BAC Florence to Elba – Day 3 – Volterra to Massa Maritima

I left Volterra before 9:00 riding solo. Somehow I lost one of my new water bottles, so I had to scrounge around to find another one. I didn’t want to be short on water on a hilly, warm day. Jennifer loaned me one of her spares. By the time I filled it and was ready to go, most of the riders had left. That’s OK because I could ride at my own pace.

The ride started out with a 10 km downhill dropping around 2000 feet. The we had a series of ups and downs throughout the morning and eventually got back up to 2500 feet. The weather was very warm on the climbs but the descents were tingly cool. I stopped at Castlenuovo at 37 km for a Fanta and a fruit bar after passing several geo-thermal power plants. I caught up to Matt here. We decided it was too early for lunch so we pedaled on.  He left a few minutes before I did but I caught him again a few km later. He was standing at the side of the road waiting for a huge group of motorcyclists to pass.

We rode together for a while over several short ups and downs. Then we had our final descent of 1500 feet over 10 km. Matt is more conservative on descents so I lost him on the way and didn’t see him until after I checked in to the hotel.

Here is a link to today's ride.

The luggage van hadn’t arrived yet so several went searching for some place to eat. We found deli-style hole-in-the-wall that served good inexpensive pasta. Afterwards, we found the luggage van, took our bags to our rooms and cleaned up.

After resting for a few minutes, Matt came by and we decided to wander around town. Massa Maritima is an old medieval town. We learned that first-hand when we walked down to the main piazza. There were guild flags hanging from all the buildings. Soon there were guilds marching through the streets wearing medieval costumes and pounding on their drums. We followed them back to our hotel where they ended the parade. I shot some videos which I will post on YouTube later. (We have to pay for internet connections here so I won’t be online very often).

Our hotel is very nice. I have a huge room that overlooks the garden and yard in the back.

We had our normal Happy Hour tonight and then walked to a restaurant for our group dinner. Along the way we met the guild festivities in the main piazza. They were wrapping up their competitions. The winning guild was announced with loud cheers and celebrations. (Another video).

We had a typical Tuscan dinner – antipasto with several kinds of meat and breads with pate, ravioli stuffed with ricotta cheese and spinach, flat noodles with wild boar sauce, slices of pork with baked onions, lots of vino rosso and sparkling water and dessert which Matt and I skipped.

It’s now closing in on 10:00 so I am going to sleep.