{"id":26448,"date":"2018-05-05T19:03:07","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T18:03:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/?p=26448"},"modified":"2018-05-05T19:47:14","modified_gmt":"2018-05-05T18:47:14","slug":"a-nice-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/05\/a-nice-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"A Nice Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s always nice to have a nice surprise, even if it’s a surprise that you give yourself. A couple of weeks ago Chris, one of my team mates from Scimitar Endurance<\/a> posted the following to the rest of the team.<\/p>\n

I have finally admitted defeat to riding unsupported around Crete in 2 weeks time. A medical issue, then cracking the frame on my adventure bike I was going to use and finally the flight being unaffordable was the last straw! I have at the last minute managed to book a week in Italy at a hotel run by a cycling family recommend by a mate in work who stayed there 3 weeks ago and loved it. If u r interested in coming please let me know.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After a few questions about price and details and checking with Anna I surprised myself and said I’d join him!<\/p>\n

It just seemed too good a deal to miss. I’ve never really been on a cycling holiday before so it was time to change that anyway.<\/p>\n

Total cost came to just over \u00a3500 for the week. That includes flights, transfers, hotel accommodation, buffet breakfast, dinner with a bottle of wine and what they call an ‘Abundant Snack’ after our bike ride each day. From what I’ve heard it consists of an all you can eat buffet lunch. It also includes bike hire (decent carbon road bike), cycle guiding, access to two Olympic sized swimming pools, sauna, Turkish bath etc and they even launder our cycling clothes each day for us. Not a bad deal really.<\/p>\n

The routes look good, the hotel looks nice and the forecast looks good too – sunny and 23\u00b0C most of the time.<\/p>\n

So, everything is booked and I’m ready to go. Look forward to some blog posts from Italy in the next week or so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always nice to have a nice surprise, even if it’s a surprise that you give yourself. A couple of weeks ago Chris, one of my team mates from Scimitar Endurance posted the following to the rest of the team. I have finally admitted defeat to riding unsupported around Crete in 2 weeks time. A...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1312,"featured_media":26452,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[134,1154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cycling","category-travel"],"yoast_head":"\nA Nice Surprise - A Simple Life of Luxury<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.alananna.co.uk\/blog\/2018\/05\/a-nice-surprise\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Nice Surprise - A Simple Life of Luxury\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s always nice to have a nice surprise, even if it’s a surprise that you give yourself. 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