After a nice sleep-in we arose after 7:00 – the doggies usually stir well before that so it was nice to get a little more shut-eye.
When I took Mo for her morning walk I was amazed at the lovely golden tones in the light – just a beautiful area, and so peaceful.
We followed the route for about 50 km before turning onto a faster road to the town of Sarnano where we stopped for a delicious cappuccino.
I took a short walk around while Colin finished his coffee – it seems like a lovely place, although as so many towns in the area had been heavily damaged by the quake in 2016.
It’s a town that caters to many things – hiking, biking, skiing and also has thermal baths.
Continuing on our way out of the town, the last 13 km of the day’s stage is all uphill to the finish at Sassotetto – not an easy climb.
We drove all the way to the top, then backtracked a few km to a nice pullout where we stopped, only to find that the satellite dish wasn’t working – oh well. As I was cooking our lunch of pork sausages and mashed potatoes a car pulled up and the fellows started talking to Colin. He called me out to interpret and I realized that it was two of the men we’d met at Strade Bianche! We got to meet their wives and then they were on their way further up towards the summit to watch the race from.
As usual the arrival of the first racer was immediately preceeded by no less than seven motos and two official cars – and the sole rider was Simon Yates.
Michael Woods was about a minute behind, and ended up losing the overall lead, but still placed well at the end.
We ended up with another five bidons at the end of the day, and we even traded a Trek one (we had another) for an Ineos Grenadiers that another fan had gotten.
Trek was what he’d really wanted because Italian hero Nibali rides for them now, so we happily traded, even tho Ineos is our least favourite team. Their bidons are quite spiffy looking, however, so we’re not disappointed.
Many of the racers zipped back down the mountain on their bikes, even tho we’d seen all of the team buses go up the hill hours earlier. The sprinters and stragglers were still coming up for almost half an hour, so the down-coming rides had to take care as they were descending extremely fast.
After bringing down the flags we headed down the hill and north to the motorway that took us east to the Adriatic, where we continued north just past Ancona. Our stop for the night was a large church parking lot in the town of Ostra, which is very near the next day’s route.
We again took the paege, making our way south to the coast then west along to Santo Stefano al Mare and to a campground that we’ve stayed at before. I can’t say how lovely it was to have a nice hot shower, and on top of that – clean laundry!
There are several resident kittens that quickly became my dear little friends since I just had to feed them – doesn’t make up for how much I miss my own Sly guy back home, but helps a bit.
I had wi-fi for the first time in a week so tried to catch up on emails, etc, and even posted a blog, but it seems to not have worked.
After giving the kitties a large breakfast the next morning we were on our way to the Poggio.
We got a perfect spot in the parking lot above the race course right in a corner overlooking the Sea. (Note about photo: this was taken through a chain-link fence, so the blurry lines are part of the fence, but this was our actual view)
We had a delicious cappuccino at the cafe/bar on the corner, and chatted a bit with one of the older gentlemen we’d met here last year. He asked if we were german – he worked in Germany for two years and speaks a little german, but we managed to have a short conversation with my italian.
Returning to the bar later in the afternoon we had a drink and enjoyed a small complimentary plate of appies before going back to the campervan for a salmon and rice dinner.
It had been a fairly hot day, but the almost constant breeze from the sea helped a bit and my solo walk in the evening was very pleasant.
Race day came with sunshine and blue skies. We’re somewhat surprised that there is only one other campervan in the parking area – it’s been recently resurfaced, which is great, and it is pretty full, but cars, not campers. Last year – end of March, of course – there were dozens of campervans.
We had our cappuccino at a different cafe/bar, then took a little walk around the village before visiting the wine shop – the one with the hoses in the wall – then the other cafe.
There are some other fans here, but nothing like last year, and we’re all pretty good about the face masks and/or distancing, etc. To compare I’ve included a photo from last year taken at a similar time race-wise to this year:
He was very polite and apologetic, but we weren’t allowed to use flashes. Colin re-located further down and around the corner, but I stayed where I was, just around and down a bit from the crest of the Poggio.
The tv heli appeared about five minutes before the first racer – Alaphilippe! – followed closely by Wout van Aert (winner of Strade Bianche).
There were only a few seconds before more and more riders passed – and I finally got a shot of Nibali.
I also got decent shots of Michael Matthews – who had a torn shoulder – as well as Belgian champion Naesen.
After many of the racers had passed I got ready to sneak across the road to watch the end of the race on tv in the bar – just then Colin came up the hill to do the same thing. The Poggio is just 4 km from the finish, and it’s all hairpin turns downhill then a bit of flat road to the end in Sanremo.
Another wonderful race day!
Before leaving Montemagno we took a couple of short walks up and down the road. 
There are several large homes with great views, and most of them have guard dogs, or at least signs for them.
This year’s Milano-Torino is much flatter than most previous years and we’re near one of the few minor climbs.
We parked at a nice wide spot right on the road with a good view below us, as well as along to the town of Grana.
As usual the racers were preceeded by motocops.
There was a breakaway of six riders who passed our spot at 4:24, with about a three minute lead.
The peloton blew by in one single group – I think it’s the fastest race passing I’ve seen yet – first rider in the breakaway to last of all about three minutes total.
There was one single rider a little bit behind who must have had a mechanical or something, then they were gone.
We were able to hit the road very quickly, having little to pack up, and took the paege towards Torino. Because we were on the motorway we managed to bypass the end of the race and made it to Cavour in a couple of hours, stopping in Pinerolo for groceries.
Feeling hungry we decided to go out for dinner – I did remember some of the roads and paths so we were able to make our way easily on foot with the doggies to the town centre. My favourite cafe was closed so we went next to a restaurant that had been recommended to me three years ago, but I’d never actually gone to.
‘Ristorante La Posta’ was worth the three year wait – it was excellent. We had a lovely table outside, surrounded by beautiful flowering shrubs. We started with a shared antipasti of salmon tartare on shredded apple, then for my main course I enjoyed the gnocchi with cheese sauce – very delicious, with enough leftover for tomorrow’s lunch.
La Posta has been in existence since the 1700s and has at least one Michelin star, so it’s not surprising it was so enjoyable.
We got to see the sun rise – it was a very quiet and beautiful morning.
By the afternoon it was again brutally hot, reaching at least 40 but there was no shade or relief to be had. We put the campervan’s awning out but had to retract it because of the wind.
During the day amateur riders did, as usual, come up the road, and more than one rider and car stopped because of our flags. 
One group of three Italian men that stopped stayed for a bit to chat – they even brought out a bottle of local Chianti that they opened and shared with us. They all live near Rimini and Colin has their phone number so he can call them during the Giro in October and maybe get together.
The race didn’t arrive until almost 5:30, and the dust was flying. I got a pretty good photo of Wout van Aert, who was the eventual winner.
At one point I moved down the road a short way for a different view and 
I was well off the road as the verge was over two feet wide and had just been cut so I shouldn’t have been in any danger. Thankfully death was avoided, but – damn!!
I also got photos of a fairly tired looking Peter Sagan, and a very dusty Michael Woods.
We started packing up as soon as the last racer passed – there wasn’t much to do. We’ll have to sweep a bit later as there’s fine white dust everywhere.
I did manage to snag a nice pink route marking arrow for my collection – it’s now placed in the left-back window.
Last week we took advantage of the slight easing of our lockdown restrictions and went to Ikea just outside Ancona on the Adriatic coast. We had a good long shopping list and managed to get almost everything on it. I debated leaving a trail of peanuts to follow back out in case I got claustrophobic in the maze but did make it to the exit without freaking out.
Putting the kitchen pantry/shelving unit together the next day was fun – kind of – and the resulting space and organization is very much appreciated. I also got a huge wooden cutting board to roll out my pasta on and it’s beautiful. I’m getting better at making pasta – or at least it’s not nearly so messy.
We’ve taken a couple of short trips for lunch at Il Ristoro at Lake Trasimeno, as well as one to Montefalco. There’s some work being done on the highway that runs from Perugia to Rome and it happened that the exit for the shortest route east to Montefalco was closed off so we took another road a bit further south. It was longer and wound more through the hills but we saw some very beautiful countryside.
Not many restaurants were actually open, but we did manage to find one with a large outdoor terrace and a view over the plain to Foligno and Bevagna.
We were the only ones there until a group of old men began arriving – I think they were there to drink espresso and play cards.
On our way back to the parking area we noticed a little pet house and a dish up against the high stone wall – we guessed it’s for some of the local cats.
I’ve continued to go for nice bike rides every couple of days – I never really get lost and am getting to know the different back gravel roads better.
We’ve had a couple more bad storms, complete with lightning and thunder – Mo barks every time the thunder rumbles, as if to warn it that she’s very fierce and it better leave us alone.
Colin and I have both joined a local facebook group and have posted a few photos that are getting lots of thumbs up. I imagine a few folks are puzzled about my name – real name vs facebook persona – but they do seem to appreciate my photography of their beautiful village and surrounding area.
I got back on the bike again 3 days after my little mishap – nothing hurts but I still have road rash below my right knee. I’ve started to venture further and further from Papiano, usually going generally west-ish.
On Sunday I took a little trip to Spina and back – we’ve driven through it before but never stopped. It was a nice place, and the cafe/bar on the main road was full of motorcyclists.
Yesterday I rode to Compignano, which is a lovely village we drove to a week or two ago. Just a km or so before the village I saw a dog on the side of the road – I had a hunch that I better boot it so I pumped the assistance up to the max and started pedaling as fast as I could. Sure enough the dog came at me, snarling and snapping at my left foot. I was going pretty fast but he kept up for quite a ways – I was screaming at the top of my lungs, but didn’t dare try to kick at it in case I wiped out. He finally gave up the chase and I continued on to the village.
Since I didn’t want to risk encountering the dog again on the way back I took an alternate route – a small gravel track that led to another village we’d driven through before. Almost right away I came upon a carabinieri (police) car, but they just nodded and passed me by. 
The road ended up being quite perilous – very steep up, where even with the highest assistance I had to work very hard, then so steep down there were warning signs about the gradient. After my wipe-out last week I decided to be extra cautious and got off and hoofed it down. 
I was going to say that I pushed the bike down, but it was more like I tried to hold it back – it seemed to take a long time to reach the bottom, and felt like I was walking on marbles the entire way.
This morning’s ride was a bit longer than planned – I haven’t bothered to hook my Garmin GPS device up yet – although I had looked at a map – and thus ended up missing a turn and found myself somewhere totally unexpected and confusing just after passing through Villanova.
Rather than compound my problem I just turned around and backtracked home. I did pass through some lovely countryside on the way, however, and just put on a few more miles than planned.
The weather has been very changeable – lots of sun, but also fierce winds as well as pounding downpours. We’ve watched a couple more Clint Eastwood movies, saving the best for last – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – a classic for sure.
We went up to Deruta one day and got some more clay pots for a nice new succulent and the geraniums – the patio is looking very colourful!
You can’t solve injustice with hate or violence, and the USA desperately needs a leader that isn’t such an incompetent dickhead!
Sally McKenzie's European Adventures 