Another placeholder entry for the moment. I’ll come back and build this out later sometime after we make it up to our next stop, Amantea. It’s a pretty long ride, and rain is expected off and on all day. We’ll be there two nights, and rain is expected the next day too so I imagine I’ll have some time to catch up on the journal then. For now though, we need to get out the door early in hopes of beating the rain.
While you wait, you could watch the day’s video:
Later
Well, that was the right approach. Not to steal too much from tomorrow’s thunder (heh, heh), I’ll just note that we arrived in Amantea early, checked in to our hotel, and watched the sky cave in just minutes later. Much nicer to spend the afternoon inside our warm, spacious hotel room listening to the sky outside rumble and crash and catch up on the journal than to stand huddled and shivering under a tree by the highway.
But, that’s tomorrow’s story. Back to Tropea.
We began the day with another brilliant loop ride. We are really liking this model of multi-night stands, alternating travel days with loop rides that let us explore more of an area while riding with a lighter load. Today’s ride was a bit shorter than most, but we definitely earned our supper. There were a few flat miles scattered here and there, but mostly we were climbing or falling, often very steeply.
If you haven’t already, look at the map and zoom out a bit. Tropea sits on the tip of a sizable bulge in the coastline, Capo Vaticano. It is very rugged country, and geologically significant. The cliffs that Tropea stands on and that form much of the peninsula are grey-white granite, and the oldest rocks in the Mediterranean - older than the Alps. I was surprised by this, after staring at this rock for the last two days wondering what it was. I didn’t know grey-white granite was a thing.
For us, the distinguishing feature of today’s rides was the incredibly steep-sided narrow ravines that cut through the terrain. Our route followed the quietest paved roads we could find, and some of these roads went straight down one side of a ravine and straight back up the other side. We crossed three of these ravines today, and 12-15% grades were the norm. Definitely a ride to take with an unloaded bike, if you don’t want to get off and push much of the way.
The ride begins with a 900 foot climb up the slope behind Tropea. Not a bad climb, but we’re just being softened up for the stiffer one ahead.
We get a last view back at Stromboli before cresting the ridge and dropping steeply down into a gorge - a pattern we’ll repeat a few times throughout the day.
Oh, well this is the last view back at Stromboli. We’ve climbed back out of the gorge we just dropped in to, and are continuing up another thousand feet.
Outside of Spilinga we come across this aqueduct. I’m excited to find it because I need to find something with brick for the latest Cycle365 monthly challenge.
A couple of interesting things about this aqueduct, from a convincing reference I found. It was built in the late 1800’s (not in Roman times, as a few other references suggested) to carry water to nearby Ricardi. And, it’s arches are built of ashlar (finely dressed stone), a new word to me. Look it up.
Once we’re on top we enjoy some delightfully relaxing miles, passing alternately through fields like these, olive groves, and small agricultural villages
We sat on that ashlar wall as we ate our lunch, enjoying an expansive view across the valley below. Afterwards, we enjoyed pumping our full stomachs up the steep climb out of town.
The next miles were the most interesting part of the day, if not the most enjoyable. It’s a dramatic landscape, with exposed granite cliffs and impossibly steep ravines.
Looking north, we see tomorrow’s ride spread out below us. Our destination, Amantea, 55 miles off, is around the bend just past the farthest visible land, and under a heavy blanket of clouds.
When we bike back into Tropea, we find another street show in progress: something like a piñata bash. We watched four or five blindfolded kids swing and miss before we decided we’d rather be indoors warming up.
So our plan was to spend the rest of the afternoon looking around Tropea, but plans changed when it began to rain. It made so much more sense to stay inside, stay dry, and wait for the dinner hour. Even though we were here three nights, we didn’t see that much of the town. We saw enough though to decide we liked it a lot, and would be happy to return some year. But not to the same apartment, which we don’t really care to talk about.
Here at least are a few shots we took yesterday walking down to the port, while it was beautifully sunny here. When we come back, we’ll plan on being here on a sunny day like yesterday.
The plaza overlooking the sea. It’s a shear 200 foot drop just beyond the fence.
The origins of the Sanctuary of Santa Maria dell’ Isola are ancient - it was built sometime between the 6th and 9th centuries. It was extensively reconstructed though after it was badly damaged by an earthquake in 1905.
