Distance: 42.7 km
Time: 2 hours 21 minutes
Speed: 18.2 km/h
Ascent: 203 metres
Total distance: 2032.3 km
Total time: 109 hours 2 minutes
Wordle scores: Captain 3, Stoker 3
Word of the day: “consiglio” (con-see-lee-oh) – a piece of advice
The Stoker writes:
Our room in Marina di Ginosa was simple but comfortable. We lounged around for a bit after our arrival, drinking the delicious cold water our host had given us. The Captain spent about an hour wrestling with his mobile provider, who had cut his mobile data off without warning, despite him not having exceeded any limits! They’ve been rubbish recently, they ‘upgraded’ all their systems and nothing works, we’ve both been getting frequent messages saying we’re over various limits and will be blocked, then you go and look at your account, you’ve used practically nothing, and no blocking actually occurs. Until yesterday. Very annoying. Will follow up at home.
On checking the route for tomorrow, I also discovered that Komoot, our route-planning software, was recommending a very strange way. It seemed to involve walking over a field, and crossing the railway at some random point where there wasn’t anywhere to cross the railway. All rather worrying.
Suddenly, some of the things our host, an enthusiastic local cyclist, had asked us about riding to Policoro and if we knew about the best way, made more sense. We had assumed he was talking about the day after, to Trebisacce, where we know we will have to work around a section of road which is prohibited to bicycles. But no, he was talking about today! Bicycles were also prohibited from a dual-carriageway section of the SS106 Jonica road, and although there was a service road further along which we could safely use, for over a kilometre of the dual-carriageway there was no route through for us.
The Captain texted him to see if he had a route we could load into Komoot, and a few minutes later it pinged into his phone. What a star! There was also a voice note.
Basically, the options were these:
- Follow Komoot’s weird field/railway routing. That was clearly a non-starter!
- At the junction where we were not permitted to join the SS106, take the road up to Bernalda, across to Tinchi (pronounced ‘Tinky’… 😁), and back down to the start of the service road. Not attractive, as it would add some 25km to the day, and a good bit of climbing.
- Join the SS106 illegally at the junction, pretending that you didn’t see the sign, and ride along in the margin for about 1500m before coming off at the next junction, safely past the field/railway issue.
We ummed and erred over this for a bit. It seemed ridiculous to go all the way around, when the short-cut was being recommended to us by an experienced local. But it was illegal, and neither of us are natural law-breakers! As it was getting later and later, we decided we had all the information we needed to make a decision, and would discuss it over dinner.
We walked out into town, completely forgetting that it was Saturday, and we should probably have made a reservation somewhere. Gulp…
Everywhere we tried was completely full. We walked on and on through town, which was one of those spread out places along a central spine. Nothing doing anywhere. The prospect of biscuits and the remaining chocolate wafers for dinner was becoming ever more likely! Even the takeaway pizza places all had long queues, and we were so far from our lodgings now a pizza would have been completely cold by the time we got it back.
Eventually we were granted a table at a place doing panzerotti, a sort of deep-fried pasty which is a Puglian speciality. Not massively appealing, but better than biscuits! However, you had to go and queue up for your panzerotto, and when the Captain joined the queue, it quickly became obvious that it was going to be midnight before he got to the front of it.
Back on the road, then, and, wait, what’s that? A sort of Mexican place set down off the road, didn’t look too busy. We walked down, crossed our fingers, and although there were no tables available we were seated at the bar and given menus. With actual food in them!
What a relief. It was great! We had beer, and chicken and sausages cooked on a grill, with cheesecake to follow. Marvellous. We walked back to our lodgings feeling hugely relieved we’d stuck with it. And very full!
After not a great night’s sleep, what with the combination of concern about the route, and a baby shrieking all night in the echoing common corridor, we were up early and ready to tackle the SS106.
We left Marina di Ginosa just after nine, already seeing the SS106 ahead. Not for us yet, though, we had a little farm road to take us winding through to Metaponto.
Yesterday I thought I spotted honeydew melons growing in the fields, which seemed incredible. I convinced myself they must have been squash, but then today, there were actual watermelons growing by the side of our track!
We rode on, not desperately keen to get to the dual-carriageway bit, but knowing we had to grasp the nettle, as it were. We crossed underneath it at one point, and looking up I realised that there was a sign indicating we were crossing the border from Puglia into Basilicata. We bade a very fond farewell to Puglia, it’s been absolutely wonderful.
Before long up loomed our junction, we shut our eyes past the ‘no bicycles’ sign, rode up the on-ramp, and onto the road. There was a good wide margin for us to ride in, and it being Sunday, the traffic was reasonable. It was also downhill, which our host had told us, so before very long at all we were seeing signs for our exit, riding down the off-ramp, and we’d done it! We were so grateful for our host’s advice, and for all his help in making sense of it.
Slightly jelly-legged at the audacity of our law-breaking (!), we rejoined the rest of our route, puffed up a small climb, and sailed down the other side.
We were in farmland briefly, not quite the Don Pomodoro estates of Puglia, Basilicata already had a less affluent feel to it. The south of Italy is much poorer than the north, but the Puglia ‘bubble’ had made us forget this slightly.
We did see a temple…
… and the prickly pears are absolutely loaded with fruit now.
One of the dishes we ate at the masseria had prickly pear in it, it’s quite bland, and a bit like cucumber in texture.
As we rode past one down-at-heel farmstead a couple of small dogs shot out of a yard and started following us down the little gravelly road. The first looked awful, its fur was all matted into horrible dreadlocks. The second was smaller and smoother, and somewhat faster. We’ve been chased by dogs before, and always managed to out-run them. Dreadlocks gave up fairly quickly, but Smooth-hound was way more persistent, and gaining on us. “Quick as we can”, I squeaked from the back, his teeth seeming ever nearer my rotating ankle. Even the Captain could hear his menacing growling. We both put in a huge sustained effort, inched ahead, then a few feet between us and the teeth, and then finally he gave up. Phew!
We regained the SS106, riding along its service road now, much better for us.
Occasional ins and outs had us navigating back and forth, and then we crossed underneath the carriageway, expecting the service road to continue on the other side.
Er, no.
After a bit of looking around, we spotted a little track, pushed the tandem up it and walked over the old bridge to pick up the service road on the other side. Komoot wasn’t really pulling its weight with this route!
Nearly there now, we stopped at Scanzano Jonico for some reviving water, then rode into Policoro, and had a spot of lunch in a pretty square before checking in to our digs. While compiling today’s statistics we realised that we’ve now completed over 2,000 kilometres!
We’re in a lovely apartment in a quiet part of town, and we’re cooking for ourselves tonight, so no dinner dramas, we hope. Tomorrow we head to Trebisacce, another little town we’ve never heard of, all part of lining ourselves up for the crossing of the Apennines in a few days.
Here’s today’s route and a short video