Villa Turchini – Sacile 74.82km 🚴♀️ 3.55.35 ⏱ 19.1km/hr ⬆️ 225m ⬇️ 390m 🌡29C
Apparently we were so tired 💤 that we slept really well in the tent 🏕 this night. We were kind of scared to get out of the tent because last night when we crawled in there was a parade of snails 🐌 slowly making their way towards our tent ⛺️. Okay they are snails, housed and homeless, but still, they had the whole night to crawl into our stuff. So before stepping out of the tent we had a good look 👀 wether they were in our shoes, or in our helmets ⛑ or just on the tent. The idea of stepping on such a slimy creature or hearing that cracky sound gives me the shivers. We didn’t find any 🐌, but we did discover a long slimy trail all across the inside of our tent. We had had company during the night. But it would be hard to get it off, so we just went to the campsite bathrooms to freshen ourselves up 🚽.
After getting all our stuff out of the tent (mostly ourselves and the sleeping gear cause that’s all that fits in there) we wrapped up the soaking wet tent, oh the joy. The rain added another kilo to the tent, not that it’s heavy but every kilo counts. In the meantime Suuz started breakfast. She had already boiled some eggs 🥚 the day before so all she had to do was toast some bread 🍞 on our one pit stove, add a bit of mayonnaise and breakfast was served. It was not that much of a struggle to eat it this time, it was kinda tasty!
We were on the bike 7.30am sharp for a flat day of 75km towards the agriturismo we booked in Sacile. All bike routes seemed to end in that place so we wanted to check out why. Also, we planned to cycle 105km to a campground since there wasn’t a lot of climbing, but we didn’t feel like being on the bikes that long. The first five kilometres were off road on some kind of trail, it wasn’t even that muddy after yesterday’s rain. We were happy to be back on the main road though, it wasn’t too busy and you see much more.
So we thought there was no climbing today but once again, the only flat country in the world is Holland. The Erasmus bridge is almost the highest thing we have (sorry Limburg). We went up and down, sometimes really steep, sometimes gradually. Sometimes asphalt, sometimes loose rocks and gravel. After a few days of a lot of climbing a speed bump was already too much effort. Especially for Mas who always struggles with recovery of muscles. They just don’t. On the other hand, it always has been like this so she just deals with it and cycles on. Today was a big day. Suuz got promoted from being a girl on a bike to being a real cyclist 🚴♀️ when we passed the 2000km today, as a reward Mas gave her a Hello Kitty 🐱 sticker 💪🏻.
The real mountains were behind us, for now, but we could see them all day. We can still see them. Not now because it’s dark, but when the sun rises again and the clouds clear we see them again tomorrow. It was definitely nice to have an ‘easy’ day and the roads were interesting enough to enjoy it. We cycled through lots of little villages, through farmland with sun flowers 🌻 or hay bails, along vineyards and also through small industrial 🏭 zones. We had coffee ☕️ in one small village called Peonis. The folks running the bar were really kind and interested in our trip. The lady taught Suuz some Italian whilst Suuz had some kind of tosti and Mas had a croissant 🥐 stuffed with chocolate 🍫. Why do they do that? Why stuff a croissant with chocolate? That’s not tasty, it’s gross. A croissant 🥐, that is tasty. It looks tasty, it tastes tasty. Chocolate is for a bar 🍫 or for milk 🥛 but not for a croissant!
Anyway, we moved on. But not before we bought lunch in the local grocery store. Suuz bought fresh mortadella and was very happy. Italy and its great food. Like I said, great roads with sun flowers, hay bails, vine branches, the mountains in the background, a bike path over what used to be a river. Or maybe still is one in spring when the snow on the mountains melts. A bike path on a roundabout, but only if you take the right turn. If not, you have to take a right turn anyway cause once you are on it you cannot get off. Unless you push your bike through some bushes, like we did.
For lunch we went to a bar in this tiny town called San Foca. We ate our own bread 🍞, but had some cold drinks and espresso. The girl at the bar was really nice and helpful so we took our time. Mas looked at the pictures in La Gazette dello Sport. Matthijs de Ligt is in there on daily basis since Juventus wants to buy him. Well we don’t want him to be sold. Especially not to the old lady 👵🏼.
It was another 25 kilometers after lunch. This last stretch was totally flat, even a little downhill. The wind picked up a fair bit but it was nice to have some air flowing since it’s still hot. Not close to 40 degrees anymore but around 30 degrees is still hot. Once we got to the agriturismo it was around 1.15, time to jump in the pool. Something we hadn’t been able to do for a long time. The lady of this place was not very helpful, she did not want to do our laundry or let us use her machine. We booked this place cause we could also have a good dinner there, but apparently they don’t do that during week days and you have to book ahead (which she hadn’t mentioned when we made a reservation). We were a little disappointed because we had booked this place so we wouldn’t have to go anywhere after arrival. Since it was pretty far out of town, we now we had to go into the city to get food.
But yeah, after a swim all was better. We found a nice restaurant in the city, we will do laundry tomorrow and otherwise the place is really nice. We cycled to the city and had an apperitivo 🍸 at the local cafe. When we got to the restaurant it was fully booked (on Monday evening). We tried another one, but it didn’t open for another 45 minutes and the third one was closed for no apparent reason. Since we could already see the lightning 🌩 and dark clouds above us we decided to go to the one that didn’t open for another 45 minutes and just wait it out. It had a bar where we could stay and just when we stepped inside all hell broke loose. Insane amounts of rain 🌧, hail even and lightning 🌩. So we sat ourselves down in the bar and moved into the restaurant later and figured we would be there for a couple of hours.
Dinner was really nice. We had some red wine 🍷, not too great but good enough. We’ll save the great stuff for next week when Mas her younger sister and her partner come to visit. They know a lot about Italy 🇮🇹, wine 🍷 and good food. The waiter at the restaurant was hilarious. When we told him Suuz is allergic to peanuts 🥜 he said they did not have any, but he could bring her some potatoes 🥔. The lady waiter that came to our table later did the opposite of everything you said. She asked if we wanted more water, we told her no, and she brought us another bottle. She asked if Mas wanted to have cheese 🧀 on her ravioli, Mas said yes, and she took the cheese away. She asked if we wanted to order dessert, when we just had a small appetizer and wanted to order a primo. Well at least we had a good laugh 😂.
Suuz had a black angus carpaccio with pomodorini, Mas orzo with fresh vegetables. As primo we had ravioli with salted cod and black olives, and fresh tagliatelle with sugo biancho, and tiramisu for dessert 👌🏻. After a lovely dinner we wanted to go back, it was still raining 🌧, but not as bad anymore and it was getting dark. So we stepped on the bike and left. It wasn’t too bad but we were pretty wet when we arrived back at the agriturismo. Only to find out the lady was preparing dinner for two other guests. We were kind of pissed since that’s all we wanted, but she told us it was not possible. So we told her we were not happy but of course there was this language problem. She knew we were unhappy, and gave us a written explanation and excuse note 💌 the next morning and a discount on our stay. All good lady.
We only have a short day tomorrow. Thirty kilometres and a bit of climbing to Tarzo. We will take a rest day over there since we are both really tired and we still have some extra time to go to the Sondrio area. That will be a tough one going into the mountains ⛰ so we better be rested. We’ll be sleeping in tomorrow!
Dat hebben wij in frankrijk ook wel eens gehad, kom je eindelijk ik je hotel waar je gereserveerd had, mag je niet dineren, want af apart gereserveerd moeten worden. Had ons dat dan verteld!!!
Dus tegenwoordig reserveren we ook het restaurant 😜
Ja dat is toch onaardig, moet je indd melden als iemand reserveert. Maar nu toch heel lekker gegeten ergens anders :-).