Day 3 - Castiglioncello to Perugia

Got the bike back. Went to pick it up at 10 and left shop at about 12 to Hotel to pick up Paula.

Today we needed to do a longer than expected day as we needed to make up the days we had spent in Genova and joine Bo, Joy and Steve in Perugia, Italy.

For lunch we stopped in Autogrill which is a restaurant that is close to gas stations and there are a lot of them throughout Italy. I had a burger and Paula a salad. Why does she eat so healthy ? Good for her.

As I was having my espresso to get me ready for the afternoons' ride I noticed some Italians asking for a Cafe Crema. It looked very inviting so I called Paula and we asked for one for both of us. It is a combination of coffee, cream, ice and sugar all perfectly blended to make it very tasty.

On the way took a detour to visit Siena. We had heard so much about Siena where the historic centre has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008. The center is only accessible by foot (no bikes allowed) and as we did not have much time we stopped on the outskirts of the old city and took some pictures. Met group of 5 Argentinians who had just come back from motorbiking through Croatia. We discussed their trip and they strongly suggested we do Sicily and Croatia. Let's see where the winds take us.

We arrived in Perugia as sun was setting and Steve and Bo helped us carry our bags up the stairs. In these old cities it seems there are stairs everywhere and you are constantly climbing them. Good exercise and that is why the Italians can afford to eat so much gelato and remain thin.

They gave me directions where to put bike as parking was quite far from hotel and Steve went to wait for me to do a full tour of Perugia before getting to parking. It seems in Perugia that roads just go one way and if you miss your turn you are done for.

Perugia is built on a hill and it is a well known University town. One actually that was witness to a very nasty crime a number of years ago which occurred in Via Della Pergola, 7. Joy told us all about this and in the morning we would go and look for this fateful address again getting lost some more which seems to be the normal state for foreigners in tis town.

For dinner we had a fantastic dinner in a restaurant called Argentina where the owner took a liking to us and gave us a tour of the place, spoke about his plans to expand the restaurant and discussed many other things. Steve enjoyed the Malbec wine and we all tried the empanadas.

We walked through the streets of Perugia back to the hotel and Steve's comment "It feels like we are in a movie set" about explains it best.

 

Click HERE for all the pictures for Day 3

 

Posted by Armando