Europe 2012 Italy Portugal and France: From Assisi to Spoleto one Ancient town to another more Ancient!

Today is Thursday the 10^th and we are in a beautiful village called Spoleto. It was a 60 km ride yesterday to get here. It was fantastic weather and only a few hills in between villages but we stopped a couple of times on the way and saw some other interesting middle aged villages, one called Spello. They are breathtaking and so full of history at every corner. Other towns we passed were Montefalco, Trevi and Campello incase you are interested in searching them on the internet. We crossed a large flat plain between two valleys which was so enjoyable weaving through small farms, vineyards and local tracks with no more than one or two cars. This town is fantastic too with a fortress built right around the village with a huge aqua duct called Ponte delle Torri. When reading about these places some of the buildings date back to the 11^th and 10^th centuries BC long before the Romans. Today is a big day too but not so many kilometres but more climbs and forests. They are even bringing the trailer for those who choose half way to take them up the pine forest which is a 1.5 km high climb. I am going to do the walk at this stage because this is a luxury they haven’t offered us before so it must be a hard ride. This is also where all the truffles are found so I might be lucky on the way up the mountain or see some farmers with their dogs searching for them. Of course Gary is up for the challenge but he has gone to the supermarket now to look for extra padding as his backside has not fared too well on the large lady seats provided with our bike, he still won’t take up my offer of my lambs wool seat cover, he has too much pride. I will report back tonight after the ride if we have internet in Narni. Apparently Narni has famous marble faced water falls. Well we will be leaving soon on this beautiful 19 – 23 degree blue sky day. Hope you are all well love Chel and Gary xx