April 15, 2015
Fresh Faced: quarry campsite to derelict house campsite.
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A week now on the road since leaving Florence and such is the mountainous nature of Italy, it could well be another week until I reach Naples. Also a week without washing. But the good news is, this quarry where I had camped has a water tap of sorts: a pipe stuck out of a stone block, running water into a water trough.
I packed everything on the bike first thing this morning, a warm sunny morning, the tent bone dry, because I wanted to breakfast at the picnic tables down from where the tent was beside the road. Note, I found porridge in the supermarket back in Norcia yesterday, so that will keep me happy for a few mornings.
Before setting off, I stripe off to the waist by that water trough and have a splash wash, then shave. It feels so good to be rid of a week's stubble. Such a relief. Not shaving doesn't much matter in cold weather, but the days, not yesterday up on that barren mountain but lower down, are now getting up in the mid twenties and with sweating, facial stubble can be itchy.
While shaving an old man walking along the road pauses and stares at my bike against the picnic table. I don't think he saw me as I duck down behind the trough the moment I spot him. He remains a minute or two, and I think he's about to walk over to the tables and investigate, when he turns his head back to the road and continues on his way.
The consequence of such an ambient campsite, sitting watching a pair of blackbirds fly in and out of a tree, means it is quarter to ten when I finally get going. The road continues downhill through the first village street, where a man stood on the pavement shout out "bravo!" as I pass.
At a tee-junction I turn left onto a major road, but with a good shoulder to safely ride upon toward Ascoli Piceno, steadily downhill to the left of a tight river valley with steep wooded sides giving way to grey rock crags above, through a succession of short tunnels of around two-hundred metres, where I'm prepared with hi-vis vest, rear light and flasher: one longer tunnel has an old road round the outside of the mountain.
Approaching town I pull into a petrol station café, where two young men on stools at the bar are chatting over glasses of beer, but seeing me stand at the bar, the nearest one breaks off and shouts to the pretty girl behind the bar, "hey, you speak English!" "No something" she replies. Then he ask me the same question. "Yes, quite a lot" I reply plainly. That really made him laugh.
Leaving Ascoli Piceno, I had planned continuing on the same road to the coast, but now it is hard to avoid dual-carriage way with a signboard saying no-cycling, walking, motorcycles under a certain cc or slow vehicles. So I find myself on a quiet inland road south to Teramo, which at first seem better as it is more in my preferred direction, until I crest the climb away from town and see a barrage of snowy mountains ahead and assume I'll have more days of climbing up to and over a thousand metres ahead of me. At this moment I have happy memories of France, bowling along gentle straight roads from English Channel to Mediterranean in a care free way without climbing a serious hill, or using the brakes much.
Another plus for France are the abundance of picnic table-places where it is pleasant to stop for lunch. There is a scarcity of such places in Italy. None on this road, so I lunch in off the road on a track between two fields.
Mid afternoon there's a long steep brake squealing descent to Termo, a town on a hillside to the north side of a valley, and the way I plan onward via Villa Vomano is signposted long before reaching the centre, but thereafter entails a lot of senseless turning this way and that, going sharply up to come back down beyond the next turning on rough potholed streets. More wear on the brakes and I find myself at a street corner while waiting for traffic, cursing and mocking "up-down up-down....."
The climb up the other side of the valley away from town is gentle and short and those snowy mountain peaks remain well off to my right.
I stop in Villa Vomano for coffee and cake at a petrol station café and adjust the brakes after all the wear they're getting lately. I think I could do with a couple more pairs of spare brake-pads if this keeps up.
The road on is signposted Chieti 90km, so it looks like I'm making progress south. Soon there is a glimpse of the Atriactic to the left. The topography near the east coast of Italy is dune-hills in waves as if once thrown up by a great tidal wave. And this road I'm on numbered 81 is in a shocking state; surface cracks in long fissures big enough to drop a bike wheel into due to subsidence of ground underneath; and at regular intervals as the road traverses slopes, the road has collapsed on the outside and slid down the hill; and other places, the hillside on the inside has slide down onto the road. Landslides abound and there are sign-warnings all along and other places, road works are in the process of repairing some of the damage.
And it is countryside of olive groves and houses just about everywhere, with windows looking out over just about every possible camping spot, which are rare due to the up and down nature of the country. I continue to dusk when I come to a derelict house along an overgrown grassy drive in from the road. There are houses on two sides a few hundred metres off but there's an abundance of level grass and brushes for cover. Anyhow I assume the people in those houses are too busy to care less about a light, perhaps a head-torch moving about in bushes by an old house.
Today's ride: 110 km (68 miles)
Total: 2,838 km (1,762 miles)
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