Day Quattro - Gubbio to Piobbico

Link to day tre

We left Gubbio relatively early to start our ride to Piobbico hoping to beat the afternoon rain showers.  After a couple of easy kilometers, we were greeted with what else - a 5km steep grade!

The start of the climb

Heading up

The final switch backs

After the first summit, it was a long coast downill to the first town of Scheggia (different town than the first day).  We stopped here for some cappuccino and cornettos as well as picked up a peach and nectarine from a nearby fruit stand. 

After leaving Scheggia, we turned off on a more rural road and started another climb alongside a beautiful creek.  The birds were singing as we slowly pedaled along this quite road in the sunshine.

After our second summit of the day, we had a long downhill ride to the town of Cagli.  Since it was a little after noon, and not wanting to miss out on lunch like the previous day, we stopped at the first Osteria we could find.

Cagli

Osteria Cucinoteca

Here we were served lunch across the narrow street by an awesome owner/waiter?  As we were the only customers at the time, we muddled through our trip description, in Italian, with him.  He seemed pretty delighted that we were trying to converse with him.

Menu di giorno Osteria Cucinoteca

We spent a bit of time enjoying our pasta, wine and conversation, but eventually had to get going.  One of our lunch conversations with our waiter was the route to Piobbico.  There are two different roads, and his suggested route was longer but not as steep.  When we mentioned our route, he tilted his hand up at a 45 degree angle and smiled.  But, this is the route we had mapped.

Rocca Torrione

As we started up the hill out of Cagli, we ran into intermittent rain showers.  Tamara decided to gear up, while I decided to take my chances.  As we moved higher, the rain stopped, but the skies didn't clear.

We passed through several extremely small communities as we moved along the eastern slopes of Mount Nerone on our way to Piobicco.

A slight uphill!

Richard Cabeza

After about 15km of ups and down, Piobbico finally came into sight.  But, our luck with the rain showers finally ran out.  The skies opened up when we were less than a kilometer from our hotel!

Piobicco

After getting checked into the rustic Albergo Montenerone, we showered and did the daily laundry.  By this time, the skies had cleared, allowing us an opportunity to explore the small village of Piobbico.

Piobbico

We wandered around for a while before eventually finding a grocery store.  We stopped in, picked up some water, a 2.99€ bottle of vino rosso and a bag of potato chips before heading back to the hotel.  The chips tasted so good, they were practically finished by the time we got back!

That night we dined in one of the two restaurants in town, which happened to be in our hotel.  We split some pasta, a steak and some patate fritte.  Couldn't resist after those chips!

Stats:
Distance: 36 miles
Elevation: 3700 feet

Link to GPS track

Link to day cinque