Bob and Ann in Italy 2011

I left Volterra before 9:00 riding solo. Somehow I lost one of my new water bottles, so I had to scrounge around to find another one. I didn’t want to be short on water on a hilly, hot day. Jennifer Hocking loaned me one of her spares. By the time I filled it and was ready to go, most of the riders had left. That was OK because I could ride at my own pace.

The ride started out with a 10 km downhill dropping around 2000 feet. Then we had a series of ups and downs throughout the morning and eventually got back up to 2500 feet. The weather was very warm on the climbs but the descents were tingly cool. After passing several geo-thermal power plants I stopped at Castlenuovo at 37 km for a Fanta and a fruit bar. I caught up to Matt Wathen here. We decided it was too early for lunch so we pedaled on. He left a few minutes before I did but I caught him again a few km later. He was standing at the side of the road waiting for a huge group of motorcyclists to pass.

We rode together for a while over several short ups and downs. Then we had our final descent of 1500 feet over 10 km. Matt is more conservative on descents so I lost him on the way and didn’t see him until after I checked in to Hotel La Fenice in Massa Marittima.

The luggage van hadn’t arrived yet so several went searching for a place to eat. We found cafeteria-style hole-in-the-wall that served good inexpensive pasta. Afterwards, we found the luggage van, took our bags to our rooms and cleaned up.

After resting for a few minutes, Matt came by and we decided to wander around town. Massa Maritima is an old medieval town. We learned that first-hand when we walked down to the main piazza. There were guild flags hanging from all the buildings. Soon there were guilds marching through the streets wearing medieval costumes and pounding on their drums. We followed them back to our hotel where they ended the parade.

Parade video 2.
Parade video 3.

Our hotel is very nice. I have a huge room that overlooks the garden and yard in the back.

Osteria San Cerbone

We had our normal Happy Hour tonight and then walked to Osteria San Cerbone for our group dinner. Along the way we met the guild festivities in the main piazza. They were wrapping up their competitions. The winning guild was announced with loud cheers and celebrations. (Another video).

We had a huge dinner with typical Tuscan food – antipasto with several kinds of meat and breads with pate, ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach, flat noodles with wild boar sauce, slices of pork with baked onions, lots of vino rosso and sparkling water and dessert which Matt and I skipped.

I got back to the hotel around 10:00.

This was the day’s route.