A deep breath and off we go!

We had aggressive riding conditions today.  Not that we had hard climbs (mostly flat), but the first half of our ride was on the ‘soon to be’ autostrada; fast speeds and no shoulder.Luckily, being Saturday and in the morning, the traffic was not heavy in our direction.

So in between the cars flying by, we enjoyed the rolling countryside

and fields filled with grapes.

It was a hot day though, 100 degrees by ten o’clock.  About 10:30, we stopped for a break from the sun and heat to enjoy chocolate stuffed croissants, cappuccino and ice cold water.  During our short sugar break, we had gained cloud cover

which cooled the morning to a crisp 90 degrees, but the wind had gained momentum, today was just not going to be easy.

After 26 miles, we finally reached the road that would take us off the highway.  It was a small country road in desperate need of paving, but it offered relief from the traffic and occasional spots of shade. But there was no relief from the wind that had turned quite fierce.  We fought to keep our bikes upright and moving forward.  Little did we know (or think) that this road would offer no refreshment stops.  We saw a lot of farms filled with watermelons,fruit trees, lots of Roma tomatoesand a few nice estates, but no water, so for an hour and a half we pushed against the wind and struggled in the heat (cloud cover only lasted a very short time).   Just before 1:00 we found our oasis of food and drink and relaxed from the stress of our forty miles.

But we weren’t there yet!  We biked through the town of Civitavecchia (our hotel was just outside of town) which became popular in the later 1800’s as a beach destination for weekend tourists from Rome.  This is what remains of one of their paths to the sea.Today they offer a boardwalk and the “Unconditional Surrender” Monument that we’ve also seen in San Diego and somewhere in Florida (cannot find any facts on why it is here).

As we checked into our hotel after 47 miles the wind had died completely.   But that was okay, we were ready for a shower and a little air conditioning.  Too tired to go anywhere else, we dined on the terrace of our hotel.  A plentiful cesar salad (preparing ourselves for Rome)

and Frutti de Mare pastashould fuel us enough to get us into Rome tomorrow.