October 7, 2023
Day 31: Venosa to Monteleone di Puglia
Climb every mountain, ford every stream
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
Wow, so much to write about today! And plenty of photos, too. Let's get right to it.
I hauled my bike down the four flights of stairs, which was much easier than the trip up, but more precarious. Or to use my road-sign Italian, pericolo. We tossed all the bags into the elevator, saving the gravel bike for the final trip down. A hassle, but we may as well get used to it. It's part of the European bike tour experience.
Immediately we were faced with a decision as to whether to follow EV5 or Komoot's routing advice. We chose the latter. Boy, was it interesting. It had gravel:
It had a fancy "onramp to nowhere":
It had fresh rail ballast, which is always fun to muck through:
It had a very wide dirt section that felt like they were getting ready to make a highway through here:
It had pristine tarmac up an annoyingly steep grade:
We finally neared Lavello, where we whooshed down into a ravine, only to find ourselves well below the town. There were two ways up -- pavement and cobblestone -- and we and Komoot foolishly chose the cobblestone. There was certainly less traffic on the cobblestone, but otherwise it was a brutal experience.
Two guys drove down the stones in a small sedan, with their windows open. They asked where we were from, where we started from today, where we're headed. The usual stuff. Then they praised us and told us we were only 90 meters from the end. It was a wacky place to hold a pidgin Italian conversation, but it lifted our spirits.
I removed my phone from its Quadlock in order to take a couple photos. I twisted it back on, but not quite the right way. It soon dislodged and landed on the stones. For the first time in my phone-using life, I cracked a screen. I guess it was bound to happen some time. Hopefully it'll hold up okay for the rest of the trip. Our ability to navigate depends on it!
I hate to say it, but we went through all this work basically for a trip to the bar for a second shot of coffee. I can't imagine EV5 routing was anywhere nearly as painful as this was. But we have the story to tell!
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
When it comes to hill towns, what goes up must go down. Luckily no cobblestones. Just a nice long descent into farm country.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
It was getting towards noon, so we looked for a place to have lunch. I spotted a nice concrete pad in the shade. Just the ticket. We ate a lot because we knew we were going to need a lot of fuel for the upcoming climb into the mountains.
We spotted the hill town of Candela many kilometers in advance. As we approached, we took a bunch of photos, thinking they'd be our last. But we kept getting closer and taking more photos. I'm not sure what it would've taken to climb up there, but we weren't about to find out.
We were operating on the principle that there would be no shops, no bars, no nothing after Gravina. In fact, there were three opportunities to grab a bite to eat or a drink, and we took advantage of two of them. At the first place, which was essentially a deli, we bought and shared a tomato and mozzarella sandwich. It was pretty darn good. At the second stop, an all-purpose kind of place behind a gas station, we just got water, because we hadn't yet digested the sandwich. An odd thing happened. The only table in the shade was right below the loudspeakers. The volume was tolerable, but just barely. Halfway through drinking our pitiful little bottle of water, they cranked it up to an absolutely unbearable level. We moved to some chairs on the sunny side of the building, but then two pit-bull type dogs came over to harass us. We know when we're unwelcome. Some way to treat their customers!
I'm getting ahead of myself. First we had the most "proceed at your own risk" moment of the tour so far:
We were perplexed, because the road was in great shape. We also passed this magnificent specimen of an ancient Roman bridge:
Soon we discovered the source of the warnings. They were rebuilding a bridge (maybe they shoukd just move the Roman bridge over here!), and we had to ride down to the stream bed. A lot of gravel, and a bit of water, but no big deal.
After this, we started to climb. For a while it was very gradual. Then it started to get into the 4-6% territory.
Farmland was finally being replaced by forest, and incredible views started opening up in places.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
We faced another Komoot-vs-EV5 moment concerning the town of Accadia. EV5 has one climbing up to the town. Komoot has a sketchier-looking shortcut. We opted for the former this time, partially because we wanted to avoid a guy with a couple of goats and a few dogs in his entourage. The dogs did not seem like herder breeds, so we didn't trust them much. Anyway, the climb up was quite challenging. There was nothing at the top. The two bars and one restaurant were all closed. We rested for maybe 5 minutes, then lost about half the elevation we'd gained in the climb.
After that, we had some mild-to-moderate grades, and then one last steeper push to the ridge on which Monteleone is located.
We've learned that rolling into a hill town always involves climbing, and this place in no exception.
I had the location of our one-night vacation rental stay all dialed in. When we approached it and found a steep downhill slope, I very wisely put on the brakes. There were two ladies in the street, and I asked them as best I could where this house might be. They had no idea. This is not what I expect from a town of under a thousand people. I started to worry. We ran into another guy, who was very helpful. I had him talk to the guy who owns the vacation house, and they sorted it all out. This gentleman walks me over to the house, where the owner was either waiting or had just arrived. Everyone was just so kind to us out-of-towners. We really appreciated it. You can just tell that this is a good place.
| Heart | 0 | Comment | 0 | Link |
The fellow who talked to the owner also advised us to take a different street that would have us hauling our bikes down steps rather than up them:
We grabbed the two panniers I'd removed from my bike to make it easier to haul, and then settled in for a well-deserved shower and dinner.
One thing we were curious about was why people were asking us if we were from Toronto. It turns out that there was a pretty big exodus from this town to that town, starting in the 1890s. Apparently people still return looking for distant relatives and such.
Another fun fact is that Monteleone is the highest-elevation municipality in the region of Puglia. We're at 850 metres here. Yeah, we did a lot of climbing today! We're certainly getting stronger. Yay for us! Also, we'll take some more photos of this pretty little town to share for tomorrow's journal entry.
Today's ride: 77 km (48 miles)
Total: 1,810 km (1,124 miles)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 1 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 0 |