Day 368 – EU – Italy [Albinia to Montalto di Castro]

07/04/21

47.7km

  From Albinia (Italy) to Montalto di Castro (Italy)

Europe

A cold and windy day on the road and a stressful stretch of highway

The swamps of the Ortobello Park

Today was cold again, around 0 Celsius as I left early in the morning. The northerly wind was blowing hard making it stingy cold. I am not complaining, I knew the balmy weather I had recently was a bit too early for the season. But the wind is a drag, it’s always difficult with the stroller, to keep control and to push against it. I took it in my stride, today was a south east run and the wind would be blowing from my side, a little against me but not head on.

Faced with a closed iron gate

I ran on country roads past the Natural Park of Orbetello. Swamps, natural lagoon, I even spotted flamingos, it was absolutely superb in the morning light. I enjoyed the road even more because I knew this was my escape from the E80 and I was initially not sure I could actually use the road as there were some warning signs on Google Maps. Which materialised… about 10km later! I face a closed iron gate. The only way to get over was a 1m20 brick wall by the side of it. In normal circumstances it would have been easy. But yet again, with BoB the stroller, it meant dismantling everything, hauling the bag, stroller and cool box over the wall – then down on the other side and re-assembling everything.

The view from Ansedonia

I went up the little village of Ansedonia perched up on a hill with great views of the bay. And as I ran down to the valley, I faced the very unpleasant prospect of having to go through a 12km stretch of highway, on the E80. It was quite stressful. There is not much room for me, there are loads of trucks (the motorway leads to Rome) and it requires a lot of concentration. Tiring. I end up today in Montalto di Castro, seaside. It is quite deserted in Covid times and I found most of the town looks like an abandoned sea resort. It will get better as I get closer to Rome.

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: