Rain was in the forecast, starting at 1, so we woke up early (after a really good sleep), ate breakfast, and started riding by 8 AM. In addition to the rain forecast, the Airbnb situation wasn’t really conducive for sitting around. We had one more opportunity to thank the kind neighbor who had provided us with food.
Today’s ride was our shortest so far, but involved climbing, dirt trails, and headwinds. We arrived a little after 1 in light rain. The rain steadily picked up after arriving at our Airbnb, so we are glad we left early and didn’t take a lunch break.
Today’s Airbnb is the opposite of yesterday’s. Yesterday’s was modern and fancy, tonight’s Airbnb was built in 1854 (updated several times sincel). This accommodation feels comfortable and homey – like a well-used favorite blanket – tattered but loved. It just feels comfortable to be here, out of the rain.
We ate a quick snack (bread and jam from yesterday’s kind neighbor), walked to a bakery to deal with a sugar fix (and because you just have to go to lots of bakeries when you are Americans in Europe), started our laundry, took a nap (Pete only), walked to a grocery store to buy something for dinner and a bunch of liquid (two liters of chocolate soy milk, 3 liters of water, liter of OJ, all to add to the liter of water the host left us – we’ve finished 4 liters in the first 6 hours), cooked and ate dinner, and are now lazing around working on this journal entry. (Pete: Run on sentence? Natalie: Yes but I love it. And I made it run more on.)
One of our favorite parts of dinner was finishing the bread and cheese our kind neighbor provided yesterday by melting the cheese on the bread in the oven. I wish we had a way to share with her how much she helped us, despite our bringing back 75% of the food she brought over.
What a day. The landscapes were beautiful. The profuse flowers on most of the farmhouses we passed were also beautiful. The rain held off. Our Airbnb is perfect for us. Our stomachs are full. We are warm and dry.
Tomorrow we are going to attempt to pretend to be normal tourists and go visit some places by train. Wish us luck. It’s hard to remember how not to ride a bike all day.