April 22, 2023
Santeramo in Colle
Today is one we’ve been anticipating for a long time - our meetup with biketouring superstars Racpat (Rachel and Patrick Hugens), on their latest epic jaunt: a very roundabout journey From Morocco to Holland. We had originally planned to meet them in Patti, Sicily until we reworked our itinerary several weeks ago. We feel fortunate that we’ve gotten a second chance, and appreciate them spinning their wheels in Matera until we got within range.
The plan is that we’ll meet up on the road, about three fourths of the way into our ride and about halfway into their shorter one. From there we’ll bike together the short distance to Santeramo in Colle where we’ve booke d a room for the night. We’re scheduled to meet at 1:30 and it’s 26 miles there for us and mostly uphill, so we leave our room in Massafra by 10 thinking that will still be plenty of time.
It’s a pretty steep drop through the old city, a place we’ve ended up with pretty lukewarm feelings about and aren’t unhappy to see the last of. At the bottom we turn right onto a busy regional road, and before long we turn off onto the sort of quiet, rough, empty road we’ve been seeing a lot of lately.
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Not long afterwards our lane comes to an end at what looks like it may have been a train station in the past. There’s a trail though the weeds that I explore, but soon come to a pair of shiny, obviously frequently used railroad tracks. I consider the risks of crossing here but can’t see any continuance on the other side anyway - there’s just a long, unbroken concrete wall, too high to scale. It looks like there may have been a crossing possible here in the past (and RideWithGPS thinks one still exists), but with the option of just turning around and biking back to the crossing at the base of the town the decision is easy.
Still, it’s not the best to have wasted fifteen or twenty minutes on a two mile dead end on a day where we don’t want to be late to the party.
That road to nowhere is only the first unpleasant surprise RideWithGPS has queued up for us today as it happens. The next one unfolds gradually, as the three unpaved miles we were promised turn into ten. The texture, more unexpected navigational challenges and the intermittent water hazards all conspire to slow us down considerably and by noon we’ve barely covered ten miles and it’s looking increasingly doubtful we’re going to arrive at our rendezvous point on schedule. We send the first of a series of updates to Racpat warning them that we’re likely to be late.
So that’s frustrating. Still, we should point out that the route we followed, a snippet of Eurovelo 5, really does look like the best cycling option available to us here. Along the way we cross a pair of the startlingly deep ravines this region is famous for, apparently on the viaducts of an abandoned road or railway line. The alternatives would require crossing on the viaducts of a highway (and I’m not sure bikes are even allowed there) or a lengthy detour.
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With the impressive ruins of Masseria Viglione rising behind us, we hang around long enough for a round of introductions and commemorative photos and then head south for Santeramo and our lodging for the night. It’s seven miles away with a moderate switchback climb in between here and there, but with Racpat setting a blistering pace and blowing through all the stop signs the miles melt away and soon we’re dropping into town and weaving through its tiny streets on the hunt for La Dimora di Roberto, our room for the night.
Video sound track: Hanuman, by Rodrigo y Gabriela
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Rachel
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Video sound track: Take Heart, by Oregon
A few words about our home for the night. We’re sharing a room built for four - a queen bed and a bunk bed - that looked considerably more spacious on the Booking.com listing than it does when we step in the room and see we’re going to be living on top of each other for the night. This cramped solution wasn’t the original plan. There are few lodging options in Santeramo, but I found one that was a little on the spendy side and looked good enough. After we’d all booked ourselves into it though I had the timely thought to ask about the bicycles. Not possible, I quickly learned; so we cancelled and I turned to Roberto’s place, which listed three rooms - one for two persons, one for three, and one for four. I booked one and sent the listing to Racpat to sign on also, but now no rooms were available. In fact there was always only the one room, but listed three ways with different rates depending upon the number of occupants.
A little cozy, but the price was right at €20/per occupant; and it was actually quite fun - a hostel experience that gave us a much more immersed and intimate visit than we would have had otherwise. After wrestling over who got the bunk bed (Rachael won, and took the top bunk) we settled in for the evening until time to head out for pizza at what looked like the most attractive option in town. Pizza and salads were excellent and gelati on the piazza afterwards made a fine second act, but the chance to get to finally know each other in person and share a bit of our lives was best of all.
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Ride stats today: 34 miles, 2,100’; for the tour: 678 miles, 39,400’
Today's ride: 34 miles (55 km)
Total: 712 miles (1,146 km)
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