86 km

5:15

1458 meters

Hotel Santa Carolina

We left Florence and of course went off track and went through a dark tunnel. I hate going through tunnels in the dark on a bike! Of course going the wrong way so had to make our way back through the tunnel to get back on track!

We had to go up a steep gradient again on narrow road, I got off but Peter didn’t. Mr. Determination!

We had a long climb with a high gradient. Pleased with myself as I only stopped twice. I feel like I’m getting stronger.

At 43 km we started looking for lunch but couldn’t find anything. At 50 km we saw dark clouds and knew we were going to get caught in the rain! You can hear the thunder and lightning and then it started to pour! And I mean really coming down fast and hard!

We found a tree to hide under and then decide to move to better shelter. We ended up under bridge but that quickly ended up filling up with water up to ankles.

Once the lightening stopped we decided to find the nearest town with a bar – it was hard to find something open. Finally found one! The warm hot chocolate was a life saver! We managed to change out of our wet clothes into dry biking gear! It took us a while to stop shaking from being wet and cold! We waited it out until the rain stopped. No choice but to carry on when bike packing!

On the bikes again and back on track. Nice ride into sienna and fortunately no more rain. Arrived tired but a hot shower and an aperol spritz on patio with amazing view makes it all worthwhile!

Tired after a long day and we both fell asleep pretty quickly.

We had a day off to regroup – laundry and much needed bike maintenance. Peter is doing some sketches from a book bought in Florence.