April 10 -- heading south east

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This was one of the best country roads we saw.  Two full lanes, and a bit of shoulder.

Crespellano and Bologna are towns; the autostrade is comparable to the US interstate,  though all of the autostrade we saw was toll road.

SP is for strada provinciale (provincial road, like a state road in the US).  Vignola is the name of this area, as well as the name of the town near Fattoria l'Alpenice.

And I have no idea what the 28 is.

Very typical country signage.

The blue ones are all places, with distances in kilometers.

The agritourismi all wanted to be paid in cash, rather than taking credit cards, so we decided to get some more cash.  It occurred to us that every village had a bank; we could get cash in any of them.....

Well, maybe.......  The first place we stopped, someone else was using the ATM when I walked up.  He was there for a while, so I took pics.

Daffodils.

Mint and thyme, in front of the bank.

The man who was trying to use the ATM gave up in frustration, and indicated I should try.

It told me that my account would not accept any more withdrawals that day.

The first time I saw this message, it was disconcerting.  That's just the sort of message you'd see if someone were pilfering from your account.....  But I had seen the message before, and knew that the next machine I tried would probably give me some cash.  The man was waiting to see what happened to me, so I told him it wouldn't give me any, either.  He did not speak English, but I don't know that he was Italian.  He might have been German or something.....

We drove on to the next little town, and tried their bank.  The ATM was inside the bank, and I had to be buzzed in..........  Ok......................  But that machine was happy to give me 150 euro, so I was victorious.



My daughter and Ugo, waiting around the corner (no parking directly in front of that bank).

Here we are on the autostrade.  More signage we can recognize.

I don't know what it means that the wheelchair is orange, but I bet it means "not accessible."  We'll bet we know what the gas pumps and silverware mean.

We didn't stop at this rest stop, but we stopped later.

Lots of walls next to the autostrade.  Annoying to photographers, but I suppose they keep someone safer?  Quieter?  I don't know.

Tunnel.  The sign says "Pay attention.  Workers."

Driving through the hill.

Lots of tunnels.  Sometimes we'd exit one and head right straight into the next.  Maybe with just a moment to notice a white hilltop.  This hill looks like rock, not gravel.

The day got nicer, and the view was interesting.

Wow.

At one point we were bottled up behind this huge tank being transported ... somewhere.  No room to pass, in the tunnel!

Remember what I said, when I was in Venice, about Italians and nice, neat wiring?  Look at the wires which are visible in this image, above and beside the tunnel entrance.  Nice, neat.  Square corners.  Nothing sloppy about it!  (as always, click on an image to embiggen)


In order to facilitate chronological traversal of these posts, here is a link to the next post.

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