Italy - Day 15 : On the bus

The bus would leave at 8, so we had to be at breakfast at 7 in the morning. There was little risk of us oversleeping because the bells of the church next to the hotel were ringing at 6. First, we took another shower.

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Unfortunately, we couldn't eat as much as we wanted because there was another group, there were over 80 people in total. The driver sat down with us, he sucked down a can of yogurt within 30 seconds. By now, nearly everyone on our bus had come by to talk to us.

 

On the bus, the driver continued his stories. First, it was time for his daily, gooooOOOOooOOOOOd MORNING'. Then he talked about all the cities we passed, Greece, and how they reared many carps in the area. On the highway, a convertible drove next to us, our driver opened his window and shouted at the top of his lungs, 'Schönes Wetter hè?'. He also made a quiz, 'how far had he driven from the Netherlands to Austria and back?'.

 

We stopped at a parking lot with a store. We were both pretty hungry, but they only had 5 euro sandwiches that were way too small. Eventually, we found some dry powdery bread that was only 60 cents. We wanted to pay by card, but that was only allowed for 10 euros or more. There was an ATM right next to the checkout, though. We didn't like how the whole system was set up to make you spend more money, so we decided to buy nothing. Fortunately, we were well prepared, as we had brought yesterday's leftovers into the bus.
 

The rest of the day, we were mostly waiting to be back in the Netherlands and hoping there wouldn't be too much traffic. Around 17:00, we were dropped off near Sevenum. Everyone said goodbye to each other and left. Surprisingly, it was also 32 degrees in the Netherlands, and we still had to cycle 50 km to get home. We bought raisin buns, water, and donut peaches. The donut peaches in the Netherlands weren't as good as those in France or Italy.

 

We had hardly encountered any strong winds during the vacation until now. It was super windy and coming precisely from the direction we needed to go. Between Someren and Heeze, we needed to cycle 10 km over an open plain, we hardly moved. I had expected to cycle home within 1,5 hours, but it took nearly 3. Eventually, we made it to Heeze and arrived on the area's bicycle path network.

 

We were in a nice forest with a small bicycle path meandering through. Now and then, there was a small meadow. This part, so close to home, was nicer than most of Italy and probably also easier to camp in. Next time we should have our cycling vacation in the Netherlands again.

The last part ran straight through Eindhoven. By then, I was home again, and Bram had another 18 km to go.