Page 38 - FAST 2024 Calendar Yearbook

Riding Day 4, Acquafredda to Parghelia: 228k / 142 miles
Next to our Grand Hotel Pianeta Maratea Resort was a mountain top church named the Monte San Biaggo with a stature of Christ the Redeemer. It stands some 2,000 feet above sea level, with a twisty back and forth road on stilts leading up to it. It's not for the feint of heart, and if you suffer from vertigo like I do, it was quite traumatic to ride up it. It took all my attention to just focus on the road and not look over the edges and the drop offs, and not stall my big XR1000S which I couldn't touch the ground, and one wrong jerk on the throttle and I'd be cata- pulted into oblivion!
Once in the church parking lot on top, and safely off the monster bike, I saw we had been followed up the mountain by a bus with a 30 person marching band, who then got out a proceed to give us a live concert right on the church's steps. Amazing!
After visiting Monte San Biaggo with the
stature of Christ the Redeemer this morning, we
again head south on the Cambrian cost which is
also known as Cost dei Cedri. The name comes
from the Cedrat lemon, a huge 3kg fruit which is
grown here and used in the making of Italy's
famed Limoncello lemonade with liquor. Endless beaches and beautiful little towns along the coast make for great coffee breaks and lunch stops. Our next hotel is Residence Tirreno next to the seaside town of Torpea. After a nice cold Italian Moretti beer, we have another great Italian pasta dinner in the hotel's restaurant that evening.
Each morning of the tour, our Edelweiss tour guides Thomas Fellechner and Deiter Arnoth gave us a detailed briefing of the day's ride with their own cartoon artwork drawings of each day’s ride showing the coffee and lunch stops, and the distance to our evening's destination.
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