Continuing our journey towards north Italy, we stopped at three villages for a quick visit, just a few kilometers away from Modena: Vignola, Castelvetro and Spilamberto. All three were very nice, although each of them gave us very different impressions. Apparently every place generates different vibrations influencing thus our judgment beyond its proper aesthetic beauty. Or, perhaps, it is just the fact that we are becoming really peculiar :)
The fortress of Vignola gave us good impression on first sight. We left our camper van in the ample parking lot right in front of it [44.47559,11.0113] and we reached the castle through a pedestrian underpass. We just crossed a few hundred meters and we found ourselves in the Middle Ages!
The castle is open every day except Monday, with a break at lunchtime. The entrance is free. The interior is truly gorgeous, you can lose yourself for hours going up and down the the towers and wandering in the endless corridors.
The frescoed rooms complete the absolutely recommended visit.
Obviously the parking lot of Vignola would be a perfect place for sleeping. We, however, after the tour of the castle, prefered to move in Spilamberto.
We found a parking lot just next to the police station and close to the center [44.53296,11.02132] and we took a stroll round the apparently small but nice village. We checked the opening times of the museum of balsamic vinegar to be prepared for our visit the next day. We spent a quiet night and early in the morning we went to the museum … I think that I have never seen such rude and snobby behavior from the employees of a museum.. It seems that they welcome only groups of tourist, not individuals. They didn’t let us enter because they were waiting a group! The worst was that as it was weekend they were fully booked! That information was nowhere to be found neither on their website nor in their brochure! We didn’t want to taste the traditional balsamic vinegar! We just wanted to visit the museum… We left very disappointed; fortunately after a few hundred meters we entered the small but interesting archaeological museum of the village located in the tower (free admission). What a completely different air! A very polite and well-informed employee accompanied us as we viewed the exhibits explaining everything with enthusiasm and knowledge. Not to be missed 🙂
Anyway, the damage has been done and we left Spilamberto in a bad mood…
We headed towards our next destination , Castelvetro of Modena, where we would like to take advantage of the camper service [44.50935, 10.94858]. We walked past it without seeing it the first time, because it is located in the open space in front of a workshop, or so it seems from the street, as it was covered plants. However, everything was working perfectly…
We arrived in the parking lot of the cemetery [44.50204,10.94229] and we went for a walk in the village. It looked like it was abandoned. No one was on the streets, the shops were closed … At last we met a woman who confirmed us that the village exists. She also told us that they will have a kind of festival the next weekend and they were expecting a lot of tourists to attend🙂
Before returning to our car, we saw a sign for the Museum of the Absurd that intrigued us. It is an outdoor collection of contemporary art dedicated to the absurd. In the courtyard of the municipal library, they are exposed twenty works, some of which are quite out of the ordinary … It was a very nice surprise🙂
Continuing our way to the north we moved to the camper service area of Montale Castelnuovo [44.57911,10.9086], very convenient and close to the provincial road without requiring major deviations.