DAY 167 - DEXENZANO DEL GARDA TO BESCIA: 21.4 MILES (41,800 STEPS)

6 October, 2011

21.4 miles (Total: 1672.7 miles) 41,800 steps (Total: 3,647, 001 steps)

I really didn’t feel like walking for a whole number of reasons, some physical and some emotional.  I climbed the long 17 mile hill out of Desenzano to connect with the SS11 towards Brescia, hoping to make through to find somewhere to stay on the north side ready for a good start the next day.

I dispensed with my usual prayer, ‘Give us this day our daily bed’, and instead asked for a sign to encourage my spirits. Amazingly about 10km along the SS11, there it was right in front of me “IKEA—Brescia—Tangenziale sud—14km”—my mouth started watering at the thought of tucking into a plate of Swedish meatballs, fries and cranberry jelly that evening. I imagined that there would be an IKEA and close to it, would be some Ibis style motel. I am an optimist, but it kept me going and I saw the kilometre markers clicking down until I was only 7km away and then the SS11 turned into duel carriageway and there was a large sign banning pedestrians.

So not only were the Swedish meatballs going up in smoke, but I had a 6km detour to connect with the b-road into Brescia. It was morale sapping—but then I arrived into Bresicia and clearly the fact that I had traded my usual prayer for an IKEA sign, was a decision which was to come to haunt me now as every B&B and hotel I visited was full. I walked on, and on and was told that I should try Novotel as they always held a few rooms in reserve for loyalty club members and if I was prepared to wait, then I might be okay. It was a stretch for the budget, but I wasn’t in the mood for a bus shelter so I went.

As expected, they announced they were full, but I said that I was prepared to wait to see if there were any cancellations or loyalty club members that didn’t appear. It was a very smart place and the idea of having an unshaven, smelly backpacker in their bar area did not appeal at all, a fact which they made quite clear—I decided to take the hint and move away from the busy areas so as to inflame their spirit of generosity in letting me wait for a room.

Having behaved myself outside for a while, I saw that the reception was quiet and so thought I might just pop back in to explain a little of my mission – a tactic which has worked well in the past. I got one of those looks as if to say—“you’ve been outside for over an hour and that’s the best you can come up with….” and the answer seemed to be firming up.

I saw that they had wi-fi, so I asked if I might at least have a password so as to look online to see if I could find any rooms—“to get a password you need a room—you don’t have a room so you can’t have a password.” Okay, but wi-fi access is like tap water, it is on tap and free to them, but could be a life saver for me. They stood firm—“that is company policy” which must go down as the dying words of every organisation. (I should stress that the reception staff were always courteous and pleasant even when patiently dishing out difficult news for the fourth time.)

It was after 9PM so running out of options I thought that perhaps if I got one of the support team to call to verify what I was doing and appeal to their better instincts or at least to their manager to show a little mercy. I have never done this before in over five months on the road, but I judged that this was a long shot which in this setting might just might work.

I called Xuelin, who has more nice tenacity than anyone else I know: she was onto it in a flash and before I could say anything I saw the phone flashing at reception, a detailed conversation and then another person being summoned to the phone. “Good old Xuelin”, I thought that should swing it, but then Xuelin called and said that they were not going to move so she had found a room on the web a bit out of the city that was half the price of Novotel, it had been paid for in full and a taxi was on its way and would bring me back to the Novotel the next morning to recommence the walk.

It was a great answer—I collapsed into the taxi and we drove for about twenty minutes, and as I drifted in and out of sleep I would imagine that the new hotel that I was going to, would be right next to IKEA and Thursday would be late night opening—sometimes being an optimist can be an occupational hazard.

That night I prayed to give thanks for being blessed with wonderful friends like Xuelin and my  support team and resolved that tomorrow I would go back to my more traditional prayer of ‘Give us this day our daily bed.’…. but if I could pass IKEA on my route out of the city at around lunchtime, then that would be a nice little bonus.