Thursday 8 August 2013 - Ivrea

We had a morning storm.  Terry went to the rowing course early.  Sharney and I had a quiet morning with a delicious leisurely breakfast and caught up on emails.  The other ladies went out to the rowing course to watch the racing.  After lunch, the sun came out and we ventured out for a walk around the streets near our hotel heading in the direction of the Castello de Pavone.  We stayed on the main street for a while passing the local pizzeria, shops, church and war memorial.  We then veered off the main road hoping to find the castle.  We passed a number of corn fields and finally saw the castle on a hill in the distance and headed in that direction.  We got as  close to it as we were able but it had a long steep driveway so we could only admire it from a short distance.  There were a number of old buildings that we saw including one large old building with a copper pipe out the front which we later learned was for central heating.  We began taking photographs of the building and the elderly owner came out and asked (in Italian) why we were taking photographs of her house.  Fortunately, we had our Italian dictionary/phrase book with us and we were able to tell her we admired the building because it looked so old.  She told us it was 1400 years old, the same age as the castle, to which she pointed.  We found this very interesting.  

Our walk lasted about four hours and was arduous and hazardous at times, especially for Sharney, because the footpaths were often uneven, if they existed at all.  When they didn’t, we took out chances on the roads.  It was a good way to see the near countryside which had many fields of corn.  It was also interesting to see some of the people.  We passed large notice boards telling of the deaths of local residents.  We returned to La Villa and excitedly told our landlady, Mara, about finding theold house the same age as the castle.  She dismissed this as of little importance “all the buildings here are old”.