From Gubbio we had a short cycle to Assisi. We arrived nice and early and the sun was out so decided to finally do some disgustingly overdue washing. We borrowed some laundry detergent from our very friendly british campervan neighbours... who also offered us numerous cups of coffee and advice. Amazing how exciting it was to do washing. Clean clothes!
We did an evening walk in the walled town of Assisi. Famous for Saint Francis.
Next morning, another beautiful sunny day we headed to Perugia (not before finding out it was national independence day, which meant public holiday, which meant "high season" prices = €30 for our campsite!).... It also meant most shops were closed and Perugia was busy... had a wander. had a gelato and fresh butter and bread.... then had the mission of getting out of Perugia. poor signage, no decent map. Byrdie doesn't like not knowing EXACTLY where we are, so we stop every km or so to reassess the situation....
Managed to make it to Lago (Lake) Trasimeno and cycled around it to Castiglione de Lago. About 500m from our campsite the rain starting pelting down. We huddled under a shelter at the campground. ate way too much spaghetti and waited out the thunderstorm (our third lot of dramatic thunder and lightening in Italy!).
The next morning the sun was out again and we did a patissery crawl in the walled town overlooking the lake (very pretty) and delicious pastrys. We did a short cycle out of Umbria and into Tuscany to a hilltop town, Cortona. We had the luxury of staying in a hostel; which also meant it was easier to eat out... so had takeaway pizza and beer in the town square. bliss... that day there was a medievel celebration which we happened to bump into twice. drums and trumpets and cool costumes.
From Cortona we started a lonely planet cycle suggestion (backwards) called hilltown trek. We ended up doing almost two days of it in one... so ended up going up 2.5 pretty big hills instead of 1 and doing 90km.... we knew there wasn,t much accommodation available so decided to freedom camp by a river. (helped to cancel out the very expensive campsite too).
Today we cycled up and down lots more hills and arrived in Siena, a bustling walled city with cool buildings. we passed the 2000km on the odometer so celebrated by going out for dinner. pasta, steak, antipesto.... wine. yummy....
tomorrow we will probably head towards florence. but plans may have changed now that Byrdie has just discovered that ferrys only go 2 times a week to Croatia....
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