October 26th, Lucca to Pisa and back, 67.8

We woke up to not a cloud in the sky and very mild temps. By 10 a.m., we were headed south on S12 business. We rode flat through vineyards, villas, and a street lined with straight trees. We did a mild climb, and went through a tunnel, before doing a serpentine down to the outskirts of Pisa. Pisa is only about 25 k from Lucca and with easy access by bike. The Leaning Tower suddenly appeared and we navigated the streets toward it. We hung out at its plazza that also included a cathedral and cemetery and lots of tourists getting snapped pretending like they are pushing the tower over.

We then went toward the Arno river, and then back up an old shopping street, had some kebob at a Turkish restaurant, and then began our ride back. This time we were coming back on the old road toward Lucca. Mauny had found a side climb for us to do. When we were looking for it, he noticed that we had a flat. So he finally changed the rim tape and fixed the flat, and we found our road up. It was over 7.5 k straight up from the road we left and seemed to go on and on. En route, we saw lots of cars parked to the side, and families out in the woods looking for mushrooms to take home to cook. En route, Elaine and Mauny both got rather exasperated, due to lack of good fueling for such a climb, and had to stop to rest. But we were not deterred and went on. At the top, we thought we were going to find a village, but instead found a restaurant. For those of you in the Ventura area, this Sunday trip was like going to Cold Springs Tavern on a Sunday afternoon. Everyone was there. We rested for a moment there, turned around and made an 18 minute descent down the mountain, with seemingly constant oncoming cars. It was a white knuckle ride for Elaine.

We had a beautful finish to our ride into Lucca and went for some nutella crepes, that were well-deserved. We went home and changed shoes and went back out for groceries. Not a supermarket or bar was open, except for a small pizza joint in our neighborhood, where we had to eat. We did have something new to eat...a pizza like concotion made from chick peas. We went home, showered, read and went to bed with aching legs. A wonderful day!