September 22, 2009
Altopascio
Having had our usual breakfast in our room we went to pay and found that the rate included breakfast. No problem we just had another one.
Then we started up the beautiful narrow valley. The traffic was moderate to start with but later very light. In spite of the ribbon development it was pretty. Later it got steeper but we were able to ride it all but much of it in our lowest gears. We had come a long way up in the first 5 to 6km.
Then over the top and a 20km downhill all the way to Lucca. At first the route was very beautiful with lovely valleys and little villages but as Lucca approached it became all that is wrong with Urban Planning in Italy. Lucca itself is surrounded by a wall. We arrived about 10.30 so it meant that we had plenty of time to explore before everything shut down. For the first time we were in the midst of tourists - vans and buses were dropping off their loads at the edge of the lovely old city. There were massive walls and a potential moat, 2 lovely churches and lots of narrow streets and alleyways. Traffic was all on foot or bicycle and there were some small electric buses. As well as a myriad of visitors there were lots of locals. We sat on the steps of one of the churches and ate our bread, cheese and plums.
When all shut down at 1pm we were on the road again. The trip to the A1 was far from pretty with a massive urban sprawl and traffic+++. We tried to keep to quiet roads with only moderate success and finally took to the busy road which actually wasn't so bad as there was a good hard shoulder most of the way. By now it was hot with a slight head wind and we made it to Altopasco at about 2pm. The hotel was very nice so we had a shower and then went to explore. It was not a pretty town but functional with the motorway going over part of it and the railway running trough it. Found a shop for beer and juice, caught the second half of a mass and checked out a tratoria for our meal.
Our meal was a learning experience. Expecting it to be fairly cheap we decided to have a seconda as well as a prima. It looked reasonably priced on the menu, what we found out however when the bill came was the prices for meat were qouted per 100g. My pork was huge as was Tricia's steak so when the bill came we thought there had been a mistake!! Enough to say we will avoid secondas in future!
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Today's ride: 43 km (27 miles)
Total: 1,824 km (1,133 miles)
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