Italy

In Patra, Greece before our 21 hour ferry ride, we thought we'd better stock up on food. 21hours! we somehow ended up with a huge overflowing bag of food; two loaves of bread, dry bread, oranges, chocolate, wine, feta, cucumber, tomatoes.... etc, etc... this is a bit ridiculous we thought.

By the time we arrived in Ancona, Italy we'd eaten almost everything (including a whole container of jam...). Being Sunday of course all the shops were closed. We took a train almost straight away out of Ancona to a place called Pesaro where we demolished the last few dried bread bits... and the headed up and up to a campsite. Italian campsites are expensive €19 just to pitch a tent! The guy suggested a pizzeria up the road. so we biked up there and I enjoyed my first Italian pizza, with wine.... bliss. starting loving italy already! Byrdie ordered pasta. and salad. oh and we had delicious dessert.... Byrdies helping of pasta was smallish (but more expensive than my huge pizza), so i generously gave her a piece of my pizza. but she STILL insisted on cooking up an unappetising mix of pasta, lentils and soup mix when we got back to the campsite...

Next morning we had no food. so decided to have two hot cocoas (one with the last handful of oats in it - it is actually quite delicious, try it sometime) with the idea that we would stop in the next town at a bakery.... 20km later it started raining... Byrdie is saying positive things like "It doesn't feel like a thunderstorm", "look at those geese", "oh, look a patch of blue sky"... meanwhile I'm thinking. food. food. food. what will my strategy be when we get to a supermarket. at the 30km point we came to a supermarket. but it didn't have much. managed to satisfy my hunger though... soon after the sun came out and was nice days cycling.

Another rip off campsite up a steep hill above a pretty old walled town Urbino. We stocked up hugely at a large supermarketo. Our cooking gas ran out just as the pasta was al dente...

Yesterday we knew we had a big day ahead. Byrdie was keen on finding camping gas, so we stopped at every supermarket along the way. The weather was looking threatening and the forecast was for rain... about 10km before a big uphill the heavens opened. within minutes we were soaked through. We stopped at a monastery and decided to have a cappacino. Then it really started pouring again. and we were cold. so we had another cappacino (by a fire too). then a hot chocolate (except it was more like hot instant pudding. was delicious)... an hour and a half later the rain finally stopped and we got up the courage to leave. We didn't actually go into the monastery (you could only go in for a half hour tour in italian)....

We stopped in the next town and asked pretty much the first person we saw where some accommodation was. He was at the door of his bed and breakfast. so we stayed there. the most luxurious (and most expensive) accommodation so far. Breakfast was typical italian breakfast. cappacino and crissiont. fortunately he offered us another of each....

This morning we cycled a short distance to Gubbio where we've had the day off and generally wandered about. eaten Gelato. supermarketo shopping. found some rip off cooking gas....