Day 22
Sleeping location: An idyllic olive grove in Tuscany
Distance (km today/total): 129 / 2536
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1900 / 17100
Number of cyclists faster than us: all of them
Day in three words: Looks like Tuscany*
*One for the Dulwich Hamlet fans
The day started with a lovely dip in the river near our camp spot, with some nearby fisherman looking a bit confused at why a man in very tight shorts was frolicking in the water. After that we started the long climb up out of this bit of the Apennines. It took all morning but was relatively OK as there weren’t many mega steep bits. After this we “greatly enjoyed” half of the big descent down a pretty sketchy bit of road (bad surface, bad visibility under the trees, very steep), then greatly enjoyed the second half on beautiful tarmac down winding (but not too winding) roads into Tuscany proper.
A bit of flat later and we were in Florence, where we battled hoards of tourists and enjoyed a magnificent pizza restaurant with wifi, charging points, delicious pizza and friendly service. The waiter even let me borrow a hammer to fix my bottle cage. Matt then got to see the cathedral, which is nice for him because it’s magnificent.
Then followed a flat bit along busy roads in the hot sun, which was not fun, followed by a series of steep climbs up into the Tuscan hills, which was also not fun. This was offset by the glorious campsite we found, tucked away in an olive grove with level ground and short grass to sit on. We ate a 6/10 meal of gnocchi in tomato sauce and turned in. A pretty tough day all in all, lots of climb and a tough end to it.
A side note - cycling in Italy appears to be split between either nonnas (nonnae?) going at 10kph on their rusty old rigs, or men in extremely expensive gear riding extremely expensive bikes really fast in an attempt to impress everyone. Many of them definitely shave their legs as well. As it was Saturday a lot of these men were out on their bikes in the mountains, and as they whizzed past us most of them looked at us on our heavy touring bikes like we were from the moon or something.
Distance (km today/total): 129 / 2536
Estimated climb (m today/total): 1900 / 17100
Number of cyclists faster than us: all of them
Day in three words: Looks like Tuscany*
*One for the Dulwich Hamlet fans
The day started with a lovely dip in the river near our camp spot, with some nearby fisherman looking a bit confused at why a man in very tight shorts was frolicking in the water. After that we started the long climb up out of this bit of the Apennines. It took all morning but was relatively OK as there weren’t many mega steep bits. After this we “greatly enjoyed” half of the big descent down a pretty sketchy bit of road (bad surface, bad visibility under the trees, very steep), then greatly enjoyed the second half on beautiful tarmac down winding (but not too winding) roads into Tuscany proper.
A bit of flat later and we were in Florence, where we battled hoards of tourists and enjoyed a magnificent pizza restaurant with wifi, charging points, delicious pizza and friendly service. The waiter even let me borrow a hammer to fix my bottle cage. Matt then got to see the cathedral, which is nice for him because it’s magnificent.
Then followed a flat bit along busy roads in the hot sun, which was not fun, followed by a series of steep climbs up into the Tuscan hills, which was also not fun. This was offset by the glorious campsite we found, tucked away in an olive grove with level ground and short grass to sit on. We ate a 6/10 meal of gnocchi in tomato sauce and turned in. A pretty tough day all in all, lots of climb and a tough end to it.
A side note - cycling in Italy appears to be split between either nonnas (nonnae?) going at 10kph on their rusty old rigs, or men in extremely expensive gear riding extremely expensive bikes really fast in an attempt to impress everyone. Many of them definitely shave their legs as well. As it was Saturday a lot of these men were out on their bikes in the mountains, and as they whizzed past us most of them looked at us on our heavy touring bikes like we were from the moon or something.
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