For the first time I have ever opened my Macbook there was not a single iota of a wi-fi signal - completely cut off and barren: lovely. So this is posted on Friday evening in Montecatini near Florence - home of FAST wi-fi and very nice Italian beer! Debbie is asleep in the foyer (beside me) as it is the only place we can attach to the world.
We left Tarascon quite early having got the Italian man out of bed who had parked the bike in. He was apologetic but we’d obviously woken him from slumber. Breakfast was outside in the courtyard today and a bit like the pic of Rob blogging but on the other side of the building.
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| Lunch at the side of the road. |
Our journey today took us through Provence. Lavendar fields, sunflowers and avenues of plane trees – quite chilly actually in the morning and on the bike. Today was meant to be a great ‘bikers’ route and we were not disappointed with not only sweeping bends but quite a lot of up and down too. We virtually had the road to ourselves in the mountains and only the odd slow Renault (!) to overtake. There were a couple of great towns nestled in the mountains with tiny streets and bustling activity. Stopped for a coffee in one of these – left everything on the bike and sat opposite in the warm sunshine.
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| Bigger version of the little path that SatNav led us through |
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| Savonna - our beds and washing - Spartan but just great! No towels so we used our sheets and had to make our own beds. |
Lunch today was at the side of the road just outside Draguignan, before Grasse (the start of the ‘Napoleon Route…er… famous for bikers – twisty-turny-fun) – 2 salads from LeClerc and multi-fruit-juice and fork provided. We then flew down the motorway past Nice and into Italy along with all the crazies in the world! Got to Savona and filled up. Rob went in to test his Italian (and to pay) and a very, very sun-tanned woman helped and helped with directions….Rob thought he understood but we ended up getting out the SatNav and punched in the address. WELL! Our lovely
little SatNav must’ve been feeling fed up at
not having been consulted enough and so it directed us up from the coast through smaller and smaller roads – oh yes, they were tarmac BUT for about 2miles only enough room for my bike but there were bicycle passing places IF you had two bicycles trying to pass each other. At one hairpin bend (going very much up hill) I had to do a three-point-turn to be able to get round the bend. All much more of a PATH then a road even tho’ there were only bits that were actually earth.
We stopped and Deb took this picture (above) but the road had at least tripled in size by this stage – neither of us dared to go back. Got to our Youth Hostel – lovely chap greeted us and looked as if he’d been waiting all day for us to come. At this stage (6.30pm) there is not a soul here and it has about 200 beds but we went to the ‘restaurant’, a 400m walk down the hill. We didn’t think there’d be anything there as we are in the middle of no-where but had excellent pizzas, huge beers, a bottle of dry Prosecco and a very good salad to boot. The other three inhabitants of this massive Youth Hostel building are cooking their meal outside our window as I write this!
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| We asked for a room with a view - everything else was crap but the view was amazing. Actually everything was perfect... |
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