉 awhile, and off to try to sleep on the firmest mattress I think I've ever met.

---

Photos

Our view of the first KOM point of the stage
Just to the right of this was our first parking spot. Just past it ( over the crest of the hill) was out 2nd spot.

Gnorm visits his first Italian mountain pass
The Passo dello Calla

Gnorm and the Giro trophy!
Well, a Gnorm-sized version of it, anyway.....