Rather than drive 100 miles south to watch the next stage of TA live on Sassotteto we decided to just stay where we were and watch it on tv. It was a good choice, as we were heading north afterwards and it meant several hours less driving south then north again.
We ended up taking the coast road north to Ravenna, then going northwest towards Ferrara. Miss GPS took us on a fairly ‘scenic route’ but we eventually made it to the west coast around Imperia. After that it was a bit dicey – we wondered if Miss GPS was punishing us for not listening to her at times in the last couple of days or maybe she was going through menopause and was just being super bitchy. In any case she totally mis-directed us near the end of the day when we were trying to find an aire on the coast and we ended up inland on the side of a mountain. Not usually a problem for us but I was a bit pissed off at her – anyone that has been led astray by any GPS system will know how we felt! We did know fairly quickly that we weren’t going where we wanted to but decided to see where we ended up.
We did get on our way the next morning in the right direction – having muted Miss GPS – and arrived at our destination of the campground at Santo Stefano Al Mare that we’ve been to several times before.
I can’t describe how lovely the shower was, and we got to do laundry too – truly wonderful to be clean and have clean clothes at the same time!
The campground has some very nice cats that I happened to catch sunning themselves on the roof of the office as we left.
A short drive got us to Poggio – one of the most iconic climbs in cycling races.
It’s not long (only 3.7 km) and not steep (average 3.7% grade) but very important in the first Monument of the year – Milano SanRemo – La Primavera.
There’s been some improvements done in the general area…
…and more still ‘in progress’…
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We had lunch in the local cafe/bar on race day – we thought we’d ordered roast rabbit but ended up with roast pork. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t rabbit, but since I do like pork it was ok.
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There were at least three different police forces on hand, in addition to ‘Mr. Whistle’ who thinks he runs everything.
Colin and I, as usual, went to different places to watch and photograph from.
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I was lucky and had a couple of fellows next to me that had the race on their phone – I watched over their shoulders as Pogacar, Pidcock and Van der Poel took off on the Cipressa.
By the time they reached us Van der Poel had been dropped and it was only the two in front.
Because the finish was only down the hill I really wanted to run across the road to the bar to watch the end on tv but the cops wouldn’t let me – I settled for watching it on another fellow’s phone – Pogacar won!! I could hear screaming and cheering from the bar and I was screaming just as loud – so happy!
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 