Friday 13 July 2018
After a record breaking sleep for me of just under 7 hours in the comfortable room I made my way over to the cafe for breakfast, the heavy rain stopping just in time – so far we are amazing lucky with the weather. In the cafe it was disappointing to find the table as we left it last night! Apparently all the staff depart and arrive on the one bus so we at to wait for them to reappear today. Once the bus arrived breakfast of eggs, porridge, pancakes etc soon appeared.
Today was going to be a long ride in tour terms of 90km so we made a prompt start at just after 9am, after discovering one bike had a puncture. Today Svetlana was riding using Her husbands, Dmitry, locally made all titanium bike, very strong even the luggage rack is welded on and the bike can be split in two for transport.
We made good progress over the undulating countryside helped by long sections of the road being in OK condition. For the first time I saw a tractor ploughing a field it’s been really strange to see vast amounts of agricultural land laying fallow even reverting to scrub and getting covered in large knotweed.
We had our morning break then headed towards The Volga and Tutaev down an amazingly broken road, just so pleased I left my new bike at home 🙂 Tutaev has definitely seen much better days although a local who has made good in Moscow is renovating with volunteers an old warehouse into a cultural centre so there is hope. I must say Vladimir is much to be admired in promoting grassroots tourism everywhere we go on this tour. On the outskirts we visited another huge renovation project of a 17th century church, once again volunteer led.
After much of-roading alongside the river & through housing complexes (interesting to see home built garages made from welded steel plate with industrial locks) we finally made it to Yaroslavl a quite beautiful city on the high banks of The Volga where we are staying in the very modern Ibis hotel.
Evening dinner was a true Vladimir special in an home brew underground bar/restaurant very eclectic with two guys playing (although as in the UK why so Loud) really excellent place & food.
Afterwards we had a stroll through the streets with a local guide pointing out the UNESCO heritage centre. A bit tiring for me.
The Strava says we did 54 miles at 12.7mph so pretty good given the road conditions.
Great detail. Any mention of land ownership about those fallow fields?
I understand the land is owned by companies & there’s probably no farming subsidies like in the EU & USA