We are currently sitting in a lovely tiny house in an absolutely charming little village (its not easy to see on the map, but it is a few km away from the coast and feels quite mountain-y). Somehow, this feels much more like being in Italy than any of our previous accommodations. Our hosts are stars: We were greeted on the town square and shown around the whole house. There were cookies (local specialty!) on the table and a bottle of tomato sauce in the pantry ("home made! not from the supermarket!"). After asking if there was some sort of supermarket, I (Hanne) got a small tour of the town, including being introduced to the baker, the local food-plus-bookstore-owner as well as the chef of the local restaurant (the bike shop owner is married to our host's sister, in case you were dying to know). Of course we promptly did our shopping after settling in! Everyone is super friendly. I even told my first tiny joke in Italian, which I am quite more proud of than is actually warranted ("Where did you cycle from?" - "Sicily...but not today!").

In fact, we are feeling so Italian that today's dinner was wholemeal spaghetti with aforementioned tomato sauce and fresh basil from the windowsill (hmmm) along with some diced aubergine.*

The cycling today was a bit of a mixed bag. Thankfully less windy than yesterday, with quite a few ups and downs. One bit was a very well maintained official cycle path, another barely more than a track with heavy clay mud but stunning vegetation and views. In-between were lots of well-tarmaced larger roads. We saw some really nice beaches and, as we had already been told by yesterday's friendly camp-site owner, something called trabocchi, which is apparently a wooden fishing machine. To the west, we caught glimpses of snow-topped mountains.

Btw, and to our own great astonishment, we are now further north than Rome!

* Although on our last break today, we ate a bag of crisps, a few handfulls of salted peanuts and some chocolate wafers. Just so no-one gets any wrong ideas....