Day 4 - Rome Sights and loop
After another night of good sleep of about 10 hours, we woke to a lovely day of clear skies and light breezes. The temperature was in the low 20’s and warmed throughout the day to the high 20’s. My Garmin said 32 degrees which I did not believe!
After breakfast we readied ourselves for a 60 km loop prepared by Chris that would take in the remaining tourist sites of the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps and then go on an out and back loop towards the airport.
After a bit of mucking around on my part due to try to fix my Garmin rear light and radar, we were off for the ride.
The early part of the ride to the tourist sites was a bit messy with the navigation of vehicles and pedestrians!
The visits to each of the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps was made better as the tourists numbers seemed lower than I expected. I think this was due to us being at each site earlier than the hoards!
The Trevi Fountain brought back memories of a family holiday we had many years ago when we stayed in a hotel opposite the Fountain…..God only knows what this would cost now!
After this it was on to the rest of the ride….we thought this would be simple…. Just get out of Rome!
Well easier said than done I am afraid!
It seems that every time we want to travel by bike we get caught up at the back of Vatican City! I am not sure whether the Pope has it in for us or not but I think we have seen more of the Vatican City walls than anything else in Rome.
After navigating this we got stuck in a park trying to find a way out! Seems that this park had endless walls blocking where we should go!
Finally we made it out and made our way through some lovely suburbs of Rome where it seems the wealthy residential properties are located.
For morning tea we stopped for some fruit only and continued the journey outward to the lunch spot of Ponte Galleria which was quite nice. Lunch consisted of a sandwich and a cool drink.
Chris managed to have a chat to a local about sheep shearing or something similar whilst Steve and I tried to find a solution to my Garmin Radar/light…. To no avail unfortunately.
After lunch it was in to the return to Rome along a gravel track initially then a lovely paved cycle path.
Unfortunately for Steve he had a puncture on the gravel track courtesy of a thorn which punctured his rear tyre. After fixing this it was off to finish the journey via a visitor a Decathlon store to get some spare tubes for Steve and a new multi tool which seemed to have been dislodged along the way!
I tried to see whether I could purchase a new radar/tail light unsuccessfully!
After this it was back to the hostel…. On the way we passed several of the tourist spots we had seen in the past few days such as the Colosseum, Circus Maximus and the Forum. All were busy with tourists but thankfully the traffic was good for bike riding.
The days ride was about 65 kms and was a good way for us to prepay for the days ahead on the trip to Paris.
Just something else I learned along the way today…. We saw a dead snake on the trail today and I thought Italy was snake free…. Obviously not and I will need to be careful venturing into the woods in the days ahead!
Today’s photos are of the riding route
Photos at the tourist spots of the Pantheon, Trevi Fountain and Spanish Steps
The next photo is a place where we seemed to visit trust the back of the Vatican….
One of the trails we rode on today … near why we saw the dead snake!
Steve fixing up his flat tyre!( I am of little help unfortunately)
