3. Civitavecchia to Orvieto

My prayers did not work! (Do they ever?). 

It is hosing down!!

But we have a long way to go…..and with our ferry leaving Ancona in 57 hours time….we just had to go!

Ten minutes later….we were soaked!!

Five hours later….we were still soaked!!

Despite my various gripes about rain…and cold…last year in particular…I do think this was the wettest ride ever. And….it was a double ton day to boot! (You know…..over 100km and over 1,000m of climbing)…one of the hardest in a way. 

It was not a good day! Flooded roads. More rain. And wind. And it was cold!! The only saving grace…was that the wind was behind us more often than it was in our face!

I did reflect that this was perhaps good practice for the arse-end on the Stone ride. That bit North of the Arctic circle! Mad!!

We’ll have better gear then! Won’t we?

But this is Italy! In Springtime!

Ending today with an overnight stop in Orvieto once again. Beautiful city…perched atop a hill of course!

For pretty picture…go to Day 63 of my Collioure to Athens ride for we are following just about the same route in reverse!!

Had a funny “Booking.Com” experience en route. I am in the habit of saving contact numbers simply as the name if the place we are staying. So today it was Orvieto. And I was getting in touch in the hope that somebody would be on the doorstep when we arrived…to allow an escape from the rain! 

And found a message from Orvieto already!! Looking forward to greeting us etc! Wonderful! But I did note that their directions to our accommodation did not really match where I thought we were staying. And told hem so!

It was only after a while…I saw that the message I was replying to was from 2022! Hahahaha! Idiot!! When I explained my error…..the recipient replied with a heap of hilarious emojis.

And it did work out in the end…Donatello (no English) was indeed waiting for us….as two drowned rats pulled up at our delightful ground floor apartment…opening straight out onto a lovely wee piazza. Perfect!

See the wet shoes getting a roasting!

The rain had let up by beer time…but it was freezing cold! So after a few beers…we retired inside to the warmth!! Poor old Martin!

Doubly poor early-eater Martin…for eating was delayed by a Booking fuck-up! Now..they do not happen often…and I am happy to use them almost all the time! This was a booking for tomorrow night. Made this afternoon! Non-refundable (but hey…we were going to get there!)..no problem! Until the owner of the lovely looking house wrote to say they were cancelling the booking. A plumbing problem….of course!

I do not want to bore you with how many “plumbing problems” I have encountered…..all bogus in my view!…but the classic was a bargain of an apartment in Dunedin NZ.  Booked on the very day tickets were available for the Elton John concert there! Cheap as chips! And then…cancelled one day prior to the concert…when the owner evidently realised he could charge probably ten times as much for that night! Seriously…the whole city was full! Plumbing problem?! Bollocks!

Anyway…much time was taken up exchanging messages with the owner…and with Booking….and with a friend of the owner…who came to the rescue with an offer of alternative accommodation! Actually better accommodation!! (I do think that for the first time…that the plumbing WAS actually problematic! But the suspicion had prior been that they had forgotten to remove it from Booking so they could stay there themselves for their Easter holidays!!)

Silvia was really helpful! But I had put her contact details into my phone before I knew who I was dealing with ….so I kept getting messages from “Booking fuck up”. Hahaha!

Hopefully we will meet “booking fuck up” tomorrow…she looks lovely!!