We left Comacchio on the 11th to head further south first to the principality of San Marino, just to say we had been really it’s a nice enough place perched on a hill surrounded by Italy, lots of shops geared up entirely for tourists and guys in suits (so assume some kind of financial centre), we spent a an hour or so wandering around before making off.
We had planned to finish the day in Urbino which we had heard was a well preserved brick built town, the drive across from San Marino through the hills was well off the beaten track and I think we only saw half dozen cars in the 40 or so kms.
When we arrived we were immediately disappointed as the town appeared quite modern and looked nothing special, however has we headed for the campsite the old town came into view as a completely separate entity from new town. The campsite was located on a hill directly opposite the hill on which the old town was located approx 4 km away, after sorting a pitch out we cycled down to the old town which turned out to be one of our favourite places so far.
Urbino
The town houses a large university and as a consequence there was a really lively atmosphere about the place in addition it appeared to be a place where real people lived and as a consequence had all the normal sorts of shops which are required for day to day living as opposed to shops specifically geared around tourists.
The whole time we have been in Italy we have noticed people in bars drinking what appeared to me to be Ironbru! Sharon was keen to give it a try and eventually worked out that this was Aperol Spritz so we chose a bar in the main square in Urbino to have a drink, I stuck with a beer whilst Sharon went for the aforementioned Aperol Spritz which was compared to old style Sudafed Elixir (I am not sure if comparing drinks to various linctuses is a common pharmacist trait!) however after a few sips was reported to be very palatable (more of which later).
The ride back to the campsite in 30 degree heat plus a 2.5 km hill which we had crawled up in third gear in the van was hard work on our 3 speed folding bikes!
We left Urbino on the 12th heading further south into the Mt Sibillini National Park more twisty roads with entertainment provided by the local drivers particularly the guy in the 911 who undertook some impressive moves.
The campsite we choose is right in the heart of the park some 5 km uphill from the nearest town – given that we were in 2nd gear for parts of the climb in the van we decided to pass on the idea of riding back into town. We have now come up with our own classification system for hills similar to the Tour de France except in our case we will be using the gears of a VW Transporter rather than some old Citroen 2CV – in our case any hill that necessitates us being in lower than 3rd gear to get up will be off limits as far as riding up on a folding bike!
Crowded campsite Mt Sibillini National Park
The campsite itself has 300 pitches but as we are approaching the end of the season there is only us and three others here so we practically have the place to ourselves. As always in mountainous areas the weather is apt to change rapidly, we arrived in bright sunshine and blistering heat which became dull over a period of 4 – 5 hrs to be followed by thunderstorms and torrential rain which is still going after some 15 hrs! (a planning and reading day!).
We did try out the campsite bar last night we were the only two customers and gained a greater understanding as to why Sharon likes said Aperol Spritz which appeared to be large glass of white wine topped up with splash of soda and a generous measure of Aperol, although we are not sure if the generous measures are as a result of clearing stock before the campsite closes at the weekend until next season.
The rain continued unabated for a further night and morning and was still raining when we came to check out. The old lady who ran the campsite appeared with her brolly nearly blowing inside out to exclamations of “mamma mia, mamma mia”. She asked if we were going to the coast to which we replied yes, then “Adriatic?” Again yes, “It’s raining there too!” Or that’s what we think she said from our phrase book Italian!
We head off in the rain via the scenic mountain route or rather it would have been scenic if it wasn’t for the torrential rain and low cloud, the roads were fun however with plenty of hairpin bends as we climbed up and down the various mountain roads. The poor visibility did have the advantage that we could not see the precipitous drops off the side of road.
Adriatic Coast
We arrived in the Adriatic near Termoli last night with some improvement in the weather (only heavy showers!).
t5ontour 