This one’s in the running for best ride of the tour—but perhaps that’s because so much of it was downhill! On a smooth road to boot! On a beautiful sunny day!
We had decided to backtrack 7 km towards Gangi, as far as the turnoff to SS 286. First a short descent from Petralia Soprana, then a short climb, enough to merit removing our gilets, followed by over 15 km of wonderful descending with gilets on again, through a changing landscape.
Leaving Hotel Residenza Petra. We really appreciated the radiant heating in the floors!
The descending fun ended as we approached Castelbuono, where we bought supplies for a picnic lunch. It was too early to eat but we were only half way to our destination and the majority of climbing was still to come.
The viewing target seemed to be the castle, but it wasn’t a particularly exciting one.
Rather than continue on SS 286 all the way to the coast and ride west along the coast to Cefalù, we had chosen to go west from Castelbuono on SP 9 and then north to the coast on SP 54, coming directly into Cefalù. This meant considerably more climbing than the coastal route but promised much less traffic.
We had been seeing these signs yesterday and today and thought they were scenic driving routes. We had seen a lot of motorcycles on them. The name is from a “public road endurance automobile race held in the mountains of Sicily…founded in 1906…” (Wikipedia)
Bob KoreisIt was an incredibly dangerous race. In the 70s was switched to a rally car event. The documentary "A Sicilian Dream" tells the story of the race. I think I might have watched it on Netflix. Reply to this comment 1 year ago
We are staying two nights at Baronetto B&B, just west of the old town and a couple of blocks inland from the beach strip. It’s on the main road through town and our balcony (where our bikes are stashed) overlooks said main road, but I’m writing this the morning after our first night and it was silent. The metal rolling shutters might have helped.
Beer at a beachside bar. Of course, there’s a beachside road between the bar and the actual beach…
