We follow a winding road high in the Appenine Mountains
W e slept well - or rather we didn’t move all night - and got up to a cooler morning as it had rained in the night. The views are just as spectacular this morning as we remembered. Our bodies are still tired, but we are keen to explore more of this region in the Appenines.
The prediction today is for thunder and rain - after breakfast we could feel that the humidity and heat are returning.
We have been really slow to get this section of the journal online. Part of the reason was a lack of internet - but now we have discovered that there is a problem with the SD card in our camera which is a nightmare for Barry to deal with. Photos won’t load on our ipad and he is having to take hours finding creative measures to load them. As a result, some of the pictures are out of order, so it might not make sense at times, but at least we have some photos to load now. Yikes.
Luca, Oleana and her mother with Barry saying farewell. They were gracious hosts and made our stay special. Luca is originally from Rome and Oleana and her mother are from Russia. The mother speaks only Russia, yet she proudly told us that she was from Kaliningrad and was excited that we have plans to go there someday when we tour the Baltic countries. It is always fun to try to communicate when a common language is not shared.
Today we are riding up and down yet remaining at quite a high altitude at this point. The humidity has returned with a vengeance and more rain with thunder is expected.
We enjoyed a fun downhill of about 400 metres and got to see the Trebbia River which we have been following since Genova. We will continue to see this river from on high and up close throughout the day.
We have descended to about 500 metres here - but we know we’ll be climbing soon again. The ride today is not as relentless as yesterday, but we still have to work hard.
The verdant hills are beautiful here. We marvel at what winter must be like here. Luca told us that villages like theirs is pretty cut off when the snow hits.
Torriglia - this is where we were actually supposed to go yesterday for the B&B - but something got lost in translation and we luckily stumbled upon the place where we stayed.
We bought savoury tarts, apple slice and chocolate croissant - the clerk gave us a gift “gratis” of this zabaglione tart - oh so good and so delicately made.
Hey we are making progress. But how can it only be 48 km from Genova. Is that measured in linear km? Shouldn’t elevation gain be factored in..we think it has to be more!!
