Giulianova to Porto Recanati

Warmer and drier, we awoke to a sunny day and set off quite early with the idea of getting well up the coast towards Ancona.

The early part of the route was superb, with long stretches of cycle route and even the river crossings had been sorted out with some great new cycle bridges.

The area north of Giulianova was affluent with smart resorts and some lovely fin de siècle villas. We enjoyed batting along in the sunshine with a following wind on these traffic-free routes with the sea our constant companion to the right.

The first problem came as we left Abruzzo and entered Marche. Our wonderful route came to a halt at a river and with no signage, we turned inland to the main road to find a bridge and ended up on a complex and busy sort of giratory system. It wasn't pleasant and we weren't quite sure of the way off it.

It was quite a relief to find ourselves back in a small town and again on the seaside path.
The difficulty with this route is that they are in the process of developing it and our online mapping isn't always up to date with the new bridges and off-road paths. Very little is signed, but having sorted that out we enjoyed another long stretch of cycle path. Unfortunately that too came to an end and after another few kilometres of busy road we turned off into Porto Recanati. We were about five kilometres from our intended campsite. During the day we'd had a few drops of rain, though we had passed through places which had obviously had huge downpours which we were relieved to have missed. Not this one though! In a few minutes we were totally drenched and searching online for the nearest hotel where we are now warm and dry.
In honesty we are rather fed up with this weather!
On the brighter side we have now cycled well over 1000km and are about 30km south of Ancona, so are making reasonable progress up the Italian coast. We're both fit and well, if a little tired. The forecast is mixed for the next few days, so we'll just carry on trying to dodge the showers and progress northwards.

Giulianova to Porto Recanati - 95km, 400m climb.