My research in Spain

Many people have been asking me about my research, so here’s the abbreviated version:

Italy part 3: Cinque Terra with Kas

Part 3 of the adventure in Italy with Kas. The search for Kas, hiking in Cinque Terra, beaches, caves, and missing trains.

Italy Part 2: Milan to Genova by foot…

I landed in Milan at 11 AM on Thursday, and was supposed to meet Kas on Friday around midnight, which gave me about 36 hours to do whatever I wanted before meeting her in Genova, which is 150 km south of Milan (See run map here). I went to the grocery store, and bought a whole bunch of sugary stuff, and started running south.

It was on my road down that I realized how often Italians are willing to get out of their way to help a stranger out. A man walked me 30 minutes to a bus stop, and bought me a bus ticket when he found out that I was running the wrong direction within Milan. Some people gave me the tour of Pavia. I was fed a couple times, offered rides and places to stay.

Once I exited Milan and found the SS35 country road that parallels the highway and the train to Genova, it was a straightforward, but long, commute. For the first 80 km, the landscape was fairly plain. Once I reached Tortona in the late evening, things started becoming more interesting.

I arrived in the Tortona, and loved it right away. People were smiling at me as I was walking around the streets. A bunch of jolly elderly gentlemen call me over for a good conversation, with their English as good as my Italian. They were very curious how I could be warm in shorts and a little tank top, and I told them about my adventure. I asked them where I could clean myself, and they directed me to a secluded public fountain. I washed myself and my clothing, left the clothing in the courtyard to dry, and went about walking about the city to eat supper. The architecture was very interesting, there were arches everywhere, and fun statues to play around with. I ate some delicious pizza, took some time to rest, changed into my clean but damp running clothing, and ran for a little more out of the city until I found a nice cozy jungle gym to sleep in.

I put on my suit jacket, a pair of long pants, my gloves and tuque, and go to sleep. I was awakened by some church bells at 5 AM, and couldn’t fall back asleep because my feet were freezing. My socks were still damp with sweat, and I needed to find a way to warm up.

I ate half a pie, a couple bananas, and chocolate for breakfast. My muscles were tight, I was low on sleep, and I still had 70 km to go. My waist and lower back were bruised from the hip straps on my backpack, and my shoulders were sore from the weight that I carried. For a couple minutes, just a couple minutes, I regretted having chosen to run from Milan to Genova instead of paying 10 Euros for the train. An early start may be necessary to prevent myself from running when the sun is high, and I needed a buffer because I knew that I would be running slower that day.

The sun wasn’t up yet, and the road was a bit misty, but I could make out the shapes of the small mountains in the horizon. The roads were well lit, so I figured that it was time to start my journey. Within a few hours, I arrived in Scribia, and had my second breakfast, and told myself, one marathon left. I kept running and found out that the breakfast was not filling enough since I was starving an hour later. I had nothing but bananas left, I had forgotten to refill my water bottle in the previous town, I was out of Powerade, and I was 5 km from any town.

A elderly lady was about to enter her house when I asked her in broken Italian where I could eat. She told me to wait, and within a couple minutes, she came out with a sandwich—and a beer—for me. Beer would be the absolute worst thing for my run, so I told her what I was doing, so she went back in the house and brought back another sandwich and carbonated orange juice. I was extremely grateful, but for those who know me, I can’t drink anything carbonated, so I asked if she could re-fill my water bottle. She told me that there was no running water in her house, and that I would need to fill by the fountain that ran off the mountains. Once everything was done, I kept on my route.

I arrived in Genova around 5 PM, looked around, saw the rocky beaches, and went on a quest to find a place to wash up. After searching for a few hours, I gave up on finding a nice spot like the previous day, so I washed up in the water geyser fountains in Ferrari square. It must have been an interesting sight for the locals to see a buy in his swimsuit washing himself and his clothing at night in a public square. I needed to dry my clothing, so I put a metal street barricade in the middle of the square to hang up my clothing along with a food wrap rope that I had received with lunch. Unfortunately, I didn’t take a picture of it, but it was in the middle of this square.

At 11:30 PM, I figured that it was time to meet Kas, and let my adventure in Italy begin…

Italy part 1: Bring clothes or take them from robbers

I found a suitably cheap plane ticket to Italy in the evening but the problem was that this plane was leaving early next morning, before the Spanish train system can bring from Ciudad Real to Madrid, so that meant that I had to leave the very same night at 9:30 PM.