Monday June 12
63 kilometers.
It's hard to keep track of the days which is why we're trying hard to keep up with our journals. I went nearly the entire day thinking it was Tuesday.
We discussed the idea of not journalling every day but something interesting has happened every day which we would like to share with everyone as well as document for ourselves. That being said we're typing this journal on Tuesday. After you read about how yesterday went you'll understand why.
We're in Umbria, almost to Assisi. In fact, you can see it from the town we camped in last night. It's a funny thing about hills towns, which is what Umbria is known for - you have to go up those hills to get to the towns. Granted the down hills are also pretty spectacular but darned if they aren't short lived.
We left our campsite in Baschi around 0745. That night when we were making a bathroom trip we saw glowing bugs flying around. I have never seen a firefly before. There was one that was constantly glowing near our tent and when you would look around you would see these intermittantly glowing bugs slowly flying around. They glowed a bright neon green. It was really something to see!
I was nervous about the ride the next day - Monday - because I new the roads would be busy again with weekday traffic, including trucks. There is no mapped out bike route (that we could find) for the trip from Viterbo to Assisi so we're blazing our own trail. It hasn't been hard to find a way to go but nearly all of the roads have very little to no shoulder. It's been challenging in that my gears still aren't quite right. I think they're skipping a couple gears but I do still (thankfully) have my granny gear which I used extensively yesterday. Jon offered to look at my bike before leaving but I declined because I didn't want to be testing out new gear changes on the road we were going on with the hills I new were ahead. He agreed. While I still am comfortable with Italien drivers after a couple of days of riding with that kind of traffic has been, for me, mentally taxing. I asked Jon how he felt about the last day or so of riding and he said he felt "fine" and that he felt more nervous about my shifting. As a result, I spent a lot of time in the lower gears/bigger rings, and spinning more. Because of my gears, which would occasionally jump off the teeth and then catch again, causing my foot to "slip" forward, I didn't clip in all day which was really taking a toll on my knee. Jon wanted to note that on a recumbent it isn't necessarily safe stay clipped in while going up hill and we had a lot of hills yesterday. We saw a lot of amazing views but there wasn't a safe place to pull over to take a picture. We also went through some short tunnels with one side open to enjoy the scenery. It was really cool (figuratively and literally) in those tunnels. We had our helmet lights on and our headlights on as we always do so we were pretty visible, plus there was lots of light from the openings on the side so we weren't concerned about not being seen by cars.
When things just really seem to suck I don't think I would do it any other way. The scenery has been amazing. The quiet roads have been really quiet - we just haven't had any for a couple days - I just know that this is a really unique opportunity and by golly, if I need a total knee replacement after this trip, it'll be worth it. The towns we've been too have also made the work worthwhile. Quite a few of the towns are ones we've discovered along the way, not mentioned in guidebooks or even charted on our maps. That has been a real reward. For example the town we're in today, while listed on the map was not in any of the guide books or research but is a beautiful walled in town with lots of charm. Of course I took a lot of pictures.
We made a stop in a small town outside of Todi looking for some fresh fruits/veggies. We passed a tiny market, turned around and went inside. The place was about 300 square feet and the baskets you would place you items in were hand woven and looked like they had been used for years. There was an elderly woman also shopping and the clerk was very friendly. Jon eventually went back out to mind the bikes and as I was getting ready to leave I spotted a loaf of fresh bread in the woman's grocery bag. As I came out of the market I said the Jon, "Hey, there's a bakery here, we gotta find it" but Jon was all over it. He had also seem the bread and just now as I'm typing this journal went on to explain to me that it was a "matter of deduction"
"She was walking so you knew it wasn't far away and she didn't cross the street so the place had to be nearby"
Of course!
The bakery was also the local "market". Now this place had a little of everything and I mean a little. There simpley wasn't room to have a large inventory like we're so used to in the States making these little markets a bit of a challenge to find since they can be tucked away almost anywhere in town.
This market was about the same size as the produce market: small. It had a disproportionately large selection of pasta. I filled an entire wall. They were divided into different cubbies based on size. Who knew that spaghetti came in so many different diameters. We chose spaghetti number 4 which we thought looked good and would cook quickly. I forgot to look for peanut butter.
While we had a little snack outside with our bikes a professionally dressed man came up to us and asked about the bikes. He spoke a tiny bit of english so we did ok - lots of hand gestures. He explained that he was interested because he loved bikes and proceded to show us his bike rack on his car (Jon says it was an Audi - I didn't take notice).
We came upon the town of Bevagna which was our deciding point on whether to push it to Assisi or camp in a town nearby. Oh, that's the other thing: there hasn't been much camping in the areas we've been visiting or plan to visit. They seem to be mostly by lakes, the coast or near major cities - not the small towns. We saw a sign for camping which wasn't listed on our map and were thrilled - this is where we would stay for the night. We crossed a stone bridge into town and parked our bikes in front of a church in the shade facing a piazza. There was a working fountain with water running from a spigot. As usual, we arrived in town during siesta so all of the shops are closed until four pm this also includes the information kiosk. We have knack for pulling into town at this time of day but it's good because we have a chance to rest and see a town when it's less busy. A couple from Glasgow, Scotland approached us asking about the bikes. They were actually on a biking holiday themselves! Jon wants to make sure to mention that the husband was 70 years old and still kickin' butt over the Italien hills. They were with a tour that carried your luggage from hotel to hotel, provided a four course meal every night and you bike every other day. They explained that this is the way to go when you're older. At that point in the day it was sounding really good to take part in now! Charlotte, the wife, was a retired school teacher and gave us a newspaper clipping of a bike tour they did on their own in Scotland that they recommended to us. They gave us a card with their address and phone number and offered us a room and a place to store our bikes if we were in the Glasgow area. We were pretty excited about that offer! We changed out of our bike shoes and into sandals - man that felt good - and walked around town. We found an internet café and sat outside until it opened. Sadly, it was dial up speed so we only uploaded a days worth of pix. This took nearly an hour. While waiting for the pix to upload, we paid some bills online, set some emails, read the comments on our journal site and I went and had a cappucino and the gelatoria across the street. After the last of the pix were uploaded we logged off and had some gelato. Jon has decided that cannoli flavored gelato is not for him. I got strawberries and cream which was yummy. I think we're becoming quite the gelato experts because we both agreed that this establishment gave too small of portions and the gelato was too frozen!
Next stop: information kiosk. The gal gave me a flyer for the campground but it didn't have directions so I asked if she could give me a local map. She explained that we would have to go up a couple difficult hills - ha! I could tell her a thing or two about "difficult hills". I had been riding on them all day!
What she meant by "difficult hills" was a 15% grade hill. Now, up until that point I didn't know how steep a grade thatwas but let me describe it as best I can. A 15% grade hill is a knee-blowing, asthma inducing, get off your bike and push type of hill. Let me tell you my pride was so wounded when I got off that bike to start pushing up the hill but I could feel a sharp pain with each pedal stroke and granny gear was no good on this hill either you crank up it or push up it. What we didn't know at the time was that there was SECOND hill of the same grade just before we reached the campsite. Jon says the first hill was two kilometers. It's hard to push those bikes when their fully loaded and I felt every ounce I had been carrying that day and I know that Jon is carrying more weight in his bags. We did it though and the site is very nice and the proprieter gave us a free bottle of their olive oil that they produce on site.
The other thing I need to mention is the smells. In the towns they have climbing Jasmine in bloom (I've taken about a million pictures) and it smells so good, here at the campsite it smells like hay and clean or fresh air I don't really know how to describe that smell but it's like the smell you smell when you're out hiking in the mountains far from the city. Wow, I just used the word 'smell' a lot in that sentence. The jasmine though is incredible. Also, the pine needles as we were pedalling through a forest yesterday was invigorating and reminded me of Washington. The bad smells are the manure when passing by fields and in the city where people have taken the liberty of creating their own public bathrooms. I'm telling you if Italy would invest in a few (thousand) tastefully and strategically placed honey buckets it would do wonders for them, also if they could throw in a few more garbage cans or start a "Give a hoot don't pollute campaign". Litter is a big problem here which is unfortunate. There has been a lot of great shots that have turned out bad because of the litter surrounding the subject I'm aiming the camera at - graffiti too, but I guess that happens everywhere. We took a lot of rest breaks yesterday and tried to be really mindful of staying hydrated and stretching regularly, eating regularly too. We a lot and often it seems. I think we're slowing down a little bit but man that first week it seems like we ate soooo much and yesterday we were talking about how we both though we've lost a little weight despite all of the calories we've consumed. It's about every couple hours that we're eating something and we do actually have feelings of hunger and our stomach growl which I think is amazing.
Most of the campers at the site have a german or scandnavian accents. We're by far the youngest ones here. The tents they have up north are really cool or "small chalets" as Jon says. There were many tents with these really cool vestibules. I totally have vestibule envy. We pack all of our bags inside our tent. Leaving our shoes, shower bag, helmets and some cooking gear in our vestibule. Jon was describiling a trailer that had motorized wheels that the owner used a remote control on to move the trailer and hook up to the hitch on the car!
They also have a male and female peacock here. What a god aweful screech that male peacock makes! I had never heard that before and was glad it didn't last to late in the night. There are also the cutest baby goats that are total beggers when you walk up to their cage and Jon says there's mini-golf somewhere on the site. Did I mention that yesterday's campsite on the lake was 15 euro and they gave us free showers?
Tuesday we head for Assisi where we'll spend several days tuning up the bikes, ourselves and planning the next stage of our trip. Jon has been looking forward to returning to Assisi and I've only heard good things about his experience there!
We're typing this journal poolside as we wait for our laundry to dry. It's about 0800. We camped at an agritourismo campsite that is a combo of camping, olive farm and some orchards. We agree that this is by far the nicest campgrounds we been to so far. But I think we said that with nearly every new campground we've been too! You'll see the pic of the pool with us eating breakfast. I haven't brushed my hair yet and am wearing the only clean dry clothes I have left which incudes the rain jacket! I can't vouch for the degree of cleanliness of Jon's clothes but he's always been neater than me. The campsite is what we call a "gate community".
