April 14, 2023
Day 58: Tonnarella to Villa San Giovanni
Off the island of Sicily
“This guy with the man purse keeps looking around like he’s a bodyguard,” Patrick says as we watch two men talking while a third skinny guy circles them. We’ve stopped for our first break for a cappuccino and pastry at a fancy coffee shop. Some of you all reading this might remember the episode in Seinfeld of the “man purse” or the European carry-all. We see quite a few of them in Italy and wonder what they carry in them. We’ve been cycling a very busy long stretch of nonstop city and traffic.
Breakfast at the B&B is a nice spread of a variety of cereal and sweets. The coffee machine makes a great cup of cappuccino. As we leave continuing on toward the sea we see puddles of water, evidence of rain overnight.
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The ride today can be divided into three sections. We follow the general route advised by RidewithGPS, but sometimes ignore the app when it has us leave the main road at a town only to meander through the side streets and rejoin the main road on the other side of the town. Perhaps this is to avoid the busy road through a town. Overall, we are very happy with the route this app advises.
The first section is pretty nice, we are either a block away from the beach, or the road is right along the sea. A tailwind helps us along. We pass a couple of campgrounds, but they are still closed for the season. Our camping gear will just be carried along a bit longer.
The second section is “miserable” as Rachel says. The road is away from the sea and a continuing stretch of city and nonstop traffic. The streets are lined with badly parked cars, and service trucks stop in the middle of the road, blocking traffic to one lane. We stop for a cappuccino and pastry. This is one of the nicest pastries we’ve had in Italy. Bread and pastry have been a bit of disappointment since the influence of the French in Morocco and Spain.
Once the direct road to Messina leaves the coast and heads up into the mountains the last section that is much more pleasant begins. We decide to ride an extra 15km or so and avoid the big climb over the ridge and go all the way around the eastern tip of the island. We lose much of the traffic, until we reach the outskirts of Messina. We have one big climb, helped by a tailwind then finally a nice downhill. About 15km to the ferry terminal, we stop at an intersection and make ham and cheese sandwiches. We continue on, and there is a bike path for a big chunk of the way to the terminal. We have to ride past the terminal and make a u-turn to the ticket booth. We ride to the front of the line of cars and after only a few minutes wait, ride onto the ferry and park our bikes. Only later do we realize the ferry loads and unloads at both ends and we parked at the back. It’s a quick crossing, only about 20 minutes. After docking the unloading goes very quickly and we ride a few blocks to the B&B Paradise.
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“We are early,” Patrick answers the man who welcomes us from the window above. Peppe is very friendly, even helps with carrying some of the gear to the room. The bikes are in the hallway, very secure. There are 4 keys needed to get into the room: the outside gate, the bottom floor door, the door to the suite of rooms and kitchen/sitting area, and the room.
We clean up, rest then walk to the supermarket to buy tonight’s dinner of Spaghetti Bolognese. Rain is coming. Even though there is not much to do in this town we decide to take a rest day tomorrow and on Sunday try to take the train to Cosenza. This will get us ahead of schedule somewhat and over the big hills along the coast and inland. Italian trains are set-up to take bikes, but it is always and adventure trying to get on.
Today's ride: 70 km (43 miles)
Total: 2,033 km (1,262 miles)
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Thank you and Scott for all the advice!
1 year ago
1 year ago
Making plans now that we will be in Taranto on the 18th, and probably stay the 19th, then aim for Bari. (this part we've not planned out yet)
Today was the perfect day to be on the rain...drizzling rain!
1 year ago