If you would like to see details about our journey, check out our itinerary and our bike route.
We were so happy to have a short ride and then a rest today. The hotel in San Marino included a good buffet breakfast, our bikes were easy to load from their ground-floor storage area, and soon we were off—tracking back and forth, up and down the narrow labyrinth inside the stone city walls, trying to follow the spinning arrows on our navigation apps. It took about a mile for us to get down out of San Marino onto the main road. Then we had clear rolling on small country lanes, with a couple of shortcuts on gravel farm tracks, until we reached the foot of the hill to Verucchio.
After not quite a mile pushing our bikes, we came to a small piazza ringed by little eateries and filled with the click click of cleats locking into bike pedals. Verucchio is on the map as a cycling destination, and it is very popular with local tour companies and clubs. This second Saturday in August, the riders were out in force. They had been whizzing past us all morning.
The concierge at our hotel showed us to the bicycle storeroom, then let us check in early. Showered, still hot, and thirsty and hungry, we walked across the street to a busy piadini shop on the piazza and ordered lunch.
Next on the agenda was to stretch out and read on our bed. We woke up a couple of hours later, closed the window and curtains to keep out the hot afternoon sun, and turned on the AC. Ken went out looking for more cold drinks, I worked on the blog.
By 19:30, we were getting hungry again and went to the hotel restaurant for a small feast of cheese and herb ravioli with hazelnut pesto and truffle sauce, followed by slices of rare angus veal and roasted new potatoes. The meat and produce in Italy taste so good. I wonder if the old soil with all the minerals and rocks gives everything more flavor.
The sun had just set when we finished eating. Not quite ready to go to sleep, we walked up to the old fortress and tower at the top of the village, then wandered back down to the piazza for tiramisu, panna cotta with passion fruit and mint, and caffè.
Oh, my. We do feel rested and ready to push on to Ravenna tomorrow.
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| Verucchio is a small, quiet village. A welcome respite after the busyness of the cities we have been staying in. |
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| While we are playing in Italy, grandson Konur is setting and reaching cycling goals in Minnesota--improving his speed at weekly time trials and working up to a century ride. |
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| Grandson Josh is joining his brother Konur in some of the cycling goals, while getting ready to start his first year at the University of Iowa. |
