tuscany 2022: Day 6 (VBT Day 3): 6/13/22

Day 3 of the bike tour and it was transfer day. That meant packing up so the tour guides could transport our luggage to the next hotel where we would find it in our rooms.

Meanwhile, after our daily briefing, we got on our bikes to ride. Today's ride retraced our steps from yesterday that included unpaved roads. It was clear that this stretch of the route was designed for one direction. We liked it much better today.

The morning ride took us to a cute little village called Bolgheri. It is about 100 yards by 100 yards. (I was going to describe in terms of blocks, but these blocks were tiny and the streets weren't straight, so that would have been a useless comparison.)

Here is the entrance to the village, although the light was better looking out.

This is "main street".

And here we are on one os the two side streets.

We parked our bikes in a park and had a light lunch at a ristaurante on the park. You can actually see our bikes in the background of this picture.

Here's a view of our table looking the other direction at the piazza.

To call this a "piazza" was a stretch.

The day was lightly structured and we had some time to kill, so we wandered around some more. The boys got gelato.

Here's the view on the other side of the gelato shop.

On one of the side streets, we found a shop that had bike jerseys, black and high viz, but they were only quarter zip, so we passed on them. The woman owning the shop had another shop across the alleyway with cheeses, sausages, and packets of spices. The smell of cheese was really strong.

You're pretty much seeing the entire shop in this picture.

Our afternoon ride included a visit a bike shop, Ciclo Sport, on the way to the hotel. The proprietress spoke little to no English, but we managed.

Mike settled on this design in a 2XL. Stu settled on a different design. Walter and I bought jerseys with a full landscape design in XL (Walter) and XXL (me). This is the result of eating our way through Italy.

As we were leaving, four more VBTers arrived and they probably bought jerseys too. There are 16 in our group. Assuming that all groups of VBTers on this tour take this particular route on day three and stop at her shop, she must do pretty well.

We finished the day at our next hotel, Tombolo Thalasso, a beach resort in Marina Castagneto.

They had a private beach. Here we are at the beach bar.

Here is Stu trying to get some sun and Mike trying not to.

I was extorted into posting this picture. I was minding my own business, trying to get a nap. Note the terrifying biker tan.

We were on our own for dinner, but our tour guide made a reservation for us at a seafood place a block or two away. The walk down the main drag could have been in any ocean-front town.