Just Another Palace - Corinaldo to Arcevia

​Our hotel in Corinaldo last night was attached to a modern art museum and was thusly named the MA Hotel.  It was a massive palace.  We never found out exactly what it was in its former life but it was surely something important for someone important.  Our bikes even had their own private inner courtyard to sleep in. 

We go to breakfast this morning to find the dining room in darkness. Apparently the power is out at this end of the palace.  So the coffee machine is not working but we eat in the darkness and leave to pack our bikes.  As we are just getting ready to hit the road, the hostess calls out that the power is restored and do we want some coffee.  Yes, we do.

 

So finally out the door. We are still in territory that was hit by the September 15th flood which dropped 17 inches of rain in a few hours. About six miles into the ride we hit our first major obstacle.  A bridge out.  Stupidly neither one of us photographed the devastation.  Only a picture a ways down the road saying it was impassable.  

So another route is found but Jim points to the very imposing hills ahead and says but we have to go over them.  As we head to the “hills” we encounter another road saying bridge impassable  but this time the bridge is damaged but still in place so we just sneak over 

  

So about those hills.  Yes they were big. 

Yes, they made me hurt but the scenery was pretty stellar which helped!

The town in the distance is Ostra Vetere with its imposing duomo steeple and bell tower.  It is a very scenic stop. Unfortunately, the duomo is not open 

The next town of note is lovely, Barbara. Small but loaded with charm. 

The ride today continues with lots of ridge top views.  The valleys are a bit wider with lots of large cultivated fields. 

We end our ride in Arcevia which had a rather notable climb to get to it.  Today was a lot of up!  We are early so we stop at a bar to get a bite to eat and wait for our host.  Our host is worried about his lack of English so he enlists a friend to do the translations. She too is waiting for Roberto at the bar and realizes that we are probably the guests and introduces herself and sits down and chats with us.  She is a relatively new mother and her husband has her one year old in tow.  She is from the town her husband is from some other country which I can’t remember where. He is black and she is white.  She tells us that she lived away for a long time and just moved back as she inherited her family home.  She said the town is small and she didn’t know if they would stay.  I wish we had more time to talk.  I have so many questions I would have liked to ask. She was fascinated by our bike packing and asked you have everything in those little bags!

Anyway, Roberto shows up and we walk across the street where once again we are housed in a palace.  We learn that the nobleman who owned it had a dungeon where people were tortured.  As we look around our spacious quarters, I see the washing machine and ask if we can use it.  He says of course but there is no detergent and I say no problem we brought our own.  This puts the woman over the top.  Not only do we have everything we need in these tiny bags but we also have laundry detergent!   It was very funny!