(PS if you tap our photos you will get a short caption/description.)

From an “ancient” city to a small agricultural town about halfway to Piacenza. Last night we ate out next door to our hostel (after we had watched the washing machine and then the tumble dryer 🥱). The proprietress was born on the Isle of Wight (😳) and she has memorabilia on the wall of the 1970 Isle of Wight music festival (and some great 60/70s vinyl album covers). She went to the festival as a child. According to Wikipedia “The 1970 event was by far the largest of these early festivals; indeed it was said at the time to be one of the largest human gatherings in the world, with estimates of over 600,000, surpassing the attendance at Woodstock.” Who knew! 😳. She said the island ran out of food and the law got changed to prevent gatherings of more than 5,000!

In the morning we surprised ourselves at agreeing that it actually wasn’t raining. Not that this stopped us wearing waterproofs - not now it’s a habit 😂.

We passed by the remaining “famous” medieval towers of Pavia. It used to have a leaning tower, but eventually it leant too far in 1989, collapsed and hasn’t been rebuilt. But it did persuade the authorities to stop Pisa’s tower from leaning too far. Every cloud…

We left Pavia on the Via Francigena and tracked that for most of the day (so we have now tracked it all the way from Canterbury so far).

The countryside on the Po cycle route is FLAT, very flat. Assuming you can see far enough through the mist, you would only see a church tower or grove of poplars. This means it is fast easy cycling. Unless you are on a muddy flood bank when we pick our way through the puddles with care.

As the morning progressed we began to trust our senses and slowly removed our waterproofs and even fleeces. Actually it was almost balmy. Order and sense prevailed during the afternoon as we spotted a dark grey cloud and we got preventatively dressed again. (But it didn’t rain 😱 after all)

We knew we had a shorter day today and we were more relaxed in the warmth. So mid-morning we stopped for a cake. And then had an ice cream as well. And then a coffee. And then stared through the window of another pasticceria at more cakes. But that was closed! All in the same town 🙄. We marvelled curiously at the abandoned ancient buildings, including a castle, clustering in the main square. 🤷🏻‍♂️.

We spotted about 20 sacred Ibis (birds) in a rice field. We were excited but apparently they are an “escaped” species and a pest. 🤷🏻‍♂️

So we made our destination early in the afternoon and drank beer for a while before splitting to different hotels. Being Easter week, hotels were getting booked up so we couldn’t manage it for all four of us in the same hotel on this occasion. Ruth and Masoud were in a “luxury motel” out of town with indoor swimming pool jacuzzi gym etc. We were in a traditional family hotel a few km away in the old town.

The evening weather forecast was dreadful with several severe weather warnings including wind, rain and thunder. So we agreed to eat separately rather then cycle in the dark through the weather. R&M went for room service and we popped round the corner to a Japanese restaurant. Nice change for us. Our meal finished with an impressive Easter egg made of sugar and filled with a white mousse and lemon curd yolk all on a nest of chocolate twigs. 😍😍😍.