What a day. I woke up a little tired. It’s time for another rest but I just haven’t found a place here where I’d like to stay for a few days. Maybe in Puglia.
I had breakfast at the BnB and got going. Outside, I loaded the days ride into my GPS unit, or attempted to. I had no phone connection. That’s happened intermittently over the last three or four days. I went back inside and used the wifi and got going, hoping that I’d pick up a signal down the road. (I never did).
The first part of the ride was easy, flat and pleasant through the farmlands north east of Scanzano Jonico. As yesterday, I had to divert from the direct route a couple of times for the same reason – there’s no secondary road that goes near where the the Autostrada goes. Again it cost me about 15 or 20 kms but that’s fine, it was nice riding and the unfenced dogs were quite ok today.
Towards the end of the first diversion, my GPS told me to go straight ahead into a small overgrown paddock. I stopped and looked at the Komoot map and yes, I had to go straight ahead, cross a railway line, walk beside it for a couple of hundred metres then turn right. It was hardly even a walking track, and it petered out once I came to the railway line.
So, I picked up ‘This Moment’ and walked warily up and over the line then pushed through more overgrown grasses and weeds then walked across a ploughed field to the back of a petrol station.
Less than a minute after leaving the side of the train tracks, a train came flying past. Good timing.
The petrol station had a bar / cafeteria with some yummy pizza. I’m easily influenced, so I had some lunch and sat down as it started to rain. I was probably there for an hour or so.
I still had no phone signal but the nice people there, gave me their wifi details, so I was able to decide on where to go and where to stay. Without doing this online, it’s almost impossible. These towns are empty at this time of day. Finding a reasonably priced room for the night wouldn’t be easy at all.
After that, I followed a service road that was fairly close to the freeway for the rest of the day – not exciting at all, but freeway underpasses provided shelter when it rained, and I also stopped for more food at a petrol station cafeteria. They are surprisingly good here. It’s nothing like the Rubbish food you get on the Pacific Highway run between Sydney and the Sunshine Coast.
The route into Taranto took me through the infamous Ilva steel plant area which was responsible for 83% of Italy’s dioxin emissions in 2005. No photos !
It’s really not a nice place. It’s a forest of chimneys and what looks like chemical factories interspersed with an asphalt wasteland housing largely empty carparks with impromptu piles of strewn household garbage, some of which has been there for quite some time. The air quality was on par with the road quality and I wanted to be anywhere else.
I was even getting used to it, then I crested a small rise and before me was a beautiful harbour and old city basking in the late afternoon sun between the clouds. This is where I wanted to be 😁
I rode through the old city, over the swing bridge and to my BnB where the host flagged me down before I could check my phone to confirm the address.
Dinner was a wood fired pizza around the corner at La Livorno for 7 euros – just beautiful. Taranto is really a nice place but I read about the Ilva plant and it’s effect on the surrounding area hadn’t been great in terms of dioxin poisoning over the years. I’ll get out of here as quick as I can tomorrow.
