Tuesday, July 21st (2009):
Tuesday morning, I finished packing and then walked to the tiny center of the tiny town of Coccaglio to take some photos.
Katia made a delicious pasta with mozzarella and pomodori (tomatoes) for lunch. After lunch, we drove to Piazza Cavour in Rovato. These are photos I took of the piazza of Rovato and the tower on Saturday.
Katia’s friend Andrea, the mayor of Rovato, whom I had dinner with on Saturday and spent time with in Bergamo on Sunday, arranged for us to obtain the key to the door of the tower in the center of town.
I was so excited that I was allowed to climb this bell tower – a tower that is not open to the public for climbing.
What I realized after we opened the door and I stepped inside was that because this tower was not open to the public, it was not a well kept tower. Katia waited at the bottom as I began my climb. The steps were very dirty and there were lots of feathers everywhere. It reminded me of my Torre delle Ore climb in Lucca I did earlier in the trip. This time though I found a dead bird on one of the steps. Ewwww!! I kept climbing a little bit more and then saw what looked like a hole in a step. I chickened out and headed back down. Here’s the only photo I took while inside the bell tower in Rovato…
My climb to the top was not going to happen. For the first time ever, I decided against climbing to the top of a tower in Italy.
We drove back to Coccaglio and spent a little time with Katia’s mom. We said our goodbyes and then we went back to Katia’s house to gather my bags. We stopped at Guido’s workplace so I could say goodbye and then we drove to the train station.
I was planning to take the 15:47 train from Rovato to Milano. When we arrived at 15:36, we realized that the train departed at 15:37 and not 15:47. I must have mixed up the time with the Verona train time from the day before. No way would I have made it down and then up the stairs to get to binario 2. I learned my lesson once already regarding running for a train and falling in Pisa during this trip and was not going to do that again.
It was not a big deal at all to miss the 15:37 train. The train I was taking was a regional train, so my ticket would work just as well for the train arriving at 16:37. Instead, my mix up on the train schedule gave me more time with Katia. We hung out at the train station for the next hour waiting for my train to arrive. It was so nice having an extra hour of quiet time chatting with Katia before I left.
When the train arrived, we said our goodbyes. Katia helped me with my bags as I boarded the train. It’s always so hard to say goodbye…
Thank you again Katia & Guido for your generosity and for a wonderful time together!
*Almost 9 years later, my 2009 trip report if finally complete! (last 2 posts after this were written back in 2009)
shave ice & gelato 