18 Sep Imperia
Here, too, I had to leave the place at 10:00 at the latest, at such places I do not have breakfast, but look for the next supermarket and so I did it here, treated myself to a pizza corner, a drinking yogurt and a juice.
Then I set out on the path and it was very special today. It was, like the Vennbahn, a disused railroad line which was converted into a fantastic bike path, asphalted, without a pothole, with drinking water fountains, lots of tunnels, bars, bike rental stations, epic views and always along the sea. Even running was recreational. 25 km I ran today, already some yesterday and even if I continue to run again, I will walk a few more kilometers on it.
The trail was so beautiful and so easy to walk that I don’t know what else to write about it.
Okay, the tunnels, it was always exciting to go through them, some were also really long, one with music, another with info boards about the Giro Italia and the San Remo Milan bike race, their winners and so on.
The prospects would fill books if I were to describe them in detail. There was the normal path, to the left of it the car road and mountains, to the right steeply sloping rock, the railroad line and behind it, always the impressive sea. There were bays and capes. The capes were mystical, what was behind them, on one was a ruined castle. The bays were varied. Some were full of large boulders, others freely accessible for swimming, others had umbrellas and benches set up, which could be rented for a fee. The villages in the distance were not as picturesque as in France, but I was beginning to like their simplicity. I was impressed that such locations with a sea view are used to grow vegetables.
The place names also sound like music to the ear. There was San Remo, San Steffano, San Lorenzo, a directional sign pointed to Aurelia and my destination was Imperia.
Once in Imperia, the difficulty was to leave this dream path, because it was separated from the road and all the rest with a wall. I found a small, wild passage, climbed up the meter, careful not to be run over, because one was directly on the road, scurried across it and found directly the campsite. On the last meters to the reception I had very skeptical thoughts. “Well, that was easy today, a little too easy. This great bike path was full of people and among them many tourists, very often I heard German. The campsite is certainly fully booked.”
The reception was locked, you should ring the bell and wait, but I did not need to, at that moment a gentleman came and asked
“How many nights?”
“Two” I replied, not knowing the price.
“Okay, that’ll be a total of €32.”
“And how much does electricity cost?”
“What do they need electricity for?”
“To charge my devices and power my laptop.”
“I would have to take 4 euros for it, but ask another camper in the RV, there are a lot of Germans here.”
I left it at that for the time being. Set up my tent and started talking to the couples from Kiel who arrived at the same time. People from the German north are said to be somewhat cool, unapproachable. But this did not apply to Christel and Frank at all. We sat together all evening, in front of their VW bus, they bought me two Weizen and again great conversations ensued.
The next day, that is today =) I had to get electricity. I asked Frank if he had a power adapter and would lend it to me. No problem, a minute later I had adapter and extension cable in hand. Actually, you get these adapters, usually against some deposit borrowed from the campsite, but here they were only sold. I went to the campground boss, showed him the adapter and wanted to squeeze off the 4 euros, he waved and said: put the thing in and good. The campground boss here was not exactly bursting with smiles either, but still he was super accommodating, took care of everything right away and explained everything to you in detail!
Although it is getting more and more beautiful here in Italy, my motivation to go on is fading. I absolutely need the feeling of not knowing the end of the journey, then curiosity always comes around the corner and motivates me to peak performance. But now I know that this journey will be over in 5 running days. The journey that was to carry me over several years to Indonesia and South America. The journey that was my dream is now over. Yes, there is definitely another exciting journey coming. But at the moment the end of this journey is approaching. To have run this far is already something special, something special to build on even further, but it will soon be over. These thoughts sometimes drag me down quite a bit, as if I were throwing away something I had started. Of course, I also have the reason in mind, yet it doesn’t feel good right now. No I’m not sitting here moping, I’m totally aware of my happiness, I just can’t enjoy it with such a free feeling anymore.
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