Day 8: 6/16/24

 Father's Day! Location: near Noto

Another day. Another boring breakfast.

Every morning, the VBT guides go over the riding and sometimes they add something extra. On one of the first days, they did a short language lesson.

For our route review today, our tour guides provided us with a short timeline history of Sicily. 

Very creative.

Our first stop was an achaeological site. Like many sites, it was discovered when someone was doing home construction. Building screeched to a stop and it became a museum out in the countryside. This one was interesting, but like a lot of rural museums, it was lacking in signage.

These are mosaics.

Our lunch stop was on the coast in a tourist area built around an abandoned tuna factory. 

I'm not sure what was the purpose of this display but it was a bike, so we posed for a picture.

We found a nice place by the shore. I wanted to eat light since we had to get back on our bikes after lunch. I ordered something off the menu that the waiter said they could do. The pasta was unlike anything I had seen before.

The sardine was from Mike's mixed seafood dish. 

The after-lunch ride was a short stretch along the coast to a beach. At this point, we were at the southern-most point in Europe.

Mike and I rarely do the full beach experience so it doesn't take long for us to be ready for whatever is next. On this day, there was an option to take bus back to the hotel after the beach and many members of the group were planning to do that so they could take longer at the beach. Besides us, there were a few others who were planning to ride bikes the additional 20-ish miles. 

Before heading back, I overheard a conversation between Claire and her mom. Claire wanted to get in shape to do a marathon, but more to the point, she was 18-years old and thought she could do anything. Her mother was planning to take the bus back and was not thrilled with the idea of her riding alone, so I told them she could ride with us. She was concerned about slowing us down. We explained that we always wait at turns and that this was not a race.

While we waited for Claire to visit the beach, I got Mike to take this picture to send to my sister Carol who is all about turtles.

We started back with Claire and occasionally we would drop back to make sure she was ok. When we stopped at turns, we made her drink because she was not yet experienced enough to pull her bottle out of the cage while riding and drink. At one stop we realized she didn't have the route pulled up on her phone so we made her do that just in case we got separated (not likely). She soaked up all of our suggestions.

At one stop over a bridge, Mike noticed evidence of turning a railroad track into a multi-purpose trail. Looking off one side of the bridge, you can barely make out the rails.

And here's the view off the other side of the bridge.

The VBT van passed us and stopped at a turnout even though this was an independent (unsupported) section. We were the last ones on the road, so they were basically sweeping. They might have also been a little concerned about Claire. 

While we were chatting with the guides and refilling bottles I suggested she try a road bike. The guides pulled one of the road bikes off the trainer and adjusted it for her. She had never ridden a road bike before so she tried out shifting and braking before leaving. Since we were on a busy road, Mike and I sandwiched her so I could see what was behind us. 

We did the last stretch of this section and she did fine. She liked it so much that she will probably use a road bike on the rest of the trip.

Here's the evidence that we brought her back safe and sound.

The evening was a walk around Noto, about a 20 minute bus ride. We visited Noto on our 2013 trip and we had a tour guide to explain what we were seeing. This time, we just got dumped off at the bus station and were left on our own to find dinner and entertainment. 

Noto has a commercial street with shops and restaurants and I'd call it a pedestrian walkway but there were cars and motor scooters using it too. But the road was for pedestrians first.

I can't tell you much about these structures since we didn't have a guide.

We were in front of this building in 2013.

Across the street from this building a busker set up and we listened to her after dinner.  She had an acoustic guitar and a software to produce vocal harmony. It was very pleasant and we put a few Euros in her guitar case.

No need to say more about this picture.

https://www.strava.com/activities/11666904859