Walking with Angels. Fiorenzuola to Fidenza

We grazed the breakfast Buffett several times since it was included in the rent and they even had bacon and scrambled eggs. Our stuff us fairly well dried out although the boots are heavier than normal. The rain is still pouring down so it will be ponchos over the gore jacket and pants. We have somewhere in the low 20 km to go today. Since we just follow the VF indicators wherever they go, we really don't know what the distance really is. We had the receptionist speak to our contact in Fidenza and they are going to provide half board(evening meal as well as breakfast) for 10E each extra on top of the $45E. We rolled into Fidenza at 3:15pm and walked right to the Albergo Ugolini. The room is clean and the bedding looks okay, so were happy. We fought a heavy downpour most of the way today. We had put on our ponchos before we started today but rain with some wind gets pretty much into everything. My boots are completely soaked through to the insoles. They were okay for the first couple of hours and then with the amount of rain coming down, they eventually were water logged.

There is no hair dryer here so it is towels and newspapers into the boots. Half way here we were walking along a gravel road wondering if this was the right road, when we spotted a yellow pilgrim cutout on a sign in the driveway. We stopped to look and their dog barked and out came the owner.

He asked if we wanted a coffee and we said yes, that would be nice. Down went the packs in the garage and into the house for coffee which eventually turned into a pasta dinner with wine, local salami and parmasean cheese. Massimo and Claudia are middle school teachers and this was their day off work. Massimo has been welcoming pilgrims as they pass by his house. We signed the guest book and promised to email them so they can follow our blog. After an hour we were back on the trail toughening out the heavy rain all the way to Fidenza which seemed to get farther away the closer we got. Tomorrow we start to climb in the Apennines. It is a short day tomorrow but it will be using some tracks that with all this rain could make for some interesting moments. You don't get this on a cruise.