The Sting

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I was happily cycling along when some sort of insect, about the size of an albatross, found it's way inside my sunglasses. It didn't like being there and decided to sting it's way out. This hurt. A lot. I was a big brave boy and didn't cry but as well as hurting like a hurty thing it made me feel very odd for a couple of hours - very light-headed and woozy.

Anyway, back to our journey.

We had a leisurely get-up as the campsite office didn't open until 9. This was no bad thing because I may have had 20 or 30 cents more wine that was good for me yesterday evening. We followed the coast road all day and it was mostly flat with a slight wind-assist. The scenery is changing, less Southern French and more Greek now that we are a full 350 miles south of our starting point. The last few miles today were on a spectacular cliff top road with tunnels and galleries taking us through the worst of the hills and the camera got a good work out.

We are in Formia and guess what? Yup, the campsite is closed. We knew we were travelling at the very end of the season but this one has a website that claims it stays open to September 30th. Clearly the wops don't feel any obligation to actually remain open. After a bit of a kerfuffle we got ourselves booked into a nice hotel for a better price than we feared and we will make the most of the unscheduled luxury. We THINK we will be OK tomorrow night as there are 2 campsites that claim to stay open all year but after that who knows?

We encounter very few English speakers but are somehow making ourselves understood. We manage a few words from the phrase book and fill in with mime. We will be bloody good at charades when we get home!

Off now to make the bath filthy and steal the loo paper.

Steve


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