Sid and Doris Bonkers and their Epic Journeys
"Everybody is normal until you get to know them"
In which Sid and Doris suddenly find themselves at sea, on their way to Sardinia and a holiday.At Vasto we told our hotel host we were headed for Civitavecchia and she made mountain signs with her hands. Today we finished the ride over the Apennines to the sea with a ride that was half joy and half delivery. 78 kilometres…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris find the Appenines have almost been crossed, with splendid mountain views, vile roads and the excitement of crossing the Tiber. We can be on the West coast tomorrow. We start the day with some more repairs to Doris’ saddle. In her defence, this saddle was transferred from the previous bike and has done all of…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris visit earthquake hit Aquila and enjoy an early end to the day in Renaissance Chieti. The breakfast room at the Hotel de la Poste is full of cyclists about to set off on 100 k days and big climbs. And us. We will do 73 k and 663 metres of climb, a breeze. Appropriate Breakfast…
Read moreIn 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…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris use old railways to make progress up the Adriatic coast, passing fishing platforms and old battle sites before climbing to a faded grand hotel.It is Saturday morning and very quickly we are passed by a Wiry Old Gent on a thin bike. This is good news, all day the traffic is sharing with cyclists. We…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris whoosh away from the hotel, elect for country roads, visit a necropolis and see the quarry where the marble comes from. Today’s mission was 102km and only 427m of climb. For the first ten minutes we climbed to the top of the village, then turned left and dropped all the height we had gained to…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris plan to make a new plan later, passing the day with animatronic dinosaurs and quite a lot of eatingToday is a day of planning. After admiring the monumental (and pointless, because we are just going straight back down tomorrow) view, our first attempt was to work up a route over the Appenines to the Mediterranean…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris ride with flamingoes, lunch in a holiday camp, ride across a mighty hot plain then up a mighty hillclimb to reach a resort hotel with no swimming pool.This felt like hard day at 87 kilometres and 781 metres of climb, approx 80 k of flat and all the climb packed into the last 7k. From…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris maintain their long held dislike of Bari, cross Dog Turd Traverse but later cheer up with spaghetti in a pretty town square. We look out of our (expensively-windowed) cabin to see rain falling and lightning flashing. We cannot hear the thunder. It is still raining as we get off the ferry. Bari in general has…
Read moreIn which Sid and Doris find the next port and ferry, leaving Greece for Italy.Our last day in Greece starts fabulously well with cyclists’ breakfast of egg, local cream yoghurt, host’s mother’s marmalade, a croque Monsieur, toasts, orange juice, coffee by the pool. Seems a shame to leave. But we do find our way back to the old coast road….
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