The great bike tour day 29: Holy cows and chiuso is relative

Today I somehow did everything right: at 05.45 a.m. one of the freely roaming, happy roosters wakes me up here in the square. I go outside for a moment and realize that everything is soaking wet from the dew, especially my bike clothes I washed yesterday evening. There has never been significant dew before, but o.k., then so be it. Packing up a wet tent is always annoying, so it's better to sleep for another hour.

Since the food supermarket promised by maps.me turned out to be a garden center yesterday, I have eggs with oil, salt and pepper for breakfast and the very last Alnatura chai with garlic oil flavor. No problem, it still tastes good. Somehow, I end up getting attached to this mismatched couple from Wattens near Innsbruck, have another cup of tea - boiled on the same stove that P has in his VW bus - and enjoy the almost-home dialect. Markus is about my age, a professional photographer, hit hard by the corona tourism slump and otherwise a fitness bomber. He says cyclists in Italy are like holy cows, you wouldn't hit them.

I start late, but at least my dew-soaked tent is almost dry and I had a very nice morning with the Tyroleans. I have chosen two options for tonight: stay at Lake Trasimeno or go further into a suburb of Perugia where there is an open campsite according to the internet.

Above Lake Trasimeno, I want to have a coffee in a pub converted into a beach bar. I order it, enjoy the chill music (Fat Hawaiian, Milky Chance and so on), but nothing happens, at some point I continue cycling.

Lake Trasimeno is not far behind Lake Garda in terms of tourism. It is clear to me that I don't want to stay at the campsite there, and it is only 20 km to the next one. First a few kilometers on a busy road - but now I know that I am a holy cow and I feel much, much safer than on a comparable road in Germany - then into the hills. "Four wins" is my motto here - I'm happy if I can do 4 km/h. These are the roads where when I start again I have to ride downhill for a few meters because otherwise I tip over. In the end, I push my bike in a zigzag across the road, I take switchbacks on foot because it's so steep. But I still know that I did everything right today.

I am now in Umbria, no longer in Tuscany. The potholes here are deeper, the shoulder is narrower, I have arrived in the real Italy.

The gate to the campsite is half closed, with a lot of force you can push the hydraulics open. Antonello rages at first and talks about polizia because I entered his supposedly closed campsite. They are still renovating here, that's why it's closed. He wants 25€ for one night. Then he shows me the sanitary building and I ask if the bar is open. I would cook for myself and only need water, but if the bar is open, I would buy a beer. He takes me to the reception building, gives me a bottle of water and an open bottle of white wine, apologizes that he already drank a glass of it at lunchtime today and wants 20€. "Tu sei matta" he says, makes a phone call and tells me to use the door handle tomorrow morning, there is hot water in the shower. Two of the motorhomes parked here are occupied tonight, he has just called and "warned" one of the motorhome owners.

https://www.komoot.de/tour/776027418?ref=itd

Camping Il Rocolo, 20€, actually closed, shower only cold, but toilet paper - even though I bought some specially today - no Wi-Fi, but the place has a great vibe, as P would say, I feel comfortable here.