Saturday, May 18th
Ride Profile (My Garmin)
Ed (the youngest member of the tour, by far) had his eyes on the grand piano in the foyer of our overnight hotel, and in the morning started to play a few "old favourites". These included O Sole Mio and I Did it My Way. As Ed describes it, he only has to start playing these classics and someone will come over and start to sing them. On this occasion, one of the hotel staff took the opportunity. Ironically, he knew the English words of My Way much better than the Italian O Sole Mio. And of course, he sang way off key. Ed was charitable enough to suggest that his fingers were suffering from "cyclists grip".
Ed (the youngest member of the tour, by far) had his eyes on the grand piano in the foyer of our overnight hotel, and in the morning started to play a few "old favourites". These included O Sole Mio and I Did it My Way. As Ed describes it, he only has to start playing these classics and someone will come over and start to sing them. On this occasion, one of the hotel staff took the opportunity. Ironically, he knew the English words of My Way much better than the Italian O Sole Mio. And of course, he sang way off key. Ed was charitable enough to suggest that his fingers were suffering from "cyclists grip".
The route out of Messina was sufficiently complicated that one of the BA staff had to accompany us for the first 5km or so. After this we settled into our usual rhythm, but due to some road works and our desire always to stay "on piste" we lost the other half of our usual peloton (Team Tartan and one half of Team Trevor). We never saw them again until we arrived at the camp site at the end of the ride.
Meanwhile, the rest of Team Tony had decided against an early (8:00am start) and were either still in bed, still having breakfast, or somewhere a bit further back on the route.
This also resulted in us having coffee with Team Tandem, something that had only happened a few times on the ride. Here's Celeste leaning against the "Mother Ship" with tandem stoker Chery looking natty as ever.
Opposite the cafe/bar where we had coffee was equivalent of the Big Prawn, which George (on the left) and I couldn't resist photographing.
The coast line became increasingly more beautiful as we road along, and about half way we came across this particularly spectacular promontory and island.
While we waited for some of the others to climb the hill and get through a traffic light, Ed and I stopped for more photos. This one reminded us of a pirate's cove.
Pity I didn't have the pirate jersey on. But being a special occasion, the Bianchi jersey was having its second outing today.
Around the headland was Isola Bella (beautiful island). We hadn't seen so many expensive hotels, restaurants and beautiful people anywhere on our journey (well, except perhaps in Sorrento). This little island had a sand bridge which provided access, and given the lack of tide in the Mediterranean, was probably a permanent connection the the "mainland".
Not much further on we found a quiet little restaurant right on the beach, and while the beach itself was pretty ordinary by my standards, there were still people sunbathing, but few in the water, probably because it didn't look that safe.
Lunch was Margarita pizzas, iced tea and water.
From here the last 30km or so were relatively easy except for just one more very serious climb which went on for 3km rather than the 1km indicated in the route notes. Then, after a navigating the outskirts of Catania, we arrived at the camp site where the BA crew were waiting for us with our bike boxes, some snacks, a pot of tea:
And the customary glass of champagne (or was that prosecco?). Trev reckons he looked pissed, but I think he was just happy to have arrived, as I was.
Bikes packed, everyone showered, beer club meeting over, we adjourned to a nearby restaurant for our final meal together. Unfortunately, the quality left a lot to be desired, especially the house white, and even more especially the house red!
We couldn't get out of there quick enough, and we finished the night drinking more prosecco, limoncellos, coffee and eating gelatis.
What, no commentary yet?
ReplyDeleteAnd a most interesting piece of coastline;
And I trust you cycled up Mt Etna???
I visited this part of the world in May 2006 for Terena conference; drove up Mt Etna.
And I was in Messina in March this year, but was not much impressed, except for the hurricane blowing up the channel between Sicily & Italian mainland (nearly blew my glasses off!).