Day 9: Firenze - Bibbiena (78km - 5:15)

Saturday 1 May

It was a nice quiet start to the day rolling out of town along the Arno. The fishermen were out, as were several groups of cyclists on their weekend morning ride. The road did begin to head up though after about 20kms, and it stayed pointed up for the next 16km, taking us from 100m to 1050m asl.

The climb was also the territory of many Italians on a wide range of very fast motorbikes. Lots of twisty corners for them - looked like fun! Mostly they were quite good and either slowed when passing, or overtook in the oncoming lane. And no, I'm sure they couldn't always see if there was approaching traffic!

A nice downhill lead us to the town of Poppi, where we were hoping to stay in the hotel on top of the hill that was home to the old village. Unfortunately our slog to the top of the hill was wasted as the hotel was full with a wedding and its guests. It also didn't help that today was a public holiday and lots of people had decided to go away for the weekend. So the other two hotels in town were also full.

The one hotel was very helpful though, and they phoned around nearby accomodations for us and found us a bed and breakfast in nearby Bibbiena. Off we set for Bibbiena following our directions to the b&b. What the woman at the b&b neglected to tell us was that her establishment was in fact several kilometres beyond Bibbiena, and that one had to pass through the centre of the (hill-top) town, then carry on ascending up a fairly steep hill. As Nicole had blown already in Poppi, this was not a pleasant experience. She ended up walking the last kilometre to the accomodation, and I rode both bikes up.

We eventually did get there. A very fancy place with big BMWs parked outside. We felt rather out of place - the rate we'd been quoted for the room was 90eur for the room, but the pricelist on the back of the door indicated the regular rate of 180eur per night - very expensive!! And a bit of a rip-off frankly, even at 90eur it wasn't anything special. They didn't serve dinner so we had to ride into town to find food. The closest place was a small pizza joint on the outskirts of the town where we had, you guessed it, pizza, and ice cold beer.

 

 

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