We had our last ride today, a cruisey 65km, and will be sorry to wave goodbye to our beautiful carbon Scott road bikes. Riding will never be the same again. However, having gradually killed off or broken every slow member of our group since the first day (except one, but he got allocated a guide all of his own) we managed to go out with a bang, at least. With a much stronger group we didn't have to wait so long at the tops of the hills, which was lucky because there were two stretches of around 5km each of steady climbing. Surprisingly a overtook most people on the way up - the advantage of young legs I guess, cos after 2 months of travelling I am NOT at my fittest! Then the descents... wow, it felt like flying! I cracked 60km/h at one point, and trust me in lycra, on a bike, that feels REALLY fast! So much fun! We also probably had the best views of all today - massive castles in the distance and the stopping near Gabicce Monte for coffeem 200m above the Adriatic coastline. We dined in the hotel restaurant with all our new friends (every English speaker we could scrape together, really! We were a bit thin on the ground really. Thin on the air... just generally quite slim hahahahahahaha) and got through several glasses of wine, then sat through 1 and a half hours of photos and presentations by the hotel owner and guides in a haphazard and fairly incomplete mix of Italian, French, German and English! Unfortunately the only language any of them speaks fluently is Italian, and there was not a single Italian cyclist among us. It would seem, however, that the French and German are right up there, along with the Belgians. We were certainly the minority.
Tomorrow the hard work begins - the long-awaited meeting of the real parents and the Italian host family! My brain will be very sore by the end of the weekend, but there should be some good laughs come out of it. Then there's Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, Paris & Morocco!
The funny things is, I'm dying to just get back to Rome and get on with the study. As amazing as this has been, with the good food, luxury accomodation and amazing rides, I feeling strangely exhausted. Though being in only adult company (and playing translator for mum and dad and many others) could have something to do with it. It's not as fun as I might have thought!
I'll leave this here and chuck some photos in, but posting will be more difficult after today. Hopefully we'll get lucky with internet access at hotels!
A big hello to all those still sticking with these installments!
Kel xox
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