Hitting The Wall: Day 60 - Palmanova to Gemona del Fruili - Get It While It Lasts... A Big Loop Through Europe 2017

October 6, 2017

Hitting The Wall: Day 60 - Palmanova to Gemona del Fruili

We're into our last few weeks of the trip, and we could hit all the places we want to go to in about a week and a half of hard cycling. But who wants to do that?

We've decided to string out the days with relatively leisurely cycling of 70 - 80 km per day. As a result we ended up booking a B&B in Gemona for tonight. When we got up this morning we had received a message from the property saying that we couldn't check in until 6:30. Ok, we'll have an even more leisurely day!
It turned out to be a nice day to putz along too. Clear blue skies, a stiff wind from the east (we were going mainly north), and great views of the Alps that just kept getting closer.

I've always been impressed with the Alps from Italy. They really do rise like a wall right from the plains. That's what gives rise to today's name. Gemona is literally where the mountains start.

So we lolled around this morning and didn't start riding until after 10. The route is a mix of quite residential and rural roads (some gravel) and some dedicated bike paths. It is so nice to be on a route with virtually no cars again.

We reached Udine at lunch. It's the largest city in the region, about 100,000 people, but it didn't have much industrial activity and was quite pleasant to ride into and out of. The city centre was quite nice, the regular squares, statues and Domo's. Plus cafe's and gelateria's!

We had a simple lunch (cannelloni for K and prosciutto and bread for me .. a slight menu malfunction on my part) and then crossed the street from the café to have our gelato. Life's tough.

We continued to ride along through fields, vineyards and quaint towns with roads about 3 m wide lined with centuries old stone buildings, until we arrived at Gemona ... and the Alps!

Overall a great day. Tomorrow will be another relatively short day. We're going to stretch out Italy as much as possible so we are going to Tarviso, about 70 km down the road and just about on the Austrian border. It's a ski resort town and we're going to be hitting it in the 'shoulder' season. It should be pretty quiet.

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Song of the Day

Well, what else describes today...

Waiting On the Day by John Mayer
...Waiting on the day, when my thoughts are my own ...