We did a loop ride out of Orvieto today and saw the historic town of Civita, also known as “The Dying City.”   It’s not dying anymore, of course, as many tourists (and cyclists) visit it each year to resuscitate it with cash.  It’s a lovely and remarkable place and the best way to tell the story–apart from clicking on the link above–is with pictures.  So I’ll try the gallery feature of this WordPress site and we’ll see how it works.

A swim and lunch at Lago di Basero

After Civita, we rode to a beautiful crater lake, Lago di Balsena, for a bike-shorts swim and then lunch at a trattoria open to the lake shore.  Of course, we saw several minor hill towns along the way.  They’re almost a normal landscape feature to us by now.

We returned to Orvieto with fatigue in our legs and other body parts.  We’ve been hammering the short climbs, hammering the flats, and generally not pacing ourselves for long climbing days.  While the mileage and climbing don’t show large numbers, we’ll need to do better tomorrow or there will be a general uprising against the planned itinerary.  The next 3 days are much harder days!

Miles: 57

Elev. gain:  4,400 ft., (Reb, Jim’s on-bike Garmin)   6,428 (ridewithgps.com) 3,903 ft. (biketoaster.com)