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.
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| Montefiore main drag |
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| 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.
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| 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?
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| 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
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| 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.
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| 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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