59.6 miles ridden – 942m climbed – Temperature 31C.

Today felt like a long day but that may be because we stopped for a somewhat lengthy coffee break and also a lunch stop. Sapri looked quite charming this morning and I even took in some sculpture on the seafront.

But enough of that – let’s get on with the cycling. There was much bemusement regarding our first climb this morning which again started within a mile of the hotel with the daily sheet showing this:

Ride with GPS calculated that this sharp climb had a gradient of 47.4% but it was paved! Not actually possible for so many reasons but it transpired there was a tunnel at this point which the navigation systems weren’t accounting! It was a series of long gentle climbs around some narrow cliff-hugging roads which they are slowly bypassing with tunnels and bridges – one 3 km section today included about 1.5km across just 3 bridges This effectively meant that we were often dropping down from the main SS18 coastal road for a few miles along a bay and then climbing back up to the SS18 get get around/over/through the headland before the next bay. Like yesterday the scenery was stunning and interesting.

Sadly today we saw evidence of forest fires which occur quite often down here due to the heat and dry conditions.

So most of our climbing today was constant rolling with a mix of head and tail winds. It was quite gusty on some of the cliff hugging roads which given my dislike of heights made me stay further from the edge than many of the drivers like but tough luck on them.

I’ve ridden most of this trip with James who very usefully speaks a bit of Italian and cycles similarly to me.

and also enjoys coffee and Coke Zero stops.

We were going through our final tunnel of the day near Cittadella Del Capo and he slipped from the carriageway into a gutter which caused his back wheel to buckle. I heard the commotion and looking back it looked like he had come off in the dark tunnel in fast moving traffic but luckily he hadn’t come off and wasn’t hurt. Fortunately one of the guides happened to be with us and he was able to call the van who went back and whisked James off to a bike shop to get it sorted.

The last ten miles were pretty flat and I was relieved to get to the hotel. The air-conditioning works well and I have a balcony – that is as much as I can say about the room. Oh it’s got one plug socket…….