Giro D’Italia

Also on Sunday the 18^th as I was headed into the center I saw a fellow with one of those yellow vests used to draw attention to themselves( and avoid being run over by someone) at the intersection of my street, via Orsoni, and Via Saragozza. I asked why he was there and he said that the Giro d’Italia was coming through in the afternoon sometime around 2:30. I also noted something at the bus stop that said the buses would be stopped in the afternoon starting at noon until about 4:00 so I guess when they made the bus schedule when they were substantially less certain about the arrival time. So since it was after 12:00 I had a lot of walking ahead of me before I would be likely to find a bus and after that a walk to the center since buses never go very close to the center on weekends. Ah well, a good day for a passeggiata (walk) . Likewise on the way back the buses, of course weren’t running along Saragozza so I walked through a nearby neighborhood and found some lovely parts of it. It’s very quiet there with little traffic and lots of trees. I stumbled upon a nice little park that’s probably not well known outside the neighborhood even to those that live in other parts of Bologna.

Sign for the hidden garden/park

Another elegant house from the same neighborhood

House in the quiet neighborhood. Looks like a fountain in front.

As I approached Saragozza I saw some police cars and then police motorcycles go past with the flashing blue lights that they use here rather than red so I knew that I lucked out and the cyclists were due to arrive soon. At first a fairly small group came through followed by what seemed to be one car per cyclist with a bunch of bicycles atop each car. “well, that was underwhelming I thought” but people kept hanging around so I knew that there must be more to it. Then a large number of cyclists came through, maybe 50 or 60 again followed by a like number of cars with 3 or 4 ambulances following “just in case”. Most wheeled vehicle races seem pretty boring to me and this one probably is too unless you’re REALLY into cycling but you must admire the stamina of these guys.

The leaders of the pack

And their support vehicles

The larger group coming through

More support vehicles

And should something bad happen

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 25th, 2014 at 2:37 am and is filed under Culture, Travel, Vehicles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.