It was another cloudless day, very warm after a cool start but with a refreshing breeze in the afternoon. We climbed steadily through Ota and on to Pont de Pianella where we left our bikes to walk along the Gorge de Spilunca to a Genoese bridge. Rowan sustained his second puncture of the holiday as we arrived. I fixed it after we returned from our walk but the repair didn’t last long. This time we examined the inner tube closely and noticed it was starting to perish in a few places so we replaced it and were free of such unpleasantness for the rest of the holiday.
We continued up the relentless incline, the road being fairly quiet – a few car tourists, the odd coach, motorcyclists and groups of Italian racing cyclists. We arrived at Evisa, a small mountain town 829m above sea level, at 16:30 and stayed at the friendly Gite d’Étape, busy with walkers but we got a four-bunk room to ourselves.