Another terrific day, and the trauma of yesterday's train ride is already receding as just the latest in our endless series of train fiascos. At least on this one we didn't end up with me standing upon the platform in Montpellier watching in horror as Rachael departed alone on the train to Perpignan. That was definitely our WOAT train story.
After a fine breakfast at our bailout hotel we set off for Sanremo, where we've booked a room for the next two nights. It would have been a pretty easy ten mile ride from Ventimiglia, but from here now it's only seven. The weather is excellent and suddenly we've been transported to the gorgeous Ligurian coast, so of course we'll have to do a bit more than that. I draw up a route that overshoots Sanremo by about ten miles before doubling back, Rachael loads the Garmins, and we're off.
We've ridden this coastline at least three times in the past, if not four. The first was on our way back to Paris on our first European tour in 1993; and we rode it again on our first long vagabond tour, from Dubrovnik to Barcelona in 2018; and then once more on our Road to Rome tour in 2021. And I think we may have ridden part of it in 1994 took but I'm too lazy at the moment to go back and confirm it from the journal.
In any case though, we've always ridden it east to west, so today is the first time in the opposite direction. We'll save some time here and assure you it's good both ways. If you haven't been here yourself, you should check it out.
Looking up at Bordeghera, a pretty town we'll get a second look at when we bike west.
We were impressed by all the tunnels we biked through on our ride to Pescara two days ago - impressed enough that we dedicated a video to them. Those were nothing compared to today though. The Italians in northern Italy were tunneling fiends! About seven or eight miles of today's out and back ride were within tunnels. One of the earliest is the famous mile-long tunnel through Capo Nero, an homage to the Milan to San Remo bike race. We'll see this tunnel again when we return west to Menton the day after tomorrow. And later in the ride, in addition to four shorter tunnels that we'll ride both directions today there's another mile long monster, the San Lorenzo galleria.
So if those piddly little gopher holes along the Adriatic merited a separate video, we'd better have one here too.
I'm not sure, but I think this is the first of the six tunnels we'll bike through going east today.its before Ventimiglia, so we'll come back through it tomorrow.
The hills of the coastal range are studded with ridgetop villages. We're both looking forward to our day off to hike and bike up into those hills. Already I'm sorry we're not staying here longer.
Sound track: Bright Moments, by Grover Washington, Jr.
We make it back to Sanremo around three, find a gelateria serving Rachael's favorite, and soon afterwards check into the very nice furnished room we're staying at for the next two nights. And we have a hilarious tale to tell about our arrival, but let's save something for tomorrow in case it turns out to be a slow news day.
