Home to Rome - 2018

Good evening everyone, just a quick update to say a huge, huge thank you to all our family and friends who came out to welcome us home yesterday. We were blown away by the unexpected crowd and warm welcome home and the effort everybody went to to make it a very special evening... we are so proud to be part of such a fantastic community. Tomorrow night O’Donnachas in Kilmeaden are hosting a welcome home party for us, where there will be live music, raffles, food etc. We look forward to seeing you all 🍻🇮🇪🚴🏻‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️

Day 31 ~ We made it here Mam/Nan, thank you for sharing our journey with us and keeping us safe 🙌

Day 28 & 29 ~ Hi all, where do I begin...We left Florence two days ago continuing our journey south to Rome, the last two/three days have been very challenging and have easily been our hardest days yet, a combination of mountains, lots of steep and long hills, tiredness, aches and pains, mosquito bites, thunder and lightning storms and busy and bad Italian roads have made for a tough few days..Over the past two days we’ve only managed to cover about 130 kilometres due to these factors. Yesterday we left Florence and cycled about 80km’s to Siena, we climbed about 1,500 foot as we continued our way over the Appenine mountains ⛰ Near the end of the day I got another puncture in my front wheel as two very sharp and strong thorns went through my tyre and tube, we had to stop and change it in the middle of a busy roundabout 😅
Today we left Siena and cycled a further 50km’s through the vineyards of Tuscany to were we are staying tonight in San Quirico d’Orcia. At about mid day the heavens opened and torrential rain and thunder and lightning began. Seeing the huge lightning bolts striking the ground was an experience but at the time we where very high in a very open area with no cover which was dangerous 😬(thankfully we didn’t get struck by lightning 😂)We’ve never seen rain so heavy in our lives! We managed to come across an old derelict house which we used for shelter where we waited until the weather cleared. The day threw everything at us and left us 50km short from where we wanted to be tonight. It’s still raining now but on a brighter note we now have about 180 kilometres left until we finally reach Rome! We are both very tired now and are looking forward to getting to Rome in the next two days 🚴🏻‍♂️🚴🏻‍♂️thanks everyone at home for your unbelievable ongoing support, we look forward to reading your comments and messages at the end of every long day and they really bring a smile to both of us 😊We’re nearly there Nan 🙌