To Le Marche - Urbino, Montefiore Concha and Montebello

From Faenza, in Emilia Romagna, we caught a train east and south wards to the Romagnan coast at Riccione. What and eye opener! Riccione was like the Gold Coast on steroids! Yuck! Anyway we weren't planning on staying but cycling inland towards Urbino in Le Marche. Le Marche is a beautiful region , as nice as Tuscany but without the tourists, so much.

We cycled via Montefiore Concha, another killer hill with a beautiful town at the top. There, we had a glass of beer, our picnic dinner then a couple of glasses of wine at the enoteca.

Montefiore main drag

Panorama from the "rocca" at montefiore

After that we cycled off, a bit drunk, to find a sneaky camp. In what looked like a nice spot, an old bloke was talking his evening stroll so we asked if we could camp there and he invited us to his "backyard" which was an abandoned and overgrown vineyard and small olive grove with a pomegranate tree.

View from the tent

Next morning we cycled on to Urbino, birthplace of Raffaelo and a world heritage listed city. Its old city is remarkably intact and very beautiful. The ducal palace is impressive but we found the art - hundreds of depictions of the, ahem, Virgin Mary with baby Jesus a bit dull after a while. Surely there was other artistic inspiration at that time in the renaissance?

Looking from Santa Lucia gate into the old city of Urbino

The next day, with rain forecast (and big storms the night before) we took off for an apartment that we rented further south. We cycled over Mt Cesane and this was a real highlight. The road followed the ridge mostly and was surrounded by forests that changed from pine to deciduous and back again

mt Cesane forest road

The descent was really steep and the road was in pretty poor condition so we were glad not to be riding up that side.

The descent from Mt Cesane

We had excellent gelati in Fossombrone as well as directions to Montebello, via the least steep route, which it was until the last 2 km which was another killer.

 

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Birthday treat

Bri organised a stay in an Agriturismo for my birthday. Agriturismi are, often, small or large farms that have accommodation and sometimes restaurants that serve food using their produce. Bri picked one called Contadino telamone near Faenza because it's description and the reviews focused on the food.

So we cycled out of Faenza which we cycled to from Sassoleone with a sneaky wild camp along the way...

...in a vineyard just outside brisighella. We had to get up early (6am) just in case we got sprung or got sprayed!

We rolled into Faenza which is a really beautiful and not touristy town. And the market was on. And I found a public toilet when I needed one. All for my birthday!

Main square in Faenza

After a few hours wandering the streets and taking a swim at the local pool (it was very hot again), we cycled out to Telamone. I was a bit worried at first because it was very close to the freeway but at least it was fruit and veg farm all around.

It turned out to be a really tastefully restored old building with nice simple rooms and a great dinner! We ate at tables outside and we were offered seconds for each course and it was all washed done with a nice bottle of sparkling Trebbiano-Chardonnay (local)

Handmade egg pasta

 

Stuffed with zucchini and a zucchini cream sauce and hazelnuts

 

Homegrown chook with vegetables and juniper

 

Semolina pannacotta with caramelised nectarine

The food was absolutely fantastic. Best meal of the trip so far! And, no apologies for the unponcey, unstyled-looking food ;)

During dinner, the Italy-Uruguay game was on and there was a small screen in the kitchen.... I had a bit if a peak too

 

 

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the Emilia-Romagna Hills - our weekend with Kris and Matteo

Although Florence is beautiful, it's a big city full of tourists so one day was enough for us. We grabbed a short train ride north to Pianoro and then started riding to our warmshowers (a reciprocal hosting scheme for cycling tourists) hosts, Kris and Matteo in Sassoleone (South of Imola).

So steep that some pushing was required

The ride from Pianoro was hot and difficult with some serious climbs.....

 

 

Romagna hill country

....but stunning scenery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at Kris and Matt's on Saturday evening and they were in the midst of preparing pizza for dinner that we all enjoyed sitting outside of the farmhouse where they live. It was a great evening and, after the ride, lots of pizza and beer (which is what you're supposed to drink with pizza, apparently!), we had a great sleep.

Next morning we did a small amount of work to help out....

 

Apricots in the dryer

Then after lunch (frittata of zucchini flowers which we collected in the morning), they drove us to a favourite swimming spot on the Santerno river for swimming and lazing around on the rocks

Bri, Noah, Lori and Rasmus

After the long hot walk back to the car, we had a nice cold water at the local source

Kris and the kids

That night, we cooked and ate a meal together. Kris and Matteo started a global group called comecookandeat.org where people can visit others to cook and share a meal together - great concept!

I was asked to cook something from my background which, based on the available ingredients, turned out to be a veggie korma. Kris and Matt made beautiful pumpkin and potato gnocchi with tomato sauce or sage butter (all their produce).

 

Matt on gnocchi, Kris on sauce

 

It was delicious!

Thanks Kris, Matteo, Lori, Jora and Rasmus for having us!

 

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A few random pics from Florence

Another Gelato - this one from venchi

 

ponte Vecchio at sunset

 

How romantic!

 

Duomo with fig tree (up high)

 

Just for Rod and Jeannie

 

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In Florence

We decided to have one whole day in Florence - woo-hoo! So, we caught a train there from our station 9km from Vagki Sotto. The train trip was a bit of a pain. It seems that denoting transport of bikes on the schedule doesn't actually mean that the Italian trains provide a place to put them, necessarily! So we spent 1.5 hours nursing our bikes within the entry way of a carriage . It wasn't too bad....

In Florence, we rode to our hotel from the station and found out that they had moved us to a better hotel just around the corner, so, we cycled there, installed our baggage then took off with our bikes to cycle the streets. Turns out that this is the best way to see the city. You can travel fastish and cover more ground, it's a bit cooler than walking in the heat and you feel slightly removed from the throngs of tourists.

We went to the La Specola museum which is not part of the tourist circuit, and looked at the display of stuffed animals and wax statues of anatomical human dissections. We even saw a thylacine!

After this we went the central market where there was a food hall with lots of big TV screen set up for the World Cup game Italy vs Costa Rica. We found some space to sit and ate pizza and tripe sandwich while we watched the game. Italy didn't score though so the atmosphere, which was humming to start of with, became a bit subdued.

Margherita pizza

It's a good one!

Tripe sandwich

The tripe sandwich eater

 

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Ride to Campocatino

 

Finally, on Monday night, we had pizza for dinner at the pizzeria in the old part of the village where we are staying. The menu was three full pages of options, two of which are shown in the picture here, and yes, they do, do Hawaiian!

Olives, capsicum, salami and chilli.

The next day we rode our bikes up to Campocatino, a largely deserted village that is now mostly frequented by hikers. We rode from Vagli Sotto (Vagli low) to Vagli Sopra (Vagli high) and then continued to climb to Campocatino, a total climb of about 400 metres in altitude.

Looking down on Vagli Sopra, Vagli Sotto and the old part of Vagli Sotto at the back.

We had lunch at Il Refugio, where we were again offered, with as much enthusiam as ever, for primi: pasta with ragu; pasta with pesto; or pasta with pomodoro and then for secondi: melanese; scallopine; or prosciutto with melons. They also offered the local speciality of minestre di Farro which is a soup made of the local ancient wheat variety they call Farro which looks and tastes a lot like pearl barley. While we suspect that this picture may displease certain readers, it deserves to be included because the soup was delicious.

 

Brown soup

One other yummy thing we had the other day, from a bakery near Carregine, was little pieces of bread dough that have been fried and well salted. There is no picture because we ate them too quickly but here is a recipe that I am going to try when when I get home.

 

 

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Life at Vagli Sotto

Vagli Sotto is on Lago Vagli within the Apuan alps park. It's really beautiful and verdant. We sit at around 600m and are surrounded by mountains which is all very beautiful but it does mean that we have to do some serious climbing to get out of this valley!

Our house is in that village

We spent a little time relaxing in our house which is small, cosy and rustic but in a groovy way

Kitchen

Dining area

We've been exploring around the area a fair bit though. On Sunday we rode up the hill to Roggio and had a super lunch at ristorante Colletti (recommended by the owner of our house). They use a lot of their own produce

The lunch was huge with 3 antipasti platters, followed by a pasta course

Part 3 (!) of the antipasti

Maccherone with ragu

And a mains platters which had fried rabbit, wild boar sausage, pork ribs, roasted chicken, pork and beef!

Maccherone with ragu

Main course platter

Needless to say, we rolled down the hill after this one! Oh, this cost a bit more but still 64 euros, including bottled wine, or a little under $100! Was a bargain!

On Monday, we rode on a very minor road up some good inclines (wishing we had our mountain bikes!) up to a village called Carregine where we had some cappucini before riding on further up the hill before descending almost 1000m to Castenuovo di Garfagnana

Wishing we had mountain bikes

There, I bought guinea fowl at the supermarket (!) to cook for dinner that night before going to our 'local' to watch Germany thrash Portugal 4-0. Italians are extremely parochial, in that they simply don't watch any football game unless italy is playing. When italy played and beat England, the bar was full, rowdy and full of character. for any other game, no one even looks at the screen!

Too much climbing dad!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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