Bob and Ann in Italy 2011

The hotel's breakfast buffet was really good. I had scrambled eggs with bacon for the first time on the trip. This isn’t something I normally eat, but I needed some protein to keep up my energy. I have not been hungry at breakfast for several days because of our late dinners.

The skies were threatening rain when Matt Wathen and I left at 8:00. We packed our rain jackets (a) to ward off the rain spirits or (b) to put them if it rained. Option (a) worked because we didn’t have a drop of rain all day. The weather was sunny and cool all day, our most pleasant day on the tour weather-wise.

We made out first stop after less than 3 km at Monteriggione, a very small walled village. This normally is a busy tourist stop. We were early enough so that we saw no other tourists and were able to visit the deserted village by ourselves.

After leaving Monteriggione, we soon picked up Dave and Eric Hansen, our strong father/son team. We rode with them all of the way to the finish.

Today’s route had several short climbs and descents. Only a couple of them were steep. We were mostly on narrow roads with little traffic. We stopped a few times for photo ops, nature calls and snacks. We had lunch at the top of the steepest climb of the day in Radda in Chianti . We ate outside in a small trattoria on the main piazza. I had been at the same place two years ago and enjoyed it. We all ate ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach and covered with a sauce made with sheep and goat cheese.

After lunch we walked our bicycles up the main street of the town to where we saw a crowd gathering in front of a church. A wedding was just finishing and a military honor guard was crossing swords waiting for the bride and groom to walk the gauntlet. We watched them walk past each pair of officers. When they reached the last pair, the officers block them with their swords and forced the bride to walk back up and down the stairs and kiss each member of the honor guard.

The Joy of Gelato

Soon we were off riding again, this time picking up Ruth Maule and Darrell Athay, or rather they picked up us. Ruth pulled us for the next 10 km to Castellina. Our first stop was for very good gelato. Our second stop was up a hill to Villa Cristina, our headquarters. The third stop was another 2km to an agriturissimo where many of us found our rooms and an inviting swimming pool. I had a small funky comfortable room with older stuffed furniture. The shower in the bathroom drained on the bathroom floor. It worked well. And we had FREE wifi.

We walked to town and toured the main street. I had been to Castellina before but had never been in town. It is an interesting old village that has been converted into a tourist haven. There are lots of shops selling local products especially Chianti. There are lots of old buildings including one that looks like a castle.

We had Happy Hour at Villa Cristina and then walked to Il Fondaccio dai Dottori Restaurant - Pizzeria for dinner. We had two kinds of pasta – ravioli and linguini. Our main course was two kinds of beef. One had a pepper sauce that was outstanding. Our dessert was local cake. If I had less wine I could have describe the meal better.

It turned cool when the sun went down. Some of us still had on shorts and short sleeved shirts. We had to drape chair covers over us at our outside dinner seating to keep warm. At the end of dinner, we couldn’t find our transport back to our agriturissimo so we walked. It was cold.

Here is today's ride.