DAY 183 - SAN VITTORE OLANA TO SOMMA LOMBARDO: 19.5 MILES (39,000 STEPS)

22 October, 2011

19.5 miles (Total 1773.5 miles) 39,000 steps (Total: 3,850, 601 steps)

This was about as routine a day as it is possible to have, with a couple of exceptions. I had lost my map, in fact having lost very little on the walk so far I must have had a memory lapse and left my maps, my pedometer, my camera case, my two wooden clothes pegs and my red sun hat somewhere in one go. I had travelled for six months and had only lost one item, my headphones, but I left them in Starbucks, Athens when we were literally thrown out onto the street during a riot as stones began to be hurled at Starbuck’s—when I returned the headphones were gone. To lose six/seven items in one place was a bit unnerving: was my mind beginning to go or had it finally gone (don’t answer that for now, just humour me till I get home and then break the news).

To add to my woes I purchased a cheap pedometer, only to find the instructions were only in Chinese and Italian (what happened to the EU Language Directive there guys?) and then the map I bought, which had a cellophane cover to stop people opening it in the shop, actually ended at the point where I was.  I realised this only on Sunday when of course the shop and Italy itself are closed and I couldn’t buy another one.  So I decided to carry on, thinking I only have to stick with the SS 33 and that will take me straight to Somma Lombardo, but I took a wrong turn in Gallarate and it was 4km before I realised.  Those 4km back were some of the longest kilometres of the walk as I began to blame the shop that had sold me the map, the hotel which had lost my original map (‘Oh, it was the hotel that lost the map Sir did they? Was the hotel lost, or perhaps after standing in the same place for a hundred years it woke up one morning and was curious to find out where it was relative to San Vittore Olana ’ I hear a Basil Fawlty type voice uttering). Then I heard someone say in a very gentle voice, sounding rather little like my mum—‘As you didn’t have a map, might it have been a good idea to perhaps ask someone to make sure you were on the right road?’ This is of course true, but sometimes when you do take a wrong turn in your travels or in life generally there is nothing like a bit of blame to give you the spit to turn around and get back on the right path.

I arrived in Somma Lombardo and found that there was a McDonalds, who of course never close and are fully staffed with burgers on the grill even when there are no customers because they are all at home with their friends and family (that’s great American productivity for you). I drowned my sorrows in a Diet Coke and Chicken Nugget ‘Happy meal’. I wasn’t so sure about the curry and salsa dip, but it was warm, dry and had wi-fi, so I could tap the Italian instructions for the pedometer into Google translate and check my wrong turn on Google maps—things were looking up..