78 miles cycled – 3100 feet climbed.

Today was fabulous. The sky was blue and the view from our hotel room was the perfect start to the day:

Aside from the fact that there were a lot of lifts and very few signs we hadn’t noticed much about our hotel until we went in for breakfast and realised that it had a touch of Las Vegas about it – the distance we had to walk from our table to the various breakfast buffet items was not very welcome given the distance we had to cover.

The first few miles out of the hotel was nice and flat so we were nicely warmed up when we hit the first of the mornings hills. The elevation chart for the day looked pretty unappealing for those who don’t like hills but one of the climbs were much over 500 feet or so, there were just a lot of them but the views and scenery were well worth it:

The roads seemed a bit better today and overall in cycling terms it was the ‘real deal’. Hills – but not to long or too steep (aside from a couple of short 18-20% ones), downhills – wide open without tight turns, long flat sections where we cranked up the speed, and long flat sections through more villages and interesting landscape.

Another great pasta lunch and two well-positioned tea breaks added to the day. Everyone was in a good mood – there was nothing about today that could spoil the cycling.

One of the highlights was cycling past the racing circuit at Imola. Funny little town with the huge complex in it and lots of evidence of the potential from major activity but today at least very few people:

Towards the end in the tiny village of Marrara we came upon a bar/gelataria which we simply couldn’t resist. It was pretty hot through the afternoon hitting a maximum of 34C so the liquorice ice cream I had went down really well.

Sue led most of the rest of the route into town and hit a cracking pace. Whether or not Sue ever does another trip like this nothing can take away from the fact that her achievement on this trip makes her a proper cyclist.

Tomorrow is our final day – 67 miles. My backside will be relieved, Sue will be elated.