Today was the final day of the Le Marches portion of our trip and it appeared that it would be one of the longest. But, since we ended at the Adriatic Sea, this ride promised to have the most downhill. Yeah!!
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| Leaving Hotel Italia in Urbino |
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| Are you with me here? |
As it was Sunday morning and there wasn't much traffic leaving Urbino. Though the route that Giovanni had selected for us probably wouldn't have had much traffic any day of the week, it was that rural.
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| Looking back at Urbino |
We rode up some gentle inclines, obtaining a ridge that offered some excellent views of the surrounding countryside. The road narrowed and took us through a nature reserve.
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| Mountain bike park |
This reserve had quite a bit going on - people out hiking, cycling, treasure hunting/metal detecting, and even a group having a tartufo hunting competition with their dogs.
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| Truffle hunting |
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| Very quite road |
Eventually we had a steep drop down into Fossombrone, a city down in a river valley.
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| Fossombrone |
As it wasn't quite time for Pranzo, we stopped and had a snack in the center of town. People were getting ready for some sort of competition/carnival. It would have been fun to stick around, but we had another 40km left on the ride and we wanted to beat the afternoon rain showers.
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| Mini horse races? |
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| Oh Succo di Pesca how I have missed you |
After dodging cars through Fossombrone, it was nice to turn off on another quiet country road again. It was starting to warm up as we slowly climbed out of the valley onto another undulating ridge.
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| We dropped down into Fossombrone from the hill on the skyline |
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| Getting hot |
This ridge took us through several small villages - Sorbolongo, Barchi, and Orciano di Pesaro. As we moved through each village we looked for places to stop and get something to eat. But everything was closed up since it was Sunday.
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| While the women are in church, the men are fishing! |
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| Sorbolongo |
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| We were a week early for the snail festival |
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| Orciano di Pesaro |
We finally found a restaurant open in a town called San Giorgio di Pesaro. It was an old place called Osteria Casa Mina. We picked a pasta dish off the menu del giorno without really knowing what we were getting and threw in some patate fritte (french fries) for good measure. It was awesome!
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| We had the third Primi dish |
The owner of the Osteria was pretty funny. As we started to fumble through our Italian she told us - "I don't speak any English." And if she did, she didn't let on.
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| Tamara walking out of the Osteria |
We were feeling good after eating lunch and the remaining 7 undulating miles on the ridge went quickly. The downhill to the coast was sweet and then we just had a few miles of riding along the coast to reach Fano.
After a quick shower, we walked the half block to the rocky beach to take in the Adriatic Sea.
This completes the first bike touring leg of our Italy 2018 adventure. We'd really like to thank Giovanni and Michela from Hike and Bike Italy (
http://hikeandbikeitaly.com/ ), for setting this trip up for us. It was excellent!
Day stats
Distance: 44 miles
Elevation: 3500 feet
Link to GPS track
Link to Dolmiti day uno
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