Friday 10th June: Hazy and warm, 18°C to 25°
Alba to Cisterna d'Asti: 52k, 7hrs 30 mins with 4hrs 19mins riding
Accommodation: Albergo Garibaldi, Cisterna
52k Alba to Cisterna
1080m total ascent
Saddling up our bikes with panniers
Spring flowers
Donna on a mission to buy tomatoes
More spring flowers
Rolling down a country road
Villages perched on hills
Rolling hills and vineyards
Cycling through the vineyards
Really? We're going soon!
And more spring flowers
Avoiding the cobblestones Guarene
Coffee at Castelle di Guarene
Coffee with a view
Lunch with a view
More spring flowers
Some steep hills
Some very steep hills
Donna on Juliette balcony
Albergo Garibalde at Cisterna
A magnificent spring day cycling through the vineyards of hilly Piedmont. Hazy with beautiful flowery smells from jasmine, magnolias and roses. A 52k day with over 1000m of climbing, the steepest at the end into Cisterna d'Asti, a village perched high on a hill top.
The morning is cool, and at 7.30am we're all in the dining room having breakfast of pecan pie and apricot tart, meusli and yoghurt, and cheese and salami, washed down with a Cappuccino. Time to pack the cycling panniers and store our hiking and plane stuff in our suitcase to leave behind in Alba for a week until we return to the same hotel. By 8.30am, Ian has retrieved the bikes from the garage and within 10 minutes we're all saddled up and ready to leave on our first day of cycling. Thanks Milton for planning this wonderful cycle route.
It takes 30 minutes to wind our way out of the narrow streets of Alba, but not before Donna has stopped to stock up on tomatoes for lunch. Donna is the specialist foodie. The countryside starts abruptly with sprawling vineyards, villages perched atop hills and beautiful flowery scents from spring flowersin full bloom. There's no Alp d'Huez (a famous mountain climb on the tour de France) but we're constantly riding up and over short sharp hills.
Milton has marked the route on his phone, which takes us through the most picturesque countryside with many detours through old villages dominated by churches. By 10.30am after a short sharp climb and a walk along cobblestoned streets, we've reached the Castelle di Guarene, an 18th Century castle which dominates the hillside with magnificent views back to Alba. And there's seats under a shady tree. Time for a coffee.
More hill top villages, sweet scented smells, cobblestones, yappy dogs (thankfully behind fences), vineyards and at 1pm it’s lunch in the grassy grounds of a church with a view over more vineyards. It's an hour later when we struggle to our feet having demolished our fresh bread, French cheese and Donna's tomatoes.
The afternoon is warming up, almost hot in the sun, and we're looking for taps to refill the water bottles. By 3.30pm, we can see the hill top village of Cisterna d'Asti, our destination for today. It doesn't take long to work out that the road up to it is so steep that there's no way we can ride it, and it takes almost 40 minutes to push our bikes up the 1.3k road to the top with a grade of 25% for much of the climb. Not far through the village we see our hotel, Albergo Garibaldi. It looks typically Italian and dilapidated from the street and after ringing the doorbell, a man peers over the balcony and beckons us through the side door, where we're greeted by a beer garden with a fabulous view.
We're so thirsty, we dump our bikes in the woodshed and immediately order a few large bottles of beer. A great end to a fabulous day. Then it’s time to wash and hang our cycling gear over the railings while relaxing and blogging before dinner.
Dinner isn't til 8pm. The hotel might look dilapidated but the restaurant has a great reputation for food and doesn't fail to deliver. After four bottles of wine, six courses of food (finishing with Gelato), and umpteen stories from the day's cycling, it’s time for bed. Breakfast at the earliest, we're told, will be at 8am. It seems that Italian time is set back by 2 hrs.