Biking to school from Opera, there is a "short way" and a "long way". All this school year, there has only been the "long way".
I went into the city one day in late August before the school year began. Heading back to Opera, as I was transferring from the tram to the bus, the driver was saying to everyone that the bus would stop in Noverasco and go no further.
I could not understand anything else he was saying.
Noverasco is the small town before the town where I live - it's actually where school is located.
I figured getting to Noverasco was better than calling a taxi. It would just be a walk from there - about 45 minutes of a walk if I went around to school and home.
So... on the bus I went.
While on the bus to Noverasco, I decided that I was going to make a shortcut for myself and just walk down the side of the highway until I could cut over to the path that is part of the "short way" (this would be about a 5-minute walk along the highway and would save me about 20 minutes or so overall).
Definitely not the best of ideas but I was going to go with it.
The bus dropped everyone off at the Noverasco stop and I began walking down the road,
errrr, highway.
Unfortunately, I was in the front of the crowd and everyone was following me! Maybe not a great idea.
Up ahead - about the length of two football fields away, I could see police cars and all traffic had to get off at the next exit. I figured that if the police officers questioned us walking down the side of the highway, I would act like I spoke zero Italian and was very confused.
Low and behold, I reached the police officers and they were actually supportive of us walking there! They had opened a section of the fence to allow us to get to the path, which had been my destination anyway. Perrrrrrfect.
Reaching the police officers, I also was given an answer as to why the bus could go no further than Noverasco and why the highway was closed:
The bridge that went over the highway as part of our "short way" to school...
...had fallen apart. Collapsed.
Yikes.
I used that bridge almost everyday!
The side ramp had fallen to pieces.
That was in August.
It's now late May and the pieces of the bridge have been cleared but the part of the bridge still standing, that goes over the highway, is still there. It doesn't seem that the bridge is going to be replaced or fixed anytime soon.
Because of this, there has only been the "long way" to school all year.
The short way takes me about 10 minutes on my bike. The long way takes about 15. Still not bad! Both ways are through the cornfields and lovely.
Here are some pictures of this adventure:
I had walked past the part shown below and was looking back -- police cars closing off the road and fellow bus riders walking along:
This is the bridge that fell (the side on the left collapsed):
The ramp on the other side is no longer there either.
Fire truck on-site and the bridge missing some pieces!
One more photo of the scene before I head through the fence to get off the highway and onto a walking path:
