June 10, 2023
Bologna to Bottai
Today was a slow start when we really needed to be on the ball and out of the house. Tobias was up several times in the night - we think he is getting his molars but we aren't really game to go putting our fingers in to check because the rest of his teeth are there and functioning. He wasn't being stubborn, he really did want to be asleep. In the end some paracetamol helped.
We didn't get out of the house until 9:30 when we were aiming for 9 so that we'd have plenty of time to buy the tickets and board the 10:08 train in a relaxed fashion. We hurried as much as we could, but the disjointed Bologna cycle ways didn't help. We made it with 20 minutes until the train which is generally plenty of time. And we didn't even have to take any lifts. But getting tickets was a nightmare. I hopped up and down for 15 minutes in a queue behind a couple of older American tourists with no urgency at all who could not find a way to pay, a man who couldn't work the machine, and another who wasn't paying attention. In the meantime Tobias is sitting on the front seat wriggling out of the straps and being all done bike. When it's finally my turn I get a warning saying the train I'm selecting will depart in 4 minutes but I select it anyway. The card doesn't work so I throw in cash and as soon as the machine spits out the 4 tickets (it takes an agonisingly long time!) I run without even picking up my €2 change. We are at platform 1 est which is miles down the platform and we are not made for running. We'd be faster biking, unless someone stopped us and gave us a fine and we would miss our train. We make it panting into the carriage and with the help of some other amused cyclists in the carriage. We are completely blocking the doors and passage with our bikes and within minutes of pulling away the conductor arrives but he's very sympathetic and doesn't kick us off but helps to rearrange everyone so we all mostly fit.
The train is just over an hour and is mostly tunnels. When we arrive in Prato there are lots of cycle tourists waiting to get on to get back to Bologna. I guess a fair few people are taking this bypass given the flooding and landslides. We are the only ones from our carriage not heading on by train to Florence, so we take our time loading the bikes and enjoy the luxury of lifts that are big enough to fit a bike. We still have to play the relay where I go down with Tobias on my bike, James sends the trailer down to me, then he follows in the next lift with his own bike. Luckily the platforms are above the station so it is only one round of lifts.
Exiting Prato was easy, the only drama was that James removed the dogleg I added to the route to go to a supermarket for supplies while he was cleaning up the route last night. So after about half an hour I was confused and a bit hungry and we had to work out where to get food. We took a detour to a Lidl and then found a park just after. A lady with 2 kids in a bakfiets stopped to say hi and tell us there was a much more beautiful place to stop about 1km down the road, but we didn't fancy packing up our picnic. We had a good chat, she was riding a Dutch brand bakfiets that we see everywhere in the Netherlands but she said she is the only person she knows with one here. If our children hadn't needed to sleep we would have talked for longer.
Our park lunch ended in tears when Tobias smashed his face into the bouncy rooster thing he was having a great time on. At Christmas he chipped his front tooth when he tripped over a balloon. It's mostly fine, except his front tooth is sharper than usual and when he hits his face it often goes through his lip. This was a pretty big one with lots of blood and even when he smiles now his lip is so swollen we can't see his teeth.
After lunch we were on some pretty overgrown cycle paths next to the road and after only 15 minutes we had to stop and fix a flat tyre on the trailer. Tobias was asleep and we aren't carrying a jack so I had to hold it up while James repaired it and put it back on. We ended up quitting the cycle paths for a while after that. They are just next to a busy road and people seem to throw their empty glass beer bottles out of their cars. This, plus the broken up seal, made for really stop-start, unpleasant riding. We are finding riding on Italian roads and paths quite difficult in general. Maybe we just have the wrong routes, I'm not sure.
Eventually we found our way into the cycle path along the Arno river heading into Florence for some nice riding. We were racing the rain clouds that had been brewing since we changed the trailer tyre so we enjoyed finally being able to move. Today we skirt round the bottom of Florence but we started feeling some drops as we turned south and away from the city so we stopped for a coffee and to get Tobias out of the trailer. Lucky for us it cleared up and we could ride the last 7km, including a reasonable climb, in the dry. We are staying at a campground a wee way out of the city. For 2 nights it costs us half of what one night camping in the city is (and any indoor accommodation is completely out of consideration). It's a big place, but it doesn't feel crowded or jammed in. We did however forget to account for the street lamps again when choosing our sight.
We were too tired to cook so we had pizza at the restaurant. It was a good choice because it started bucketing down while we were eating. We had to boost Tobias back up to the tent through the rain to get him off to bed and now I'm a bit trapped because we can't sit outside in the rain, but we can't both go sit at the bar (where James is). Luckily our tent is big and we can make the vestibule bigger by making the inside shorter so I'm relatively comfortable here, except for the mosquitos. An early night wouldn't be such a bad idea anyway.
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Today's ride: 31 km (19 miles)
Total: 1,456 km (904 miles)
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