November 1, 2021
To Rome
A short post for a longer day than was expected. It begons with a quick step out on the balcony to confirm that conditions have indeed changed. No rosy sunrise this morning!
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As she did yesterday, Senora Domatilla arrives at 8:15 with breakfast instead of at the 7:30 time we had agreed with Sandro. A bit concerning, because we have a ferry to catch at 9:35 and even though it’s right across the street and we can see it from our balcony, we want to make sure there’s plenty of time for the unexpected.
One unexpected thing already this morning is that she doesn’t arrive alone. Today she’s brought along her 75 year old husband for unknown reasons. Maybe it’s just because she so obviously likes his company, but I think it’s because she wants to show off her world-traveling, cycling vagabond guests. And maybe it’s because her husband is a world traveler too - which would be easier for him to relate to us if he spoke any English at all, which he unfortunately does not. He proceeds to talk rapidly and at length anyway, and we manage to glean that he worked in the grocery industry and traveled extensively in America and Asia in his line of work.
So this morning we have breakfast in the company of two very chatty, outgoing hosts who talk to us constantly but absolutely intelligibly. And then their son Sandro comes in too, apparently well now or no longer hung over. So it’s a surprisingly gay affair.
Finally at 9 we take our leave and retire to our room to pack up. When we leave, Domatilla has still more to say. Sandro is here to translate this time and let’s us know it’s the usual request for us to give them a good review. I smile and say ‘Certo!’, showing off one of the few useful words in my tiny Italian working vocabulary. Domatilla beams with excitement at this evidence of my budding language skills, rather as if I was a chimp producing a Shakespearean sonnet.
As we leave Domatilla gives Rachael a warm embrace and her husband gives her an awkwardly received European kiss on both cheeks.
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We’re down at the waterfront at 9, partly to get out of an awkward social situation and partly hoping we can board early. We can’t though - there’s no one at the ship yet and the access plank is roped off. And it’s raining now, so we seek short-term shelter in the waterfront bar. From time to time I look out the window to check for signs of activity at our ship, but there are none. Maybe the crew is here in the bar with us, avoiding going out in the rain until the last minute?
Finally at 9:25 we decide we can’t wait any longer and wheel our way over to our catamaran, assuming the crew will show up at any second. It’s only now though that I finally see the word annulato on the departure board. I don’t know much Italian, but I can make an educated guess here. Perhaps the catamaran sailing was cancelled because of the harsh sailing conditions this morning.
Fortunately, I remember that the Moby departure is scheduled for 9:30 - less than five minutes from now! - so I rush down the waterfront to this ship berthed in the neighboring pier, hollering back to a confused and stressed Rachael to just hurry up and follow me. It’s nearing completion of loading, and they quickly look at the tickets and just wave us on.
Which is good! We need to catch this ferry because our train in Piombino departs at 10:53. The catamaran, even though it would have left five minutes earlier than this ship, would have arrived at 10:15 - plenty of time. The slower Moby crossing is scheduled to last an hour and the train station is directly in front of the ferry terminal, so if matters go well we’ll make the train.
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2 years ago
Matters don’t go well, and we don’t make the train. For starters, the ship is ten minutes late in departing. For seconds, it’s twenty minutes late in arrival. And for dessert, our bikes are at the stern of the ferry because we were among the last to board, and we can’t get off the ship until enough of the cars ahead of us drive off to clear up a lane for us. NFW, we glumly conclude as we watch the minutes tick by while we’re waiting for the ramp to finally come down and the first cars to roll off.
We’re philosophical though. It’s just a missed connection, and we’ll just catch the next train. We look at the departure board in the tiny, unattended Piombino Marittima train station and see that there are only two departures daily - the one we just missed, and another one that won’t leave until after 4 PM, almost five hours from now. Rachael does a quick scouting of the area and sees that there’s really nothing down here at all, not even a bar. Five hours in an open, cold, empty train station on a rainy day will go very slowly.
So, we can’t put it off any longer. To explain the rest of the days events it’s time to reveal what Team Anderson is actually up to today. We’re going to Rome after all! When it evolved that most of the rest of our stay here would be very wet and windy we decided that there’s no better time to see the Eternal City again. We booked ourselves a two night stay there, leaving us two cycling days to bike from there to Viterbo if the weather improves; and if it doesn’t we’ll just stay in Rome longer and take the train to Viterbo too.
But first, we have to get to Rome. The train journey requires a transfer at Campiglia Marittima, only about ten miles away. Since we won’t get there by train from here until about 4:30, Rachael checks the schedules to see if there’s a regional (the only type we can take) that we will be in time for. There is, barely - one comes through about fifteen minutes after we’d arrive in Campiglia M., so if things go well we’ll arrive in time and catch it; and arrive in Rome around 8 o’clock, two hours after sundown. Yuck.
Or, we could just bike to Campiglia M. since it’s only 10 miles away, and with luck arrive in time for the Rome train we had hoped to catch in the first place. We both hate this idea - we don’t know anything about what the ride will be like, we don’t have it loaded on the Garmins, and even though it’s not raining in the moment we have no idea if conditions will hold for the next hour. But we hate the idea of sitting in this crappy train station for five hours and arriving in Rome after dark even more, so we go for it. We bring up the map on the phone, Rachael pulls out the handlebar phone mount she’s been carrying around for five months for just this situation, and we’re off.
It goes well, and we make the train with ten minutes to spare. Hills are modest, winds are favorable, there’s a decent shoulder on the highway most of the way, and other than a few misty sprinkles we stay dry. We aren’t even thrown by the unexpected bad luck that we’re routed onto a more direct road that is unfortunately closed due to a bridge outage at the moment and have to backtrack.
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And really, that’s it for drama for the day; and it’s enough, right? It’s nearly a three hour train ride, but it’s uneventful. Looking outside, it looks like it’s raining most of the way, hard at times. It ceases by the time we get to Roma Termini about four though, and we have a dry ride to our hotel.
We’re staying at the Best Western Artdeco Hotel, in a less touristy neighborhood not far from the train station. I wouldn’t call it the best Best Western we’ve stayed at, but it’s at least a pretty good hotel with a reasonable rate. And they’re accommodating to our bikes, as we made sure they would be before we booked with them.
That’s not quite the complete story to the day though. Because we caught the earlier train, we arrived in Rome in plenty of time for dinner. By dinner time it’s pouring out so we look for a restaurant close to our hotel and find one - Andrea’s, just three blocks away. We borrow an umbrella from the hotel and walk briskly there, arriving at 6:30. We’re seated as one of their first customers but within a half hour the place is filling up and everyone that arrives shakes off their umbrella and deposits it in the large urn by the door when they arrive.
Andrea’s is a great place, just the kind we like - a small, high quality family restaurant that’s been here for decades. The woman who serves us is Andrea’s wife, as I know because an enlarged portrait of the two of them is mounted on the wall behind the register. A good meal, and a place we’re happy to support.
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Ride stats today: 12 miles, 400’; for the tour: 2,609 miles, 97,900‘
Today's ride: 12 miles (19 km)
Total: 2,609 miles (4,199 km)
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In case you haven't tried this yet, you can create a route in RWGPS and "pin" it (using the website or the app). It will then copy to your Garmin device the next time it syncs.
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