Day 45: Parma, rain then sun, 20°

Rain ☔️!!

I woke up to the sound of rain on the road outside my window. I haven’t seen very much rain since Besançon, in fact on the entire walk. So far I’ve been amazingly fortunate with my weather. Yes there’s been lots of heat, lots! So far there’s been very little rain, almost none. As I sit here writing this post the rain has suddenly stopped and the sun has come out. Excellent! 

It’s just about 13:00 in the early afternoon and I’ve done all my running around. My hosts kindly left two umbrellas in the apartment. So with one umbrella in hand I headed out into the rain in search of a phone shop. My data plan expired at the end of the day yesterday, so I had to figure out the locations of places before I left my Wi-Fi behind. It turned out that the Tim location was incorrect on Google maps, but fortunately I found their new location in one of the main Piazzas. For just €20 I was able to get 50 G of data with 200 minutes of phone time for a whole month on a special tourist program. He told me no texting, but I find that difficult to understand. Still trying to sort this out. 

Phone operational again, I found a tourist information shop across the Piazza and I popped in for a visit and to get a stamp for my credential. What a great find! When all else fails I know that I can always get a stamp at the TI or City Hall, which I’ve done many times. The whole first page of my credential is now filled and I am now about to begin on the backside of it.

My feet were getting wet as I was only wearing my sandals. All I’d had for breakfast was a bit of yoghurt so I decided to do as the Italians do and stop in a little café for tea and a chocolate croissant. What a great idea! I was even provided with a teapot which has hardly ever happened during this walk. So while the rain poured outside I sat beside an open window and enjoyed a second breakfast.

My next chore was to find some food for tomorrow, specifically bananas to go with my yoghurt for breakfast and one to carry on the next stage. 

I came across a Saturday market and stood out of the rain watching the excitement of the shoppers. It seems to be the same worldwide.





I then stood at a restaurant window watching a fellow make ravioliI from scratch. I was having a really exciting day! Although he isn’t looking too excited😂

I had thought to stop at a couple of the museums to go inside and stay out of the rain. However, as usual that was everyone else’s plan too, so I decided to give that a pass. I may go out this afternoon as the museum should be quite quiet.

I found a little sandwich place and bought a couple of croissants with the special Parma ham stuffed into them. I took the sandwiches as take away and I later consumed them in my apartment. They were really good! Not only were there sandwiches, they also had lots of pastries and cakes. I didn’t touch, I just looked.

My wanderings weren’t quite done even at that point. While I really wasn’t interested in another church I decided to check the large church just behind the central cathedral. There wasn’t a whole lot to see in the church, at least in comparison to the cathedral.  

However, I found the cloisters and a very special library room in the building attached to the church. 

An elderly fellow who spoke a little English walked me around the library, explaining that two young artists painted the entire room over a two year period. They apparently worked 24 hours a day, every day of the week. I’m not sure how they managed the speed, but it’s quite stunning to look at. 

From the library it was a quick tour of the cloisters.

I then headed back to my little apartment to eat my lunch and write this blog post. As I said, the sun is now out and fairly soon I’ll head back outside for a walkabout. I made a reservation tonight at the little restaurant where I had lunch yesterday. Costanza arrives a few minutes after six tonight and from the train station we will drop off her gear before heading out and get our dinner. 

I’ve been in touch with several of my Camino friends who are walking today. They report that they are in the mountains and it’s raining. No complaining, at least not yet. There’s a good chance that in a day or two we will catch up and reconnect with this group. I hope so. 

That’s about it from here. I’ll get this cleaned up and posted and then go back out for a walk. Tomorrow is a tough day and I want to have everything ready before Costanza arrives. I’m actually looking forward to getting back on the VF. It always feels strange when you take a break, but usually its just a day off. This break has been three days with time well spent as was my intention.