March 23, 2023 - Walked to Saulnierville

Today we again took the tram to the end of line 1. Most of the day we were on narrow roads that were mostly uphill, or it seemed that way. They were outside of the city limits with high stone walls and one-way traffic. So didn’t see as much as we were expecting during our geocaching outing, but we did reach our goal of walking the equivalent of from Dieppe to Saulnierville and that is with a week left to go. Saulnierville is 505 km from Dieppe. By mid afternoon we had reached the 505 km marker.

We are walking downhill, but see where we will need to climb coming up.

The climb was worst than we thought. We saw a sign at the bottom of the hill indicating a 20 degree slope.

Pruning time for olive trees.

We stopped for lunch at the only place that we saw. There wasn’t much to choose from. We each had a plate of reheated pasta that was actually very good and shared a beer. When it was time to go to the bathroom you had to go downstairs on steps that were more like a ladder. I didn’t notice but Jacques did notice that the ceiling was very low when he bumped his head. It was dark even though the owner had put on the lights. No toilet seat on the bowl and the sink was outside in the dark but plenty of hot water. It was quite the experience.

The only place that would have been picture worthy was the university which has a beautiful park, but it is closed to the public. We did sneak in one minute for a quick picture. We stopped at another entry point and asked if it was possible to enter the grounds for pictures and was told that you need a special permission if you are not a student there. It looked like it was a huge park. The guard at the gate told me it was called New York university. I must have misunderstood the name because it really does not make sense unless it’s an Italian word that sounds like New York.

University entrance.

Grounds of the university. 

On the way back, traffic was lined up for as far as we could see. We saw the reason why when we saw a Ducati in the middle of the road and a van. The police were there marking the pavement with yellow chalk where the Ducati had crashed, and the van was parked. The police almost look like space travelers with their helmets and side arms (probably tasers) and navy and white outfits. There didn’t seem to be much damage to either vehicle.

This is just a part of the police officers on site investigating the minor accident. It is almost like "How many people do you need to change a light bulb?"

Rollande liked their space age helmets.

Different view of the Duomo.

Don't know what this empty glass house is but would make a perfect place to grow tomatoes.

Nice stone work in the steps.

Canal running through the city.

You see these fresh drinking water fountains everywhere in Italy. Decided to try one today.

Fountain behind Fortezza da Basso.

Fortezza da Basso.

We sat on the patio for a while until it turned cooler before coming down to the living room.