Thursday 13th March

What a start!

It was pouring with rain in the morning and my landlady let me stay longer. When it had stopped raining, she helped me manhandle the bike into the lift. It had to go on end to fit in. I had already taken my luggage down. She even went down with me and through the door we saw that it was pouring again, so I locked the bike and went back up to the 6th floor with her. She said I could stay until 12, as she had another guest arriving at 1 and needed an hour to clean (I had even asked to stay another night). When it stopped again, I said goodbye, saddled up and left. It is always difficult to get started as you don’t know which direction and my Garmin kept telling me I wa wrong. I finally found the route but it was a cycle lane next to a busy road and I was scared to get on the fully packed strange bike. I pushed it for miles, then I couldn’t get on! The bike with the bags on was just too high to swing my leg over. I finally managed to get my foot over the crossbar, but it was a struggle as the bike was so high and unstable when tipped due to the luggage!
It rained and stopped and rained again, sometimes very heavily. I came to a place where they were clearing huge rocks away, that had obviously been washed down by the rain, which they don’t usually get here The road was closed to cars, but the driver moved his excavator for me to get though. Not long after that, my Garmin sent me onto an unmade road, which was partially flooded. I got to a part where it kept telling me I was wrong. I tried all variations but it wouldn’t accept any. I finally realised it wanted to send me into a river, which is obviously not normally there. I met an English hiker who confirmed this. Poor guy had to walk all the way back, but I was much quicker on my E-Bike!
I knew there was plenty of climb, but shortly after this it really started, complete with torrential rain. I plodded on and finally found my accommodation. Although I love my Garmin and Komoot, I often have difficulties with it at the end (as well as the beginning). Google Maps weren’t much better either, as the host had said the house was at the end of the street. As I had already dismounted I pushed up the steep hill and then down again as it turned out to be the FIRST house.
I finally found the right door and managed to open the key-safe whilst holding my bike, only to get inside and find it freezing cold. There was no heating, or maybe there was, but I think it was just air-conditioning. I couldn’t get to grips with the panel on the wall and there were no instructions. I finally managed to switch the oven on, although I think it was grill as the symbols were all faded and I couldn’t get hot air to work (again no manual).
No information at all in the apartment, so I found a supermarket on Google maps. I found it hard to shop, as yoghurts were only in packs of 4, eggs in packs of 10, bananas were green… I finally found something and checked Google maps for restaurants to suss out before returning to the apartment to switch the oven on again and leave my shopping, planning to go out to dinner later. I checked the few which were supposedly open, according to Google, but most of them weren’t! There was a strange bar with plastic chairs, where they would have served food from 7:30 (in the meantime it was 7), but I wasn’t keen and managed to find a pizzeria, which opened just as i got there. I decided to stay, complete with shopping and it was OK.
After that it was back to cold apartment where the oven went straight back on. The night was OK in a comfy bed.
39,4 Km. 970 m. climb, 4,37 bike time.