It's hard even after a couple of weeks of these temperatures to get your head round it being 37 degrees at 9:30 in the morning but that's what it was as we left Rome. We made surprisingly short shrift of the Rome traffic, the only issue being a wrong turn caused by a slow responding Tomtom. Otherwise we handled everything fairly easily.
We were soon out of the city and heading towards the coast and that's where my gremlins struck again. With the temperature in the high 30s, crawling through a seaside resort, with pedestrian crossings every few yards, Ginny overheated again. We had to pull over and let her cool down, whilst we had some water to cool ourselves.
Back on the road and away from heavy traffic, she was fine again. After, another slight Tomtom issue we were bowling along nicely, if not coolly.
At our fuel/snack stop, something happened that hasn't happened for over a week, it rained. When I say rained, it was over in about 2 minutes and was dry in about another 2, due to it still being 29 degrees. There is so much dust in the air, that the droplets must be easily 50% dust, so when dry, everything was covered in dusty spots. We both agreed, to quote Grizzly, " there's no f*****g way I'm putting on waterproofs ". We'd have to be mad to, in such high temperatures.
Back on the road, we hit another patch of rain, a bit more persistent this time. Enough to wet the roads but not enough to really trouble us, it produced the same thick dust covering on us and the bikes though.
We had one POI today. Another disappointment. The Colonna di Montarenti, one of the 18 still intact trail signs dating back to the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. I think I was expecting something much more grand but it's just a big stone signpost really
20km up the road was our hotel in Siena. We arrived about 4pm.
Checked in, we had our second bed incident, a double bed instead of 2 singles. The receptionist gave me another room key but that too had a double. I don't think she believed me, as she went to see for herself. Third time lucky, we got 2 singles.
We had dinner in the hotel again, as once again we are located a bit outside the city, and I managed to drink the hotel dry of Peroni Nastro Azzurro beer! Not many can say that. 😉
I have now covered over 3000 miles since leaving home. Tomorrow Ginny will pass 25k miles.
Our plan for tomorrow has changed slightly as our Italian chum Lorenzo, last seen in 2014, is going to ride down from his home near Verona, to meet up, have a coffee and ride a few miles with us. The plan, if it comes together will see us meet at our scheduled fuel stop. Fingers crossed 🤞.
We'll end the day in La Spezia, or at least, just outside again.
Ciao
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