by William Ager
I have been bugging my wife Jean for years to take a trip to Europe with me. She has been all over Europe so I felt like I really needed to see the world also. Then for Christmas 2004 she surprised me and paid the registration fee for a biking trip to Tuscany. The biking tour was sponsored by the UW-Stevens Point. There were 30 people in all going on the trip who were mostly non-students. Out of the 30 there were three tour leads, Steve, Kim and Bob. The Participants were mostly from Wisconsin, but a few were from other US states. For the trip I would box up my own bike and bring it along with me to ride. The cost was $3400 which included all hotel stays, a main group dinner every so often, plane tickets, and the cost to haul your luggage around in a van. Everything else, including most dinners, was your own expense. The exchange rate was $1.20 per euro. This was my first trip to any country outside the US or Canada, so I was delighted. This would turn into the best vacation I’ve ever had.
June 14th-15th
Jean drove me down to Chicago at 12:30 in the afternoon or so. It was a warm humid day in the Midwest. I left Chicago O’Hare at 3:40 PM on June 14th 2005. The airline was Alitalia, the Italian International carrier. I had no problem finding the Alitalia check in and getting my bike box checked in. I also found must of the group checking in also. It cost an extra 80 EUROS to check the bike in as extra baggage. The plane trip was 8 ˝ hours long and we traveled more than 4500 miles at 9 miles a minute. I received a window seat next a Bulgarian man who spoke very little or no English. At first I thought he was Italian, so I asked him in Italian if he spoke English and he didn’t know what I was saying so I asked again in English. I finally understood that he was Bulgarian and for the rest of the trip we exchanged only 4 words, Atlantic, Chicago, cold and Sofia (which was the city he was traveling to). We flew in Milan and boarded another plane that would take us to Florence. The layover was a couple of hours and we stayed at the airport and waited for the flight. This was another hour of flight. By this time it was 10 AM local time, because of the 7 hour time difference. Once in Florence we unloaded our luggage and bikes and boarded a bus bound for Pistoia, which was only a half hour away by car. We arrived in Pistoia and went to the old part of the city. We stayed at the Hotel Leon Bianco. We unloaded and put together our bikes. I then explored the city by bike and on foot. That night we had a group dinner next door to the hotel. I was still recovering from a terrible migraine I had in Chicago. I don’t get migraines often, but this one was brought on by lack of sleep, jet lag, no tea, hunger, stress, etc. I turned in early around 10:30 PM local time.
The weather in Italy is the most conducive towards living. It is warm, but not humid. During the time I was in Tuscany the temperature was in the 80s and sunny every day. It was Hot in the sun but in the shade it was a good temperature. At night it would cool to the upper 60s and 70s. This is perfect weather for a t-shirt and shorts.
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| Getting on the bus at Florence | Assembling the bikes below my hotel window | A Room with a View | Pistoia Baptistery | Pistoia |
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| Pistoia | Hotel Leon Blanc | A Pistoia street | Pistoia Bell Tower | On a Pistoia Street |
June 16th Thursday
I woke up to the sound of swifts calling out to each other. They have, to human ears, a mono-tone screech. The closest sound is that of the screech owl. It was lively outside my second story window. Merchants were setting up their open air shops and beginning the new day with smiles and laughter. The first thing I did was take a shower. In the shower there was a large bright green iridescent beetle lying dead besides the drain. I brought it home to Rosalind as a specimen. I began the day and went to the open air market for something to eat. I knew in no uncertain terms that I was going to eat hotel food when I was in Italy. I wanted to experience the tastes that this town had to offer. This is mostly what I did because it was so convenient to eat and go. I talked to one of the vendors and told her that I wanted a peach. I also purchased a box of fresh raspberries. I then went and bought a variety of sweet breads. It was a very delicious breakfast. I then decided to head out of the city and see the countryside by bike. I headed north of the city along a small road. It was steep in places and wound up into the hills. The traffic was light but there were lots of switch backs and I hit a gravel road after a while. The first town I ran into was Lano. I asked for directions to Villa Bagglio, because I had no idea where I was going. I was thinking I had gone much farther than I had actually gone. It amazed me how thick the forest north of Pistoia was. The hill sides are covered in forests filled with cedar, cypress, poplar like trees, maples, unknown broad leaf varieties. After visiting the village of Bagglio, I climbed farther up north into the hills. It was a steep ascend with thick forests all around. The road altered between gravel and pavement. When I finally made it to the top it was windy and much cooler. The road came to a “T” and split off. Since it was getting late into the day, I decided to head back to Pistoia. I wanted to get to a lake that was north of the city, but at the rate I had gone I would’ve been late for our group get-together. Going down the hill the decent was quick with a lot of hair-pin turns. With so many tight corners, a lot of Italian drivers would honk their horns as they went up or down the hills. You couldn’t always count on this so it’s best to be cautious. I arrived back in Pistoia at around 6:00 PM. I ended up biking only about 20 miles today, but half of this was all up hill. I saw many lizards and one dead snake, but no mammals like squirrels or rodents. Italy has almost no road kill.
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| Pistoria Church | 15th Century Ceramic Freeze |
Country Villa | Going up into the hills north of Pistoia |
A Green Lizard |
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| Some ruins in the woods | It was no small task bikin' up here. Thick woods |
On the way down | Looking down at Pistoia | Country Villa |
June 17th Friday
On this day we biked to Lucca, which was our next destination. We stayed there for 3 nights. The van that carried our luggage left Hotel Bianco in Pistoia at 9:00 AM, so we had to have everything packed and ready to go before hand. I biked with the group this day. The route was to be northwest, up into the hills. We started out at 9:30 AM. The group started out consisting of myself, Paul, Pete, Brian, Jason, Steve, Bill, Rita, Kirsten, Doug, and Kim. For the first 3 hours it was a steep climb, with us stopping at every other village to take a break. This was almost too much for me given the workout the day before. At the top we split into two groups with Kim and the two collage age guys going the short route to Lucca. The guys were not feeling very good from drinking the night before. The decent from this point was quick, easy, and breathtaking. We encountered beautiful mountainous vistas with towns on the sides on hills. This was the most mountainous region we would ride through during the whole trip. We soon passed a hotel and restaurant by the name of Parco Hotel di Lari in the town of Prunetta. The owner came out and just started talking up a storm with the eight of us. He had said that he was in the military years back and was stationed with American troops in different parts of the world. He knew five different languages and his American buddies called him “Danny Boy”. A few years back he received an unexpected visitor at his hotel. The visitor quipped, “Don’t you remember me?” The visitor turned out to be General Wesley Clark, who he knew in the army and had come to stay at the hotel. We ordered a great penne pasta dish that hit the spot for our tired bones. We asked Danny boy what was up ahead and he said that there was a suspension bridge not too far up named “Ponte Sospeso delle Ferriere”. We stopped to walk across this bridge, but as we were pulling up to see the bridge, Paul broke his chain while switching gears going up a very steep incline. The combination of the extreme force of pushing down on his peddles along with shifting gears snapped his chain. Luckily, Bill had a tool that could take out one part of the chain and hook it back together. So Paul was good to go after only a half hour or so. We then walked across the suspension bridge. It was a beautiful ride from the bridge. We rode along the road which followed mountain valleys and rapid streams. At one point the water looked very inviting and I stopped to take a swim on my own while the others headed on. We came to a major road where the mountain stream joined the River Serchio. Along the River Serchio is the Ponte della Maddalena or “Devil’s Bridge”. It’s called the Ponte del Diavolo because according to local legend, the Devil wanted to construct the bridge if he was given the first soul to cross it. The clever town’s folk agreed and then promptly sent over a dog after the bridge was built. I guess that solves one problem and proves that dogs have souls. We stopped and had a couple of drinks near the bridge before moving on to Lucca. We arrived in Lucca at the northern end of the city at around 6:30 P.M. We rode on top of the wall surrounding the city to our hotel which was just outside the wall to the south. The hotel’s name was Hotel Rex.
That night we had a wonderful group dinner under an outdoor tent at one of the local restaurants. One of the many dishes was calamari. The whole mini squids had tiny eyes and tiny tentacles and were served in a green sauce. This was one of the top 5 dinners of the trip. It was Jane’s birthday celebration at the dinner.
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| Hill town | Hill town | Having a bite to eat at
Hotel di Lari in Prunetta |
Ponte Sospeso
delle Ferriere |
Ponte Sospeso
delle Ferriere |
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| The Road to Lucca | A Mountain Stream | The Road to Lucca | Swimming Spot | Ponte della Maddalena |
June 18th Saturday
Today we received our first introduction to the train system of Italy. The plan was to go to Cinque Terre, the five cities on Mediterranean cliffs and hike between the cities. We bought our tickets at the train station in Lucca. A good part of the biking group started out planning to go on the trip. I was rather ignorant at the time of all the different schedules, transfer points, and the even the logistics of just getting on the right train. The ticket I obtained was only from Lucca to La Spezia, but what I also needed was a ticket from La Spezia to Monterosso. So I had to get back in line to get the second part of the ticket. The small group that I followed around consisted of Steve, Jason, Paul, Brian, and Peter. We came out onto the platform and I think Steve was the one who said that we needed to be on another platform. Coming up the steps from below the tracks onto the platform, we did not see the other part of our group and there was no train to be seen. So we quickly ran back to the original location and jumped on another train bound for Pisa. Some of the slower people did not make it on that second train and we waved as we went by them. It was confusing because some of us had different tickets than others, but we soon decided that it was ok to be on this train because we would catch a connection from Pisa to La Spezia and then onto Monterrosso, the last city in the Cinque Terre. The regular passenger cars were packed and in the back of the cars it was standing room only. It was loud and noisy standing in the back of the car where two of the cars joined. Some Italian teenagers made faces at us from the opposite car and Jason crossed over to talk to them. We met another passenger from Washington DC who explained how the train system works. After getting off at Pisa/La Spezia I lost the group I was traveling with amid the crowds and commotion and couldn’t see where they had gone. I looked and tried to see if anyone else was getting on the train. I did see some others get on farther down, so I jumped on also. The train came close to the coast after the connection and that is where I saw the Mediterranean Sea for the first time. The coast along the Italian Riviera is absolutely beautiful just north of La Spezia.
The Sea is turquoise blue with jagged cliffs leading to rocky beaches. I left the train at Riomaggiore along with David and Jane. What I didn’t know at the time was that the other members of the group were going to go to the most northern city, Monterrosso, and hike down the series of 5 cities. I, on the other hand, started at the most southern city and would hike up. After getting off the train, there was a crowd of people at the information booths. I ended up buying a Cinque Terre pass, and this is required to walk the trails between the cities and get on and off the trains that run between the cities. Riomaggiore was a beautiful city as are all of the cities in the series. Riomaggiore’s buildings are set on vertical cliffs and the main street leads down to the sea. Supposedly there are roads that connect the 5 cities but I didn’t see any leading in and out of the cities. After getting my bearings I went straight down to the rocky beach. I brought my mask and snorkel for swimming in the Mediterranean. I had told myself before I left on this trip that this would be one my goals of the trip. The water was cooler than the Gulf of Mexico, which was like a hot tub in June at Corpus Christi, but very nice and warmer than any lake in Wisconsin in the summertime. I saw maybe a dozen different fish species in the blue waters. Most were a foot long or smaller. Some looked like striped bass. Others were long and narrow brightly colored tropical fish. The water is clear and visibility is over 20-25 feet down. I swam over to some large boulders which made a jetty to protect the small harbor of Riomaggiore. A few people were out there basking in the sun. I climbed out of the water and dried off a little bit, when a large 80+ foot tour boat pulled up and docked right next where I was sitting. Being the modest person that I am I entered back into the water and waited as the 100+ or so tourists filed past off the ship onto the rocky path with cameras in hand. After my swim I walked the wonderful path from Riomaggiore to the second city Manarola. This stretch of the walking path is the most manicured and safest. Many tourists are taking the leisurely stroll between the two cities.
Manarola is the next city in the Cinque Terre. This is the place where you can see the cliff-side vineyards. At Manarola I ended up taking a lot more time than I intended. The trail was out between Manarola and Corniglia due to an avalanche. The trail did not indicate this until half way to Corniglia. I looked all over the city for what seemed like hours, on some way to get out of Manarola. I did not want to take the train, so I decided to go along the beach if there was any. I went along the trail as far as I could go and then I descended down the cliff using some stairs that led to a rocky beach below. There were a few people around at the end of the trail, swimming and enjoying the nice Mediterranean sun. I climbed along the beach for a little ways and came to a huge rock that extended out into the water. There was no way of getting around the boulder except by swimming around it. I did not care so much if my clothes got a little wet, but I didn’t want my digital camera getting wet. I had trashed a camera 4 years prior in Alaska by climbing on some rocks and dropping it in a rushing creek. I didn’t want to repeat that same situation that I always seem to find myself in. If there are rocks and water, I’m there. So I took my dried fruit out of the plastic bag and put the camera in the bag and tied it as tight as I could. I then put my swim suit on and my clothes in my backpack. I did a test swim with my hand over my head simulating holding my backpack aloft, because I wanted to make sure it was possible. The distance was only about 20 feet and for a short distance the water depth was over my head. The test swim was successful for the most part so I decided to do it for real. I ended up making it with just the bottom of my backpack a little wet. After getting through this obstacle, the walk along the beach on the other side of the boulder was fairly easy and I ended on the other side of the ridge of Corniglia. There was a bus stop there and a road up above where people were coming and going. I could see how the road wound around up to the top of the ridge and on to the other side. So I decided to take a short cut and go straight up through the vineyards. This was a bad idea. I ran into thick brambles and prickly bushes, no different than the ones we have here in America. The problem was that I had shorts on and after scrambling up the side of the ridge I came out pretty bloody.
Finally getting to Corniglia after taking a good part of the day to get there, I ran into everyone else who was leaving the city to go back to Manarola. Kim could not believe that I swam part way to Corniglia and everyone was amazed to see me. We went our separate ways pretty quickly and I continued on the path to the next city which I could see up on the next high hill in the distance. I walk the path to this town only to find that I was not in the next city. The town was called San Bernardino and was a quiet little church village up on top of a hill. I came part way down on the road from San Bernardino disillusioned. Luckily I ran into three college guys from the US who were hiking down to the fourth city, Vernazza. They showed me the way to the trail, which I nearly passed on the road. I walked with them for a ways down to Vernazza. This stretch of the trail was the most steep and rugged that I had encountered on the day’s journey. One wrong move and it’s a drop of a thousand feet to the rocks and sea below. The trail literally comes above the Vernazza and winds down into the city.
Vernazza is the most tucked away of the 5 cities and you can not see it from Corniglia. There was a nice sand beach there with lots of people swimming in the small harbor area. I swam here also. It was getting late by this time, 6:00 PM or so, so I decided to take the train to the last city, Monterosso. Monterosso is the most American like of the 5 cities. It has a boardwalk and road running along nice sand beaches. It reminded me of a little Santa Cruz or a tiny Miami along the beach. I bought a slice of pizza like bread, Fococcia, which was absolutely delicious and a small cone of gelato. I also bought some t-shirts here. The last train was suppose to leave Monterosso about 7:30 PM and I had to be on that one or else I was spending the night there. The train ended up being a half hour late. While I was waiting I met a school teacher from Dallas Texas who was traveling Europe for the summer.
I boarded the train and made my connection to La Spezia just fine. At La Spezia I ran into the other people on the trip, Jason, Steve, Paul and Brad, etc and I soon realized I didn’t have a return ticket back to Lucca. At one point we all thought the ticket guy was going around, but then he told us to quick get off the train and get another train bound for Lucca. We really did have a hilarious time rushing around and dodging the authorities. I ended up riding the train back for free that night and getting back with everyone else on time. Now that was luck!
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| Cinque Terre | Riomaggiore | The Mediterranean | Manarola | Manarola |
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| The beach between
Manarola and
Corniglia I hiked and swam |
A beach between Corniglia and Vernazza | Looking back at Corniglia | Looking back at Corniglia close-up | Monterrosso |
June 19th Sunday
After hiking all over Cinque Terre the day before, I was very sore. I still had so much I wanted to see because I had not seen much of Lucca at all. I woke up fairly early and decided I would like to see the city. I wanted to find something to eat also. Upon passing through Piazza S. Giovanni and Piazza Settembre I saw that a number of merchants were setting up booths for an open air antique market. For hours that morning I enjoyed browsing fine antiques from Lucca. I was surprised by the quality of the antiques. Some booths had fine oil paintings that looked like they could be in museums. The price of one I liked in particular was 1500 euro. I was tempted, but then I thought, “What if this painting was hot?”, and “How would I it get through customs?” I don’t think I ate breakfast that morning only dried fruit. I went to see Saint Martins Cathedral. This 13th century cathedral has a statue of St. Martin on the outside with him dividing his cloak for a beggar. I was intrigued by St Martin’s because an outside pillar had a far older carved block as part of the façade of the church. This block had a carved Roman labyrinth on it and was part of a classical structure in Lucca. It is said that Julius Caesar met with Pompey and Crassus to divide up the Roman Empire here in Lucca. Lucca gets it name from a Latin word meaning marshy or swampy land. I continued to look at antiques and even picked up some souvenirs for family and friends.
Around noon I ran into Kirsten and Joan who were also looking through the antiques. I asked them if they would like to get a bite for lunch. Kirsten said that she was going back to the hotel to see if Doug had come back from his morning bike ride. Many of the tour participants were much more hard core bikers and preferred to go biking rather than see the sites. None was more hard core than Kirsten’s husband Doug, who bikes everyday in his native State of Oregon. Joan on the other hand said that she would join me for lunch and a tour of the city. Joan is a retired grade school teacher from Milwaukee. We had lunch at a café with outdoor seating. After lunch we went up the Torre dei Guinigi. This is a medieval tower over looking the red tile roofs of Lucca. The tower is big enough to have trees grow at the top. It’s a little tight moving around at the top because of a narrow walkway. It cost 4 euro to go up. We then went into San Frediano Cathedral. This church has a huge mosaic on the outside façade. Inside in one of the side-rooms is St. Zita from the thirteenth century, the patron saint of servants. She’s on display in a glass coffin. Zita’s saint story is told on the murals surrounding her tomb. During her life she was a young servant in the household of a rich family of Lucca. Zita often gave away all her food that to Lucca’s poor. After seeing San Frediano, we wandered around and came upon the Roman Amphitheatre. Although there is no above ground surviving parts of the Amphitheatre from Roman times, the houses build in the 1830’s still outline the original oval shape of the Amphitheatre, with a piazza in the middle. After seeing this, Joan and I went back to the Hotel Rex.
Once back at the hotel, Jason and Brad were going to run around on top of the walls of Lucca. Lucca has a wide bike and walking path that follows the top of the walls that surround the city. Many people are enjoying this path: children, couples, families with strollers, nuns, etc. Jason is a runner and wanted to run twice around the city; it’s 2 ˝ miles around the city. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity with them, even though I knew I was going on almost no strength. We started out just fine and the first lap was no problem, but the second one I started to really require some water. It was hot that day, in the 90s F, I’m sure. I stopped in a restaurant that was closing during the second lap to ask for water, but they turned me down. I don’t think I looked very savory. A little further down there was a fountain which I drank some water from. I ended up losing Jason and Brad, but I had to stop or I would be almost dead. That night I don’t think I had a formal dinner. The musical group “Blue” was playing in town and they had cordoned off the Piazza Napoleone with thousands of screaming teenage girls in the Piazza. I had never heard of Blue before, but apparently they are a British Boy Band that is very popular in Italy. There were a lot people out that night.
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| Antique Market of Lucca | This stuff sure beats the hell out of the wedgewood we find in local antique markets |
Inside St. Martins | Roman Labyrinth Sone | St. Martin dividing his cloak |
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| St. Martins Church | Looking out from the Torre dei Guinigi | St. Zita | Walls of Lucca | Walls of Lucca |
June 20th Monday
If I thought the last two days were grueling, the road to Volterra would kick my ass. I ended up biking around 115 K (72 miles this day), but it ended up being the most fulfilling day so far. I wanted to see Pisa and the sea one more time, but everyone else wanted to go the suggested route which took them inland. As a consequence I wouldn’t see anyone from the group all day or until I arrived at my destination in Volterra. I left Lucca on my own with my mask, snorkel, some dried fruit, and a power bar and headed to Pisa. It didn’t take long to arrive in Pisa. I headed straight for the Piazza dei Miracoli, the Piazza that has the leaning tower. Coming into the city I was struck that it wasn’t that clean of a city. Pisa is a university town and there were a lot of students going about their business. The old walls were still intact in a lot of places and there were ancient Roman ruins in a few places. The piazza is filled with tourists. I met a couple of people from the US and had one of them take my picture. She asked if I wanted to have a picture with me pretending to hold up the tower, and I told her “No, that was too cheesy”. Pisa used to be a Roman port city. Archaeologists had recently uncovered a Roman sailing vessel in Pisa. The ground is very sponge-like because it’s near the River Arno and it’s so close to the sea. This is why the tower leans because it was built on jello.
From the Piazza I biked on to the sea. It didn’t take too long to get to the sea. All along the coast there are beaches, some public, private, some rocky, sandy, all different types. I stopped twice to go swimming. I stopped once near Livorno and paid to go swimming at a place where they had showers, chairs, and diving boards in a sheltered inlet. Livorno was a neat place in some areas. Approaching the city from the north, it’s very industrial. The road turns from the sea to bypass a power plant and runs into the city. The harbor of Livorno has an ancient structure that looks like a fort or a castle in the middle of the water. I continued south of Livorno and ended up stopping near a rugged rocky beach with swimmers and sun bathers near a castle like building. That was the best swimming. Visibility was a good 20 feet and I saw many different varieties of fish. In all it was maybe a dozen varieties and some looked like the varieties I saw at Cinque Terre. The sandstone rock made cracks and caves where sea urchins hid from the crashing waves. I was careful where I stepped after I discovered this. Near the shore there was a huge cave opening. It was a 15 foot wide circular opening. I went in exploring and the cave went back 40 feet or so and narrowed to a very small opening where there was no light. The rocks were very slippery and it was damp so I stopped after the light ran out. At this same site I identified at least three square post-holes carved in the solid rock near the water. These must have been from an ancient structure in some bygone era.
Just south of the rocky beach was Castiglioncello, a town I stopped briefly in. Still south is the road that turns inland to Volterra, just before Cecina. By this time it was getting to be about 6:30 PM and I had to make the next 30K in an hour and half to be on time for dinner. The first 25K was just fine and I made really good time. It was the last 5K that was a killer. I could see the city for miles ahead. Volterra sits up on a good sized hill at an elevation of 1770 feet above where I started out at sea level. Getting close to the city was the hardest. The road had switch back after switch back. I finally made it up there to the walls, which in turn was again almost vertical hike. I had the bike on my back for a ways because I was not going to be late for dinner again. I got in about 8:20 PM and easily found the restaurant where we were eating that night. Kim had given me a great map of Volterra in Lucca, so it wasn’t a problem. Luckily Steve and Doug were just walking over to the restaurant as I pulled up and the group had not eaten yet. This wasn’t my favorite dinner, because they had liver pâté for the appetizers. They had split the group up in two hotels that night and I was at the one near the soccer stadium. It was a good hike down to the hotel and then back up to the city. I did that about 4 times that night, at least one time to get gelato. It was a good day!
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| The Leaning Tower of Pisa | The Base of the Leaning Tower |
The Baptistery | The Gothic figures adorning the tower |
Livorno Harbor |
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| Livorno | This is where I swam | The Cave | On the road up to Volterre | Volterra |
June 21th Tuesday
This is the day I wanted to see Volterra. The 30 foot walls are in great shape and have great walking paths through and near them. The roads are steep in places and inside the walls all the building and roads are made of reddish sandstone. The stone is a testament to the ancient geologic history of the area because it contains the fossil remains of Pliocene shells and scallops. Known occupation of Volterra goes back to the Etruscans at least 3 thousand years. It was actually a larger city during Etruscan times than at present. Now the streets are lined with unique gift shops. Volterra has been known for its alabaster carvings and items. Most of the shops contain at least some alabaster. I stopped by and went to the Museo Etrusco which has the largest collection of Etruscan funerary urns; many of them made in alabaster. The museo had a self guided tour where you could listen about the display you were currently viewing by punching the number of the display into a hand held device. They had a lot of beautiful artifacts from the Etruscan period and later Roman times. There are two world famous sculptures here at the Museo Etrusco. One is the “Urn of the Married Couple” and the other is “The Shadow of the Evening”. The Shadow of the Evening is this elongated human figure cast in Bronze. At first look it seems it would fit right into a modern art exhibit, but it is in fact a votive figure from the Etruscan period. In the outside court yard of the Museum there was a small wandering tortoise which was kept as a pet. Someone else mentioned that they were in a different courtyard on the trip and saw a tortoise in that courtyard. I took my time leaving Volterra and went into many gift shops and picked up a few souvenirs. I bought Rosalind a couple of figurines, including a troll and fairy figurine. The lady at the gift shop told me to keep the troll in the box the first night he was in his new home and then after he had spent his first night in the box to take him out and rub his hair. Then give him a name. From that point forward he would bring us good luck. When I brought him home later, we did this and Rosalind named him “Rumpelstiltskin”. I also bought alabaster for myself and some friends.
It got to be the late afternoon before I left Volterra. It wasn’t a great distance to go to the next town where we were staying at Colle Di Val’Elsa. It was only going to be about a 30K bike ride. After I left, I could have kicked myself, because I later found out that Volterra had a largely intact Roman amphitheater that I didn’t get to see. That would’ve been neat to see! On the road leading from Volterra to Colle Di Val’Elsa there were many wheat fields and vineyards. On the way out of Volterra I ran into Pete and Anne, a couple from Neenah, Wisconsin. I rode with them all the way to Colle. That night we had a group dinner in Colle Di Val’Elsa. “The boys” started flinging bottle caps at the dinner table. Kim was not happy about their behavior. It was a good dinner!
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| An Entrance to Volterra | Looking from the Top of Volterra | The Museo Etrusco | Urn of the married Couple | A Pet Tortoise |
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| A Street in Volterra | An ornate door at Volterra | A hay field outside of Volterra |
On the road to Colle | Hill in Colle Di Val'Elsa |
Jun 22nd Wednesday
Today, Pete, Anne, Joan and I headed to San Gimignano, the medieval tourist tower town of Tuscany. We tried an alternative way out of Colle that was not the steep way we came down into the City, which ran along the old upper part of the city. The alternative way was south of the city and then joined up with the main road west of the city coming from Volterra. It was a short ride to San Gimignano. As we approached the old town, tour bus, after tour bus filled with people passed us by. For the size of the town, it wasn’t that crowded. There were a lot of American and German tourists around but the main street wasn’t over run. One of the first places we toured was the Duomo. The inside of the Duomo was filled with medieval frescos of the life of Christ and the terrible beasts of hell. People were being eaten by demons in all graphic detail, etc. They didn’t allow any pictures be to taken inside the Duomo and they made us put a disposable towel around our waists since we had shorts on. We next toured the museum of Sacred Art, the old fortifications area, and the museum of torture. In the museum of torture, every terrible and imaginable device meant to inflict pain is housed or mentioned here. The descriptions of each device do not hold back in describing which limb or orifice the device was meant to dislocate or dismember. I will not go into details, but needless to say, every imaginable and unimaginable atrocity has been done to the human body by evidence of the devices in this museum. Later we bought a pizza for lunch and just hung out the entire day. What great sights! Joan started talking to some people from the states and it turns out that one guy was from Monona and his son worked at the restaurant Magnus in downtown Madison. His son works with a guy who ran for Dane county sheriff on the green party ticket. Joan is an active member of the green party so she knew him. This was quite a coincidence. After leaving San Gimignano we headed to Poggibonsi to find “The best gelato place in Tuscany”, according to a guide book Peter and Anne had which was back at the hotel. Since we didn’t have the name of the place or the street it was on, we didn’t find the place but the detour was not too far out of our way. That night, Bob, Kim, Pete, Anne, Joan, Steve, and I had a nice dinner up at a nice place in the old part of Colle Di Val’Elsa.
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| Outside the walls of San Gimignano | San Gimignano main square | San Gimignano | San Gimignano towers | San Gimignano |
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| Me, Pete, Anne and Joan | Anne, Me, and Joan having some lunch |
Pete, Anne, and me wearing our church skirts |
San Gimignano | Dinner in Colle Di Val’Elsa |
June 23rd Thursday
Today we would see Castelvecchio. It was billed as an “Etruscan archeological dig in progress” by our tour lead, Steve. Steve asked me to lead the group out of Colle Di Val’Elsa because Pete, Anne, and I had discovered an alternative route around the steep ride past the upper city. The route took us along the road leading back to Volterra and then on to San Gimignano. Most, if not all of the group was along on this trip. We regrouped just beyond the upper city and headed out from there. We didn’t know exactly where the dig was, but we knew the general area. After searching around for a bit, we found a dirt road that led to the dig. Most of the group ditched their bikes early on because they all had road bikes, but I had a hybrid. The group hiked but I biked back to the ruins. It was back a ways into the woods. As we went back farther we came across a country farm house. Here a German man had bought an Italian villa twenty years ago and fixed it up. The owner came out and talked with us. He knew English very well and Helmut, who’s one of the group members, talked in German to him for a while. One of the things he said was they had a lot of snow this last winter and he pointed to his steel roofed shed, which had collapsed because of the snow on the roof. We all gathered up some water before heading on our way. The outside spigot’s water smelled of sulfur but the inside water was good. I left my bike near the villa and we headed down the gravel road farther until we came to the ruins. The German landowner said that it was not Etruscan but it was a medieval village whose cropland had had blight in the 14th century. Because the village was in such a remote area, instead of dissembling the village and reassembling it elsewhere, the people abandoned it and left the village largely intact. We explored the ruined city for awhile. It had a mill with a millstone still there, a church, and a lookout tower. After leaving the ruins, which had the name of Castelvecchio, I jumped on my bike and raced ahead of everyone to San Gimignano which was only a few miles up the road. A few of them said they were also going there for a bite to eat and gelato. A while later, Anne, Pete, and Steve showed up. I stayed with them for some gelato and then headed back on my own to Colle. That night we had a nice dinner at the same place where we ate the first night in Colle Di Val’Else. That night we pondered buying a villa in Tuscany like so many other visitors. We thought of a name, “Bicivecchio”, or Old Bike. After looking at the postings of houses for sale and that you could purchase as a fixer-upper for 200-300 thousand €, we decided not to buy.
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| Biking to Castelvecchio |
Castelvecchio |
The Villa owner talking to the group |
Steve and me at the entrance to Castelvecchio |
Ancient Mill Stone |
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| Steps the lead no where | Exploring a Medieval town | Back to San Gimignano ... | For Some Gelato | Back to Colle for Dinner |
June 24th Friday
I could hear the sounds of the venders setting up their tents on the street below. Colle Di Val’Elsa was another lively city. My hotel room was within site of the main square in the lower city and there were two really great geloterias in the vicinity. I checked out the market before heading to Siena on this day. Pete and Anne wanted to check it out also, so I decided to ride with them. We left Colle around 9:30 AM. We decided to take a route that was a little different from the suggested, which was the fastest way to the next stop without taking a major highway. Our route would take us past an old hill top fortress of Monteriggioni. This fort was the northernmost outpost for Siena, on the border between Florence and Siena. It was meant to protect the Sieniese from the raids of Florence. The walls are in amazing condition. They are 30 feet high and are not broken down in any place. The road going up to the town was not that steep compared to Volterra and it was easy to go up. The town consists of a few restaurants, a gelateria, a couple of gift shops, and a nice wine shop, which sold the local wine. We met Kim, Bob and Jason there. Jason had injured himself the day before by playing soccer barefoot on pavement with the local kids in Colle. As a consequence he did not want to bike that day because he had a huge blister on the bottom of his foot. The three of them had come up to see the city in the van, which had all of our luggage in it. After having a bite to eat we headed back on the road to Siena. This was a fairly hard ride because it was hot and there were a lot of hills along the way. We did encounter a 16% grade at one point. The countryside was so beautiful.
Coming into Siena we happened to meet up with Doug, Steve, and Kirsten. The traffic was heavy because it was during rush hour. Once in the old part of the city we tried to find the road were the hotel was and we got a little lost temporarily. At one point, on a busy cobble stone street, a woman traffic guard yelled at us to get off our bikes, or so we think. The lady grabbed Anne’s bike. Anne and Pete were very much offended but we kept on biking. The traffic lady did not look very official. Going through the Porta Roma we finally found the hotel. This hotel looked out over the countryside and had the best view of any hotel that we had stayed in up to that point. The maids all wore formal maid’s uniforms. Around 6:00 PM I had to disturb Kim and Bob in their hotel room to pick up Kim’s digital camera card reader. I couldn’t believe I was out of memory on all my cards. I had taken 600 some photos already and I was only halfway done with the trip. So I took the card reader and all my cards down to a little internet shop with about 20 internet PCs in it. We were meeting at the Porta Roma (the main Southeast entrance to Siena) at 7:00 PM so I had to be quick. I bought a CD and dumped all my photos onto that CD and also onto the card reader. I then cleared my 3-128 MB cards. This took longer than I had thought and when I reached the Porta Roma, the group had already moved on. It was 7:05 PM. I ended up walking all round the city trying to find the group. I didn’t have Kim’s cell phone number, so I went back to the hotel and left Kim a note on her hotel room. Then I went back up to the city. I finally ran into some of my tour mates coming out of an entrance and into the Il campo. I found out where they were eating and went up to see if there was anything left since it was a long day and I hadn’t eaten anything since Monteriggioni. It’s hard most of the time when you’re on a trip like this to take the time to eat. It was a bummer when I missed this group dinner, it sounded like a great one. I ended up grabbing a slice of the worst pizza I ever had at a place near the Il Campo.
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| Upper part of Colle | Looking out over the lower part of Colle |
Inside the main Church of Colle | Vineyards on the route to Siena | Vineyards on the route to Siena |
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| The Fort town of Monteriggioni |
An Entrance to Monteriggioni |
The local Wine Stock | Kim, Jason, and I having some lunch at Monteriggioni |
Siena |
June 25th Saturday
My original plan was to go to Rome today but the group had planned a wine tasting event and a walking tour of Siena which I decided to do. I also wanted to have an “easy” day after biking 60k and running all around Siena the previous day. It would also give me time to scope out the train station and get my tickets for Rome. Siena was the farthest south we would go as a group in Italy and we would be here for 3 days. It would be logical to take a train trip south from here to Rome, which I really wanted to see. Our tour guide, who we met in the morning outside our hotel, was a native of Siena, but spoke very good English. We learned about the city of Siena and its long history and rivalry with Florence. The height of Sienese power came in the Middle Ages when they won a now famous battle against Florence. Years later the Black Death swept through the city which gave Florence the upper hand and they eventually took over. All the buildings remain intact from this time period because the city was frozen in time when everyone died off. Our tour guide took us to the Il Campo. We learned how Siena is divided up into historical neighborhood-like sections, the 17 contrade. We learned how each section has its own identity. The contrade are represented by the following: Tortoise, Wave, She-Wolf, Goose, Shell, Porcupine, Dragon, Owl, Snail, Panther, Eagle, Caterpillar, Unicorn, Ram, Giraffe, Forest and Tower. We learned about the Palio and each section of the city is represented in this famous horse race. The Palio is run around the Il Campo, the giant water collecting piazza shaped like a scallop shell. The Palio is run twice a year, once in July and another time in August.
Then our tour guide took us to the Sienese Duomo. The Duomo was meant to be the largest Duomo in history, but construction was halted after everyone in the city died off from plague. The wing that is complete is a huge church in itself. The church was packed with tourists and there were many lined up to buy tickets to get in. Luckily our tour guide bought tickets for the group and we were able to go in as a group right away. The church was splendid inside. It had carved marble floors and statue busts of church leaders lined up atop the massive main hall. The Duomo has one main relic which is the forearm of St. John the Baptist. It is placed inside a glass case and can be seen on the main center altar. After leaving the church we headed into the city for more sites north of the Duomo. We stopped at St. Dominic's Church where St. Catherine’s head is on display. Inside the church there is on display all the flags of the 17 contrade. After this tour I would later come to the realization that each major city idealizes a time in the past when it was at the height of its power. For Siena it is the Middle Ages; for Florence it’s the Renaissance; for Rome it’s the Roman period. After the tour, that evening, we split up into two groups and went to the wine tasting event at a wine store just north of the Porta Roma. The guy there was very knowledgeable about local wines and we tasted 4 or 5. I bought a bottle of the white I tasted from San Gimignano and one other Chianti which I did not taste there.
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| Meeting the Tour Guide outside the Hotel |
Il Campo | Porta Roma | Outside of the Duomo in Siena |
St. John the Baptist's arm |
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| Inside the Duomo | The Streets of Siena | Distance Shot of the Duomo | Waves put on a pre-Palio display |
A Statue looking out over Il Campo |
June 26th Sunday
My train left Siena at 8:17 AM. The day before I had scoped the train station in Siena and bought tickets. I had no problem getting there in the morning and was there on time. It was 32 euro round trip and I would be gone the whole day. The group was planning a potluck so I wasn’t missing anything in Siena. The countryside going down to Rome was somewhat arid. I would liken it to south-central California, golden fields with some trees. I meet a couple of college students from the US. One student was studying Etruscan history and they were traveling to Rome. The trip had a layover in Chiusi-Chianciano. I arrived in Rome at 11:13 AM. I bought a really good map of Rome and had a pretty good idea of the walking route I wanted to take. Once I arrived in Rome the first thing I saw of note was the Piazza Di Republica. This was a round-a-bout for cars with the center filled by a great fountain with statuary. Walking west from the Piazza Di Republica I ran into a raised park called the “Villa Aldobrandini”. This intrigued me because it was the first I had seen of ruins that looked ancient. On the top of the Villa there were statues from the Roman era in various stages of decay. There was a small fountain and plenty of citrus trees with ripe oranges.
From the Villa I walked to the Trevi fountain. The Trevi fountain was packed with tourists, I being one of them I had to throw a couple of coins into the fountain while standing with my back towards the fountain. Ok, I just did what everyone else was doing. This is supposed to insure that you will find your way back to the eternal city. At Trevi I met a grade school teacher from California, who took my picture near the fountain. From here I wandered to the Pantheon. I have to admit that this was by pure chance that I had come upon this monstrosity of a building. I looked on the map and thought, “Oh this building has to be important.” The Pantheon was rebuilt three times in Roman times and the last construction was done in 125 AD by Emperor Hadrian which is the building we see today. It was a temple dedicated to all the Gods and was the largest dome in the world when it was built and remained so for the next fourteen hundred years until the Duomo in Florence was built. In AD 609 the Byzantine emperor Phocas gave the building to Pope Boniface IV, who reconsecrated it as a Christian church. Inside the Pantheon there is an interesting 3 dimenstional concentric square pattern around the dome. There are also a few famous people buried inside the Pantheon, including the painter Raphael. From the Pantheon I walked past the “The Sacred Area of Largo Argentina”. This was a series of Sacred Roman Temples build in the Imperial period of Rome. Today the ruined columns host Rome’s stray feline population. My next destination was St. Peter’s square. I thought if I could get into the Vatican museum and the Sistine Chapel, that would be a bonus, but I was on a tight schedule so I could not spend a lot of time there. I walked to St. Peter’s Square crossing the Tiber River at Ponte Vittorio Emanuele. The square was a lot smaller for some reason than what I had imagined it and from what I’ve seen in pictures. There was a massive line forming to get into the Vatican. I decided that I wanted to go in so I waited about 20 minutes to get through the first check point on the square with metal detectors. The next line formed along the right side of the hall going up to the main steps. In this line, secret service guys were filtering the crowd for inappropriate dress; women with sleeveless tank tops, men with shorts, etc. I fell in the latter, so I was quickly filtered out. I really wanted to see the Chapel, so I tried pulling down my pants as far they could go without compromising my waist and tried going through the line again. Unfortunately they discovered me again and I had to leave the line.
Doing all that was at least an hour’s waste of time but it was also an adventure. I left the busy square and headed over to see the Saint Angelo Castle on the bank of the Tiber. I crossed the Tiber at the Ponte S. Angelo and walked back into the heart of Rome. After walking on a main thoroughfare I came to the Camiodoglio. I walked up the steps of the Campidoglio which in Roman times was the most important hill because it held the Roman senate. At the top Castor and Pollux, the Gemini twins, stand on either side of the stairs. In the center of the piazza is a bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, the Poet Emperor, upon a horse. Going past the piazza there are stairs that lead down into the Roman Forum. I walked throughout the forum and up onto the top of Palatine hill, which once held the temple of Jupiter, the palace of Caesar Augustus, and by tradition was the place where Romulus founded Rome. From Palatine Hill I walked the “Sacred Way” down to the Coliseum. Getting into the Coliseum wasn’t too bad. I paid 10 euro to get inside, but the tours were extra which I did not have time for. I walked around the top and bottom rings and tried to imagine what it was like to be a Roman citizen seeing the awesome spectacles held in the arena. I would have liked to see the Coliseum in all its glory, but only once then I would’ve been disgusted. Even though I had left the Coliseum in plenty amount of time I almost ran out of time getting back to the train terminal. At one point I turned south and had to go several blocks before I could get my bearings and find a landmark I could recognize on the map. After a readjustment of my course I ran into a procession of fifty or more white robed catholic priests. I was running out of time so I ran right between them to get to the other side of the street. I did make it in time to catch my 7:51 PM train. The train ride was uneventful and I made the connection back to Siena. I arrived back in Siena at 10:44 PM. At the Il Campo, I ran into Steve, Pete and Anne. They were getting some gelato and had said that their day was not that exciting.
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| Piazza Di Repubblica | Trevi Fountain | Sitting near Trevi Fountain | The Pantheon | The fountain outside the Pantheon |
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| The Sacred Area of Largo Argentina | Crossing the Tiber | The Vatican Guard | St. Peter's Square | Castel Sant’ Angelo |
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Castor and
Pollux helped to found Rome |
The Roman Forum | On top of Palatine Hill | The Coliseum | Inside the Coliseum |
June 27th Monday
After packing up in Siena I waited for Pete and Anne to get ready because I wanted to bike with them on this day. I think we left Siena later than I wanted but we did not have any problem finding a way out of the city. It was a nice bike ride out into the country side. We went by a couple of nice small towns, including Rada in Chianti. Rada had a couple of nice shops and an old main street. The church had a life like statue of a bloody Christ on an alter that looked like a real person laying there. That was especially creepy in the dark of the empty church. In Rada we also met a group of five college students on a ride across Chianti. They looked poorly equipped for the trip and were carrying full loads with sleeping bags, tents, and other camping equipment. It was at the top of a hill, near Panzano in Chianti that I stopped to rest sitting on the side of my bike, when the bike slipped from under me and three of the teeth of the front chain ring punctured deep into my right ankle. I was ok over all. I just had a slight hobble the next few days. Coasting down from Panzano into Greve it was a quick ride. This is some truly beautiful countryside in Chianti. We made it to the Hotel in Greve with more than enough time. They had a wonderful swimming pool at the hotel where we were staying. The only one I encountered on the trip. Oh that was so nice to jump in after the last few days biking in the heat. That night we had a nice dinner at the hotel. We stayed at the Albergo del Chianti, I would definitely recommend the place.
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| Inside the Rada in Chianti Church | Rada in Chianti | Inside the Rada in Chianti Church | Rada in Chianti | Rada in Chianti fountain |
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| The Chianti Countryside | The Chianti Countryside | The Chianti Countryside |
June 28th Tuesday
Being in the Chianti region of Tuscany, the most logical thing to do is go on a winery tour. So we asked the hotel owner which would be the best winery to go to and he immediately suggested Castello Di Verrazzano. This winery was located only about 9 km up the road towards Florence. It had part of an existing castle tower on the estate and sounded like it was really a nice place. The tour started at 11:00 A.M. so we headed out on bikes. First it was Pete, Anne, Joan and I, but Kim and Bob also joined us. The first part of the ride was just fine going out of Greve. It was a main road but then we took a left onto a smaller road that wound up into the hills where the winery was located. It was so picturesque. We arrived and waited in a reception area. The reception area was outside but was covered with an arbor filled with grapevines. Our tour guide was an English lady who was very precise and articulate in all her manners and speech. The grounds were very well tended, with ancient fountains and rich grass lawns, which are a rarity in Italy. Castello Di Verrazzano was once an Etruscan settlement, then a Roman villa before becoming the property of the Verrazzano family in the 7th century. Giovanni da Verrazzano, who “discovered” the bay of New York and the main part of the east coast of America, was born here in 1485. During his voyages to the new world, Verrazzano made a later voyage, perhaps in 1527, to the West Indies and the coast of South America. He was killed in a confrontation with Native Americans in the Lesser Antilles and the story goes that he was eaten by the natives. The tour guide joked that Verrazzano must have tasted pretty good because he was one of the few explorers who had good wine on board his ship. There is a great tradition of winemaking at Castello Di Verrazzano. The "vineyards situated in Verrazzano" are mentioned in a manuscript which dates back to 1170 and is preserved at the abbey of Passignano. Its original tower is still visible. The grounds include a large pen for “wild boar” that they use to make Prosciutto and bees to make the local honey. The tour guide led us down into the wine cellars where huge oak barrows age the wine in a process that sometimes takes years. They make several different Chianti wines, plus some other varieties. Their Chianti Classico reserve is aged twice as long as their regular Chianti which is about 16 months. They also make a vin santo which is a dessert wine and grappa which is the leftover hard liquor from the wine making process. After the tour we sat down to taste their wines. We tasted 5 different varieties and our tour guide explained the proper way to taste wine. We then had a fabulous 3 course dinner in the afternoon. I think they kind of expected the tourists to buy wine, because for only 30 euro, the meal and wine tasting was far over and above anything I’ve had when going out to eat. I bought two wines, the “supertuscan” and a bottle of their vino santo. We were feeling pretty good after that tour. We wondered if we should risk it and bike down the hill. We made it back in excellent spirits. After enjoying the pool once again at the hotel we all had a potluck at Jane and Joanne’s hotel room, which had a kitchen and air conditioning. At the party we gave the tour leads a couple of gifts for organizing a great trip so far. They had also announced that David, who is a lawyer for the Public Service Commission PSC, won a case at the state supreme court allowing WE energies to build the Oak Creek power plant. The ruling stated that it was in the best interest of the public to have that plant built despite opposition.
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| Waiting for the tour to start |
The grapes above our heads | The Tour Guide | Castello di Verrazzano | On the next hill, the rival winery of Castello di Verrazzano sits |
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| Oak Aging Barrels | Wine Tasting | After the Wine Tasting | The hotel bar area | The Pool outside |
June 29th Wednesday
The group stored their bikes overnight in a car garage down the street from the hotel. Some of the bikes had to go into the mechanic’s office. I heard from one of the other group members that the mechanic was not happy that the bikes were in his way. We left early that morning. We had to have our baggage down in the lobby by 8:30 or so. I would strike out on my own today because no one wanted to see Florence on this day. Either some of the other people were going to see Florence after the bike tour was done or they had already seen Florence. It was a straight shot up to Florence from Greve. It was a main road with moderate traffic. Getting into Florence was not a problem. I knew what I wanted to see in Florence, only the most famous sites, David, the Duomo, the Uffizi, and the Ponte Vecchio. I arrive in Florence and ended up in a large Piazza. I thought this had to be on the map. It was only after much deliberation that I had discovered that I was in the Piazza della Signoria. So I went north and arrived in line to the Galleria dell’ Accademia to see David at 9:45 AM, pretty good since I left Greve at 8:30 AM. This building is ill equipped to handle the crowds of people wanting to get in. The line wrapped around the building and was about a city block in length at this time. The wait ended up being about a hour. The cost was 6 euro to get in. A minor museum, the Accademia has David as its main attraction. There were other statues by Michelangelo and some other paintings. It also has another part with modern art and sculptures in it. I was told to put away my camera, since no pictures are allowed inside. I then left the Accademia and headed to the Duomo, only a few blocks away. I then stood in a line to go up to the top. This was a much shorter line and I only waited 20 minutes or so. It cost 4 euro to go up to the top of the Duomo. This climb included 485 stairs through narrow 3 foot wide passageways up to the top. A few of the people were huffing and puffing. I passed them with ease. The stairs, half way up, led out to the walkway around the inside of the dome. The inside is painted with frescos of heaven and hell. Devils are torturing and eating people, the usual kind of stuff. The top had the best view of Florence, a 360 degree panoramic view of the city. This was one of the highlights of the trip.
After the Duomo, I went to the Uffizi. This was once the Medici business offices during the 16th century, but it was converted into the families’ royal museum for Renaissance art soon after. This was another long line, I waited an hour. The cost to see the Uffizi was 8 euro. The works contained in the Uffizi are known the world over. Works by Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio are in display rooms joined by several large hallways filled with busts and statues. These artists really made western civilization rethink the idea of what was possible and acceptable in art. The largest crowd was around Botticelli’s, Birth of Venus. Fifty or so people crowded around this one painting. Pictures are of course not permitted, but a woman in the back lifted her camera above her head and let out a bright flash. Everyone turned around and two of the tour guides in the crowd scolded her at once. From the Uffizi, I walked to the Ponte Vecchio. This old bridge is lined with goldsmith on both sides. I didn’t eat or buy anything in Florence, but like in Rome I decided instead to maximize the number of things I could see. I left Florence at 6:00 – 6:30 PM which gave me about 1 ˝ hours to get to Empoli, which was 30K away. The group dinner was at 8:00 PM in Empoli. I could have made it if it wasn’t so difficult to get out of Florence by bike. The autostrad barred me a couple of times. I took the slightly longer way up into the hills, southwest of the city. I think I arrived in Empoli at 8:15 PM and called Kim on her cell phone, because I did not know where they were. She explained where they were but it took Steve to come out and look for me. I biked around the old city and finally met up with him. The group had a hardy applause for me. Luckily for me, the Italian meal is often drawn out and takes several hours so I was able to partake in the meal this time around. After the meal, Jason and I went out to a bar for a couple of hours, a bar they called an “American Bar” but looked nothing like an American bar in any respect. It had but a few patrons and the only thing that made it American/English was the fact that they were playing a Pink Floyd reunion concert on TV. As in Pistoia and so many other Italian cities, most of the young people hang out in the main piazza square.
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| Sculpture in Florence | David | The Ceiling of the Duomo | Looking out over Florence | Looking out over Florence |
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| Looking out over Florence | Walking to the Duomo | The Duomo | Waiting in line to get into the Uffizi |
Piazza della Signoria |
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| Inside the Uffizi | Ponte Vecchio | Extinction of the centaurs | The Brass doorway of the Duomo Baptistery |
Look out from the Ponte Vecchio |
June 30th Thursday
I did not get to see much of Empoli, except going out with Jason the previous night. We left the hotel fairly early as a group to go to Vinci, Leonardo’s home town. It’s only a short distance north from Empoli. After getting there it turned out that the museum does not open until 10:00 AM, so we waited around for it to open. The museum was rather nice and a tribute to the genius of Leonardo da Vinci. They had models and manuscripts and sketches of all the things Leonardo worked on. After going through the museum we found out that there is another museum dedicated to Leonardo just above the one we just went though. I decided not to see this one, but Steve later said that this was his favorite part of the trip. Inside this museum there was a real life scale model of a wooden bicycle that Leonardo designed. After the museum, on my own, I took the leisurely ride from Vinci up into the hills north of the city. It was a nice quiet ride and I took my time. At the top of the hill came, Steve, Doug, Jason, Pete, and Brad racing past me going back down to Vinci. I don’t know how they could have been ahead of me since I left them back at Vinci. On the other side of the hill is a steep decent down into the Arno River valley and Pistoia. That night we had a nice final dinner at a Pizzeria place. Pistoia puts on an Opera Festival in the main square of Pistoia, and this night it was Puccini. There were many in our group who bought tickets but I did not. I figure I’d get a good night’s sleep, since we had to be up at 4:00 AM. I stayed in the same room I stayed in the first night of the trip at the Hotel Leon Bianca.
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| Leonardo's portable bridge | Inside the Museum of Ideas | North of Vinci | Pink Flowers | White Flowers |
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| On the road with bike | Bike on road | A Country Villa | Pistoia's night life | After the last dinner in Pistoia |
July 1st Friday
We boarded a bus very early in the morning. I had packed the night before, so I was basically ready to go. One of the college guys was late getting up so we were a little late leaving Pistoia and going back to Florence. From Florence we flew to Milan and from Milan back to Chicago. There were three middle seats on the big plane back to the states and I had one along with Paul and his son Peter. We also had the luxury of a wide enough space between our seats and next row of seats so that we could really stretch out our legs. Don from the group had injured his back at Greve in Chianti, so Paul and Peter were nice enough to trade seats with Don and his wife Mary so that they could have more room. The plane flight took about 10-12 hours instead of the 8 ˝ it took to get to Italy riding the Gulf Stream. At the Chicago airport they had a fruit sniffing dog that was getting people to hand over their apples and oranges from their carry-on backpacks. Luckily they did not come near me because I had both an apple and an orange and some other biological specimens, including a Cyprus and a Cedar pine cone. I know customs would have taken these away. I was also nervous because I didn’t declare my 4 bottles of wine that I had bought in Tuscany. They were in my bike box. A group of us waited for our bike boxes for more than an hour but then we found out they were left in Florence. It was in the afternoon around 3:00 PM when Jean and Rosalind picked me up. I was really happy to see them and glad to be home again.
I was worn out and jetlagged for the next three days. I slept a lot in those three days to catch up for the time difference. I ended up getting my bike delivered to my house a week later after I came back. Everything was untouched in my bike box. I ended up not getting my bike fully assembled until another 2 months after that because I had to order a new handle bar stem from willy st. bike works and that took forever to come. We had a picture and potluck reunion at Dave and Jane’s house in September and I was able to show all of my 1200 pictures! Jean and I are going to the opera at the Overture center in November. We’re seeing “Tosca” the Opera by Giacomo Puccini who was born in Lucca in 1858. I was so inspired by the transportation in Italy I have decided to get a moped in the spring of 2006. They get 70 or more MPG and are a blast to ride. Mopeds are great for urban transportation.
Italian mosquitoes – I saw maybe half a dozen mosquitoes on the whole trip. They’re very rare, but this year they’re very rare in Wisconsin also. This is because we’ve had such a dry spell this summer. I do believe Italian mosquitoes are much more adapted to humans than North American mosquitoes. The ones I encountered flew in random patterns and would not stay long enough to bite. I think they’ve evolved to be much more flighty in this arid land (low mosquito to human ratio). The fact that humans have been around so many tens of thousands of years longer than in North America makes this a stronger argument. Also, there are far fewer large mammals to prey upon besides humans for the insect, so they’ve had to adapt to the human swat.
Religion – Religion isn’t so much in your face as it is in America. You don’t see the little “christian fish” on people’s cars and you don’t see the “god bless America signs”, which is a relief in itself, since it is Italy. There are no Protestant churches over there, they’re all Catholic. Imagine that! The churches are so elegantly integrated into the historical culture that you hardly notice them with the normal architecture of towns. This is with one exception: the Duomo in every town, which sticks out above the skyline. These building are so beautiful that you are attracted to them and they represent the heart of the town. I think religion is more of a personal matter in modern Italy.
Transportation – The American fad of large trucks, SUVs and multiple vehicles per driver does not exist in Italy. Cars do not clog the streets. There is a much greater percentage of people who use bicycles and scooters as their primary means of transportation. Drivers are much more careful and tolerant of bikers, because everyone has a bike.
Food and eating – Italian meals take hours at times with the three formal courses. Butter and milk are uncommon in Italy. These food items are around but not in the quantities they’re here in Wisconsin. Ice and ice cubes are non-existent. They serve water at every meal. Water in Italy comes in two types, naturale and sparkling, (gas and no gas). You must specify when served. The dinners are fantastic three course meals. The first course is the antipasti, (the appetizers). This includes Italian bread with a tomato or some other spread, prosciutto, and maybe a pecorino cheese. The secondo, (second course) is usually a pasta dish. The third or main course is usually a fish or red meat dish. There is not any hugely over-weight or grossly obese people in Italy, at least, that I could see, and I looked for that. Maybe they just weren’t walking around when I was there. That olive oil and lack of corn syrup in their diets must really work wonders. Pasta and bread are what Italians live on.
Drinking and smoking – Italians do not drink like Americans do. In Lucca and Pistoia there were hundreds of young people, twenty some-things, flooding the streets, but only a few of them had open drinks. The bars are empty in Italy and contain only a few patrons. What they lack in the arena of public drunkenness they more than make up for it in their love of the tobacco leaf. I would say about 50 percent of the population smokes, where as only about 25 percent smoke in the States.
Society – Coming back I had the feeling that Americans are much more precise and focused on their work. This was a comforting feeling that everything was under control. Americans are more driven by the clock and the bottom line. They do everything at a much faster pace. Italians on the other hand focus on “La Dolce Vita”. Their shops close from 1-4 PM on weekdays. Gelato shops are open until midnight or later for the Passeggiare (Italian stroll). In Italy there are more people showing their affection in public. I also saw the very old and the young together shopping and helping each other.