April 18, 2025
Termoli
Breakfast is a delightful scene today. There's a lot of activity in the small dining space, but until we arrive it's all family: there's the woman who we assume is the grandmother, the diminutive figure with magenta hair who greeted us when we first arrived; a younger woman with straight black hair who from their interactions I assume is the daughter; and two completely delightful young girls constantly frolicking around the room, coming back from time to time to touch base with mom or grandma or to give a hug to the man who's on point this morning and brings us our coffee, and is presumably the son-in-law.
The girls are nicely dressed up, today is Good Friday, and perhaps there's an event or service they're all waiting around for. Eventually they all leave and it's just us and the man who's gone back to sit at the front desk, and we're trying to decide whether to ask him for a second cafe latte but finally give up and head back up to the room. From all appearances, it looks like we're the only guests today. It's too bad - if we'd have known, I'd have had a second croissant and the rest of the cheese.
It's a flattish 25 mile ride up the coast to Termoli today, where we’re booked for three nights at an AirBnB - the first of three straight three night AirBnB stays . It's unclear how the winds will factor in but they look like they should be generally in our favor so we stay in the room until checkout time of ten, not really concerned about arriving in time for lunch.
After we've paid the city tax and checked out, the guy walks down to the garage in the next block with us one last time so we can retrieve the bikes. He speaks very little English, but knowing where we're from he's singing a few words from Born in the USA and then he lights up and agrees when I name Bruce Springsteen. Back at the hotel again, he flashes thumbs up my way before disappearing back into the hotel.
And then we turn to loading up the bikes. When we're ready to go though Rachael discovers her helmet is missing, presumably left behind in the garage. So we knock on the door, the guy comes out, and while I watch the bikes he and Rachael return to the garage, have a thorough look, but return empty-handed. So Rachael goes inside and up to the room and looks around there also, still without success.
Very puzzling. The fact that we were at the restaurant on the waterfront comes up, and the guy tries several times to convince me that it must be down there, but there's no chance of that. There's no way Rachael would have biked up these rough streets without her helmet. It definitely made it up here, so it's a mystery. I insist on going back to the garage with him a third time, but a thorough search convinces me. It's gone, in one of life's unexplainable mysteries.
So there's a last round of goodbyes, and a wave from the man in the market at the end of the street after our host lets him know we're from the USA, and then Rachael and I prepare to bike off. She's very unhappy about this of course, as she's very insecure about biking without a helmet and we don't know yet if there is a bike store in Termoli where she could get a replacement. But as we start pushing the bikes up the alley there's a call from the upstairs window - they found the helmet in the room after all!
So that's good.
The ride to Termoli is efficient but quite a bit busier and less interesting than I remember from the previous time we biked this stretch two years ago. After a few quiet miles we merge onto SS16, the busy coast arterial; and we stay on it for nearly the rest of the way to our destination. It's fairly busy and it's a truck route; so even though for most of the way there's a decent shoulder it's a ride that requires constant vigilance. Rachael calls out whenever there's overtaking traffic from the rear, and I keep an eye out for oncoming cars ahead - especially when one has pulled into our lane to pass a slower vehicle. It really makes us relieved that Rachael's helmet was found.
We stop for a few photos in those first quiet five miles, but once we hit the SS16 we just plow forward, trusting the GoPro to remind us of the experience. Later though I'll open up the post from our previous ride from two years ago to remind myself of the route we took last time, because this is so much different than the quiet ride I'd expected. I was surprised to see that we took a much different route then - ten miles longer, with a significant climb up to the quiet hilltop village of Chieuti, before enjoying a delightful drop back to the coast again. On that ride we were only on the SS16 for a very short distance.
So that's the tradeoff. The previous route is obviously better, but neither of us is ready yet for a 35 mile ride with a significant climb in it. We definitely took the right road today for the condition we're in, but I'll watch the maps and keep an eye out in the weeks ahead to see if we're ready for more of a challenge yet.
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Sound track: Alchemy, by Al Marconi
We've identified two restaurants close to our Airbnb that look attractive, so when we're in town we check the map to see which of them makes the most sense for today and are pleased to see that one of them, Trattoria da Endrayu, is exactly on route. We start with a shared mixed salad, and then while Rachael downs her carbonara I gnaw away at an embarrassingly large serving of lamb, trying not to think back on those cavorting youngsters in that goat drive from two days back.
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Before leaving the restaurant Rachael calls our host to let her know we're on our way, and ten minutes later we're inside the walled city and biking the perimeter when she and her teenaged daughter pull away from the wall overlooking the sea to greet us and escort us up to our room.
After dropping off our bikes in an unused apartment we climb up some steep stairs to our place, the highest one on the street and just above one of the historical gates. My knees aren't doing well so I'm both impressed and grateful when the daughter (who's here to serve as a translator since her English is much better than her mother’s, grabs both of my panniers and totes them up for me. Rachael complements her on how strong she is, and the daughter states that it's because she works out at the gym. In the apartment, our host gives a complete, exhaustive orientation of the place to Rachael while the daughter and I chat a bit. She's of high school age, and says that as beautiful as the place is she plans to leave it and move somewhere larger after she graduates. It's an excellent time to be here now and she says it's very pleasant in the winter but the summers are unpleasant - too hot, and awash in tourists.
Later, Rachael heads off to the grocery store to provision us for the next three nights while I take a brief walk along the perimeter of the old city, looking admiringly down at the sea stretching north up the coast. Termoli really is an exceptionally beautiful place, one I'm happy to be returning to.
Not long after she's back we head out together again to the gelateria just outside the walls she spotted on the way back from the supermarket; and afterwards we take our treats (a dish of pistachio for her, a two scoop pistachio and nociola cone for me) down to the sea wall to admire the views before calling it a day.
Today's ride: 25 miles (40 km)
Total: 209 miles (336 km)
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