I start my morning by visiting an old roman excavation, Grumentum, a large settlementand archeological center. It isn’t open yet, when I come by, but I can still see some of the ruins.
Today’s main 800 m climb starts from Marsico Nuovo and the first challenge is getting up the narrow, steep roads into town. These old towns built on hills seem to have no limit to the steepness of their streets. I can’t prove it, but I’m fairly certain I’ve gone up at least one 20% incline today and a couple of 15+%.
I’ve crossed over to the Basilicata region from Calabria someday before and today, I come to it’s capital, Potenza. I find it is pretty ugly. Even in the old center, highrises have been built everywhere, including right next to the old citadel tower. The inner city is partly a pedestrian area at least, and has some nice historic buildings. I escape the busy city and ride out north over hilly terrain speckled with wind power plants.
As the roads get emptier, I pick up speed on a slightly downhill winding road and pass my turn. When I notice, I’m too lazy to ride back up and first ride up over the next hill but when that becomes steep I lazily opt for what looks like a shortcut through the woods on my map. Yes, it is a true ‘shortcut’. The road is muddy at first, then washed out so completely that I have to walk a few meters and overall the road is so very overgrown that I take half the forest with me. In the end it takes at least half an hour longer that had I just turned around.
But then the roads flow on downhill and I ride over the hills until sunset.
125 km, 2400 m elevation