Day 50: Roma a Piediluco

img_20180718_165457 — It is good to be back in the countryside. On the Rieti Plateau.

We had a good rest day in Rome. We slept in and then strolled to a nice hipster coffee shop to cappuccino and to route plan for today and tomorrow. Then we walked toward the Vatican to the Piazza del Risorgimento, where Liz’s friend Ivan promised we could get the best panini in town. After a shared panino, we spotted a craft beer bar and did not walk past it (I had a very nice session IPA from a CRAK Other Half collab). I still wanted to carboload more for today, so we also went next door for maltagliati all’arrabiata and a salad.

After an unsuccessful attempt to buy shorts (my cycling butt is now bigger than the regular Italian trouser sizes I think), we cooled down in A/C air back at the AirBnB and napped. For dinner, we went out to meet Marco and Cecilia, old friends of mine from ETH days. We had a wonderful evening catching up on everything we have been up to.

It was midnight by the time we went to sleep, so we decided against getting up before dawn, well aware that we would be hot today. I woke up at 6.30 before the alarm and started packing and prepping, and then started reading a book about the Balkan wars to prepare for the next part of the trip. I know way too little about the history of this conflict. Reading the book also allowed me to relax about our departure time and give Liz the time she needed to get ready. Live and learn.

Then it was goodbye Rome. We are cycling to Ancona to catch a ferry over to Split on Friday night. We left the city the same way as we entered, carrying our bikes down to the Tiber River and then cycling along the nice bike path. After leaving the river, we merged onto a big road with lots of traffic, but at least it was flat as it follows the Tiber north.

“Ah, let’s do take *one* picture with a landmark of Rome” – Liz

Not having had breakfast, we said we would stop as soon as we hit a “Schlaraffenland” coffee bar. Liz really likes the concept of the Schlaraffenland, i.e. land of plenty, where one does not have to move to get food – the food comes to you (e.g. a rotisserie chicken flying into your mouth). So we use Schlaraffenland as code for a place that is directly on our route. And indeed we found a Schlaraffenland coffee bar close to where we would cross the A90 highway.

img_20180718_092109 — The cappuccini were delicious – the chocolate patisserie was very dry.

Caffeinated, we rolled further north-east on the SS4, the Via Salaria, which was quite busy for a while after the highway. In Borgo Quinzio, we turned off the SS4 onto the much quieter Vecchia Salaria (old Salaria). Liz was not feeling too great in the morning and was having a headache. We did not do too well with hydration yesterday, which might be the reason – or the three hard days to Rome were taking their toll. So we stopped more often for breaks, and soon after we started following the Vecchia Salaria, we found a Schlaraffenland place that sold Gatorade. This helped Liz’ headache, thankfully.

After we reached the top of the first climb, we started looking for a place (yes, Schlaraffenland of course) to eat a pasta lunch. We ran into a nice restaurant in Osteria Nuova and had spaghettoni all’amatriciana (me) and gnocchi pomodoro (Liz). With a liter of sparkling water, the bill came to 15€.

I was quite worried about the heat with the late start, but it was not as bad as I thought. Most of the time, we had trees lining the road providing shade, and even in the sun the temperature was acceptable as the air was rather dry. And we were super diligent about hydration – by the time we finished dinner, we would each have had six liters / 1.6 gallons to drink today.

In the heat, we made it up the last two climbs through hilly landscapes full of olive trees. From there, we would “only” have 30km/19 miles to ride to the agriturismo for the night. We made good progress on the plateau of the town Rieti, and reached the agriturismo at about 18.00. So we spent about 10h to get from start to finish – with a moving time of 6h40min, we spent a good three hours taking breaks.

We should do shorter days again when we reach the Balkans to have more time to relax. And we both feel like our bodies have not yet fully recovered from the long rides into Rome. But, as Liz said over the very delicious dinner here: “We say this every time we do hard routes, and then someone gets excited again about a longer ride, and we do it again”. Live and maybe soon learn?