A wet ride - Gallipoli to Oria

Today dawned bright and sunny and we set off on our last stretch of the west coast. After 10km we had a last view back towards Gallipoli and turned inland. We were making good progress and the sun was still shining.

Then things began to go wrong. Our planned route which was supposed to use a cycle route came to a locked gate saying private. We had to work out another way and had to make quite a diversion back towards the way we'd come from. We arrived in the village of Leverano, which was like many in Puglia with very tatty and rough outskirts and a gem of a medieval centre - the outskirts usually blighted by far too much traffic. We found a bench in the pretty bit and sat down to eat our picnic. Just as we finished the large black cloud, which had been building up for some time, decided to unleash a torrent of biblical proportions and we dived for cover under a small gazebo which someone had thoughtfully left there!

Eventually it eased very slightly and we moved on. By now the roads were more like rivers and cycling was quite difficult as there were lots of potholes, now invisible beneath small lakes. 

We missed a turn on our improvised new route and ended up cycling the last 20km on much busier roads than we would have liked. On arrival in Oria we found the campsite closed - I feel that this was a piece of good luck as instead of spending another damp night camping we are staying in a 17th century Palazzo in the historic centre of Oria.

Gallipoli to Oria - 82km, 350m climb.