More Rides ... From Spain to Italy

Here are some more of the rides/days we have done, starting with the day we were in Onda.

4/6/10
Eslida to El Refugi
via Veo, Onda, Vila-Real, Castello de la Palma
82km
We camped at about 450 meters altitude, about 2 km from the sea. Great view! We thought about camping at higher altitutude, but it was too near the road (there were no offical campsites) and we also found a plastic bag with something head-like partially burried...so we decided against it.
Two of the bike stretches were amazing, especially from Veo to Onda. After Onda was all dense industrial/suburbia.

4/7/10
We biked from our camp to the train station in Benicassim (aka Bengasm, or, the Oh Ben). We made it to Barcelona with our bikes via the slow train line (all slow lines have trains that allow bikes), stopping on Tortosa, Spain.

4/8/10
We saw a lot of Barcelona on this day and the evening before. At 10 pm we boarded our 19 hour cruise to Italy. I tried to sleep out on the deck but was awoken at 4 am by 50 mph gusts of wind that were lifting up lawn chairs. We got lots of reading done, relaxed, and enjoyed supermarket food that cost far less than the 20 euro pasta dishes. Again, bikes were no problem to transport.

4/9/10
The boat docked about half an hour before sunset, which left us with not very much time to get food and get to our campsite (we decided we would head for the hills and find one). It got dark too fast so we had to bike (carefully...) on the roads along the shore, which were more lit up, until we could find a site or a hotel. We ended up in a three star hotel for 20 euro each, down from 80 euro for the room, after expalining our story and that were were students. Great view of the harbor!

4/10/10
Civitavecchia to Roma
Via Tolfa, Manzianna, Tragliata
118km (including 10 km of pushing our bikes through busy Rome...)
Without the Spanish hills, we got a lot of biking done. This was one of our most beautiful days, making our way through pastures where horses grazed on small white and purple flowers (or at least on the grass next to it...).
Carlo did a great job hooking us up with his familys place. We got in late on the 10th, enjoyed site seeing yesterday and part of today, and plan to leave early tomorrow.
Getting the bikes into Rome took about 2 hours because it is not safe to bike in this city (very much unlike everywhere in Spain, where there are enormous shoulders and perfect bike paths practically everywhere)