In which Sid and Doris drop a lot of height, enjoy a long honest climb to a Hotel de la Poste in earth quake land. The Appenines crossing goes on.
Getting across the Appenines will take a few days of determined cycling. This is not the holiday riding we are promising ourselves. Soon, though.
Breakfast was comically unsuited to cyclists. The cereal bowls are teacup sized and the coffee cups are thimble sized. Sid fills a small cup with Rice Crispies and banana yoghurt, which in the the absence of milk or spoons, he eats with a gloomy fork. “S” reports this does not happen to “G”. [Memo to self: try not to get trapped by hotel breakfasts included in the room rate – D. Oh, I see I have written that memo about 17 times before.]
We retrieve the bikes from a real fantasy garage under the hotel. It has air tools all hung up. A place to wash cars. It is as if the garage is its own barn find.
We left Chieti and our high viewpoint with some foreboding following Tutte le Direzioni which a local appears to have creatively disagreed with, bending the sign through 90 degrees.
As we may have mentioned more than once, possibly because we are a bit grumpy about it, we start by going down, down a lot, down a road where the municipality had set a 30 kph limit because the road was so patched and irregular. Second breakfast comes early. As we stand eating in a supermarket car park (glamorous trip, this) we see a Lamborghini tractor. Of course as car maggo readers we know about these, but as Brits we have not seen them. More satisfying than breakfast. [Sorry about the absence of picture – D.]
Today we see a lot of sports cyclist out on thin bikes and full Lycra. Over the whole day of mountain riding we probably see more motorbikes than cars, and no commercial vehicles – the benefit of Sunday cycling. It is a lovely road for us with good surface and a wide hard shoulder cum bike lane.
Even so it takes its toll and as Doris is waning we pull randomly off the road into a fabulous restaurant at Bussi sul Tirino. We get in at 13.05. And in a flurry of activity, helped by Sid catching the eye of the chef, the waiter, the plongeur and probably the restaurant dog, by 13.30 we have been served some bruschetta. Greeks look excessively busy by comparison. The ravioli in mushroom space is real cooking. Sid and Doris reward the staff with plates that do not need to be washed up.
At this point we are at half distance and not far off half the climb on road that rises gently. The final tally is 83 kilometres and 1040 metres of climb with almost no shade. It is not the Tourmalet but it does go on.
Of course that ravioli is not what “S” would suggest because for the next half hour the body is diverting some effort to digestion. We know how to deal with this and ask “S” to write a short note on cycling nutrition. This expression of our respect for the opinionated little rodent keeps him quiet and he will probably forget the whole thing.
The road rises to meet us though the wind is not always at our back (cf The Irish Blessing). We are getting more confident we will make our planned stop at the Osteria Della Posta so pause for some Italian navel gazing (what wits we are).
We are just too late into Poggio to catch the Alfa Owners’ Club rally at a control. This helps with car of the day, a late 1950s Spider in dark blue.
The town has been in decline for about 200 years. The population of agricultural towns in mid Italy fell by 75% during the 19th century as people moved to cities in Italy, the US or Argentina. An earthquake in 1915 dropped one of three churches. More recently the 2009 earthquake, epicentre Aquila where we will go tomorrow, has still rendered large parts of the village closed 10 years later. These houses in the picture will be uneconomic repairs though the two churches are being worked on. By the Catholic Church? Was it an Act of God? or by the state to show solidarity?
The really charming Osteria Della Posta is busy, this is a big walking area. Food beckons. Well, actually Sid is beckoning the food. And the young, enthusastic owner/manager team are only too happy to oblige.