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Out of Ostuni and a 14km ride to the train station in Carovigno. 1 hr should be plenty, as it’s all downhill from Ostuni.
Wrong.
It was down one hill and up the next. Throw in a completely unnecessary tour of Carovigno, yet another hill top town, we raced the last 8kms to the station with less than a minute to spare, arriving in a lather of sweat and gasping.
On to the train and with Jean’s bike in the rack ( no room for mine) and her in a seat ( I had to stand and hold my bike), at least the 45 min trip to Lecce gave us time to recover.
Although we were supposed to buy our tickets on the train from the conductor, she didn’t seem interesting in collecting the fares so we travelled for free. At least I got a chance to practice my Italian with the conductor which was going well until for some unknown reason to me at least, I had to write our names and date of birth on a ticket. All good until it came to Jean’s birthday so I thought, how does it matter and I just picked a date in April.
Off the train in Lecce just before the city shuts down for siesta, and we were caught up in the hectic traffic as seemingly the whole place was concentrated on the same road as us. But we acted like local cyclists and “owned the road” and in no time at all we were out of the city and back on quiet country roads heading to our accomodation in Borgagne.
On the way we stopped off in Acaya, a very small village within the castle walls. As the castle is closed on Monday, the piazza was deserted, save for a touring group of German cyclist (on electric bikes) and us.
The only cafe open was a good place to sit and have a snack and a coffee, or two. The food was delicious and we could have stayed all afternoon, sitting in the sun, but there was pedalling to be done.
The last leg into Borgagne was a short 15kms and the roads were void of life, save for us, the green lizards and a woman in a car who chased us down to give Jean one of her gloves that she dropped somewhere in the last 5kms after leaving Acaya. Truly amazing.
Carrying on, we arrived at our accomodation which tonight, is in one of the towers built over the gate in the city walls. Another fantastic place, made even more so with the spread in the picture that is meant to be our breakfast. With milk, eggs, yoghurt in the fridge, there is no need to go out for dinner tonight.
Tomorrow, it’s back out to the coast and a 45km ride down to Otranto.
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