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Published: June 30th 2017
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Geo: 45.3247, 8.42378
Since we were staying here a 2nd night, we had the whole day to do with as we pleased. We could drive to the mountaintop finish, or a hill on the way up to I, we could aim for a feed zone (though this was a short stage, and didn't have an official one), or we could watch the race come through town (there was a sprint point here).
We decided to keep our amazing parking spot, and not drive anywhere. Since the race wouldn't be here until at least 3 pm, we had all morning to do something crazy, like take in some local sights as if we were tourists.
We walked over to the Basilica di Sant'Andrea, which was really awesome. There are some amazingly preserved frescoes, and it's the first place where I've really gotten a feel for how the older churches must have looked originally.
We also visited the local cathedral, which was pretty impressive as well.
But enough of that....there's a race coming to town! 😊
We popped into the local grocery store (a Carrefour, which brought back memories of the Tour de France), and grabbed a couple of pre-made salami sandwiches, sort of (using large tortillas as the
Beautiful basilica
Most of what looks like bricks in here is actually painted. And there are lots of frescos that are nicely preserved. Worth a visit! bread). We found the sprint point, but decided that it might be more interesting to watch them take a corner out of a roundabout. It's the sort of location that might see some riders taking the wrong way out of the traffic circle, which could prove fun to watch.
Nobody got out of line, as it turns out.
A park bench in the shade was the perfect spot to eat lunch, and people-watch. And cover our ears when the carovana stopped in front of us.
The race came by, and left, with no incidents. We had our eye on another pink arrow sign -- one showing a roundabout! -- and were about to cross the street to liberate it, when an official race car pulled up, someone got out, and when they got back in the car, the arrow was going. Lickety-split. We had no chance. So, that'll need to factor into our planning for future stages.
Since our hotel room has access to the local sports channel that shows the Giro, we came back to the room to watch the rest of the race. Normally, I frown on watching much TV on vacation in a foreign country, but seeing as how we were
Beautiful frescoes
As far as would could determine, these hadn't been restored. Pretty amazing. here for the Giro, it seemed reasonable to watch it on TV.
For dinner, we walked into the piazza a couple of blocks away, to try our luck at a well-reviewed restaurant. It was booked for the evening. The bar/cafe nearby looked good, so we found our way to a table on the patio. That's where the good vibes stopped. The waitress had zero patience for my poor comprehension skills when it comes to spoken Italian. Had I been looking at a written menu, I think I'd have done okay. But we did manage to order 2 beers, and I think we agree to the only food they had, which was a selection of snacks (chips, peanuts, focaccia and a bite of pizza). It was all well and good, but we weren't feeling like struggling with the language much more that evening. Back to the Carrefour to grab some peanuts, some crackers, and a couple of sodas, and we spent the rest of the evening on our terrace, catching up on notes and blogs.
But we were just above the outdoor seating for the restaurant here, so that sort of counts as going out. Right?
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