Siena-San Gimignano

Here's R at the top of a six-mile climb near Celsa today. We took a
roundabout route from Siena to San Gimignano, avoiding the main roads
and discovering many hills, shaded lanes, and beautiful farmhouses in
the process. There were some excellent descents (we broke the speed
limit a couple of times) ranging from 12 to 14%... Thankfully the
roads had dried off from yesterday's downpour.

Just before the much anticipated three-mile climb into San G, we came
across a birreria... which made us very happy. A couple of leffe
rouges, a shared bowl of ribollita and due espressi later & we powered
up a hill that would have killed at least half of us less than a week
ago.

Bagno Vignoni

Wet Agate at the town-centre-that-is-a-spring.

For Nick

Poppies

These poppies are everywhere, but these particular ones were on the
white (gravel) road from Montepulciano to Montalcino.

Rolling Tuscan hills

Night falls in Montalcino

Nicky really knows how to choose accommodations!

The view from our veranda in Montepulciano.

Bici waiting for a train in Rome

montalcino-siena

We're in Siena now, after a day spent climbing and coasting in the pouring rain. The route we took was absolutely beautiful, all little back roads and cypress trees and big, tuscan fields. Oh, and the 15% gradient hill that hit us. Granny gears! Nicky even got off her bike for a smidge. Just a smidge... she's sorry, Dolores, but she was in the pain cave.

We thought we'd try and have lunch on the cheap, and so bought lots of bread and arugula and tomatoes and cheese (leftover from our "on the cheap" dinner of bread, cheese... aged pecorino(mmm)... and a bottle of rosso di montalcino last night) but the torrential downpour that chose to rain on us had other ideas. It soaked our bread. It SOGGED our bread. We were sad, but secretly delighted as it gave us an excuse to run into a hyrbid cafe / game room / old man hangout and get (a) warm and (b) "pizza". Or the semblance thereof.

And so now we're in Siena, and we could eat horses if we ate such things (luckily for the horses, the Palio is not on today). We're staying in a youth hostel waaaay out of town and the busses stop running... wait, no, the busses stopped running already. So it's pici e taxi for us this evening.

Hungry. We're off...

xxx N&R

Montpulciano - Montalcino (the long way...)

When we sat down to plan this trip, we thought it would be best to stick to the smaller roads. Less traffic. Less trafficked. Great. Today we found out what the repercussions of following the "white roads" on the map can be. That would be: bad. You see, on the map of Tuscany we use as our base, the smaller roads are white, the medium roiads are yellow, and then there is a whole different logic for the big ones. White roads are gravel and do away with the notion of switchbacks and other leg (or engine) saving technologies in favor of an older, less sophisticated diagram: straight up. It was with great regret that we both found ourselves in our lowest gears (the granny gear...) as we plodded away at the beast leading up to Montechiello.

Oh. Did I mention it was raining?
It was raining.
And windy.
Really windy.

There is an old song called Cold Rain and Snow which was caught in Rich's head pretty much all day. And that pretty much defined today. Well. Almost (no snow...but wind)

(oh...and lots of hills)

The landscape is beautiful, of course, yadda yadda. We came upon a town which has as its piazza a thermal spring. It was really cute.



The climb into Montalcino was NOT fun. Until it was over. We are quite proud of our 5807 ft of climbing today, though we know that there will be 20,000 more before we leave Italy.

Oy.

Food Report

Nothing new on the gelato front, sadly, but we have had some fantastic meals. In Montepulciano, we visited El Borgo Buio, which is a locally-sourced, organic, blah di blah, slow food establishment. And it was really, really good. Let us make your mouths water: pici with porcini mushrooms, gnocchi with radicchio and walnut pesto, grilled vegetables preserved in olive oil and served warm with ricotta and whole red peppercorns... We were there for hours, since the owner, an affable chap by the name of Pier Luigi, kept waffling away to us about life, the universe, and bicycling. And so we had some grappa, and some coffee, and the evening was altogether splendid.

Also on the food front, our friend Renee made us an amazing sampler of camping/energy foods to bring with us... today's pistachio nougat - which was even better than it sounds - saved Nicky at the top of yet another hill. We were both big fans of the cheese and rosemary biscuits with dried apple, and they travelled all this way with us in perfect condition. Hurrah for chef friends and life saving food!

PS You think about strange things as you climb hills. Yesterday, Rich sang a song to Nicky's teeth (in French, which seems to have become his first language since we got to Italy) as he scaled a col. Today Nicky found herself punning, which to those of you that know her, must seem rather odd. Her goal for the trip? Keeping the bonkasaurus at bay...

Oh, and the pizza's really good in Rome.

Chiusi - Montepulciano

We have photos, so many photos. We promise to upload them as soon as someone unlocks their wireless connection... maybe Friday in Siena?

So, the riding. We got to Chiusi and it was something like 31 degrees C (which is about 354 farenheit, in Nisa calculations)and, well, we hadn't a clue how to get out of town. Problem with Google Maps is that it likes to name all the streets. Problem with Italy is that it doesn't. Anyway, some mediocre Italian later we had witnessed a man make a 'bumpy bumpy' gesture with his hand and look at us like we were bonkers, and we were on our way to Sarteano. Sorry, on our way UP.

It's hilly round these parts. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Day One was only 20 miles, as we didn't actually start riding til four in the afternoon, but we climbed 3230 ft just.like.that.

You come to resent the downhills round here, too. They're too twisty-curvy to be all-out fun fests, and all you can think about on the way down is the fact that all the towns here are up, up, up. We both considered telling Tuscany that we'd be happier with simpler flats, but decided not to. Watching each other suffer is one of the joys of marriage, right?

Oh, and it's beautiful. Bright scarlet poppies everywhere, green and yellow fields, those crazy Tuscan trees... and the farmhouses! It feels so cliched to say it, but we probably wouldn't object to retiring here.

Having Left Rome...

We were stuck in an un-air conditioned bike room of the outbound train (2.5 hours after we planned to leave) with a crazy Canad. He was the campaign manager for the Green Party there. He was in week five of a seven week ride through God Knows Where on his own - and he was still running things for The Party back home (and checking his oil stocks???) after his daily ride. He liked to tell us things. We listened politely, happy to be on our way to the first bike miles of the trip.

Or so we thought.

N*R

Leaving Roma

Dear Roma,

We do not understand your one-way street system. Please explain. It makes it a little bit hard to cycle through your streets carrying 40lbs of extra weight and get to the station to catch a train on time.

And then you charged Nicky 70 cents to pee!

And where on earth did that uomo come from? The one with the sleeveless shirt and hairy shoulders? Was he one of yours, Roma dear? He wanted Nicky to come away with him, or if she couldn't do that, at least to watch youtube videos of him on the Web...

Stick to the gatti, Roma. You know what you're doing there.

Love,

Nicky & Rich

My bike

Bici est Ici!!

For those concerned: my bike was waiting for me in our room when we got home from lunch today. It was smoking a cigarette and demanding to know what all the fuss was about.

"Nice was beautiful."
"Oh? I've never been."
"Shame."

We leave tomorrow early in the morning by train to Chiusi. From there we ride through the countryside to Montepulciano. Rumor has it there's wine in them there hills... Hopefully all the dings and loose bolts will shake free during the first few miles and we'll be cruising.


R

I gatti della area sacra argentina

350 cats live in this shelter, which must be the most fabulous I've
ever seen. It's a sacred area of Roman ruins, right in the middle of
the city. The cats are all vaccinated & spayed / neutered, and they
get to hang out amidst the ruins and the trees, in sun or in shade,
day and night. Of course we've visited twice already, and may well
return a third time...

N

Nicky and I: Bicker-fest caught in Vatican mosaic

counter blog

So we are sitting at adjacent computers somewhere in Rome, doing some kind of competitive blogging to this site. We don't have much to report in terms of biking (see Rich's entry for more on that) but as we're not due to leave for Chiuso and the hilltowns until Wednesday, we're stopping short of freaking out entirely just yet.

 

Will try to find a way to post pictures later. This computer won't let me upload the ones from my camera, and we can't access any of the wi-fi spots to post the ones from our phones, but we'll keep trying. Someone in Rome must have unlocked wi-fi!

 

This is my first trip to Rome, and I can't get over what a palimpsest it is. Scratch away at something and there's always something else underneath. I know that's true of most cities, but it seems especially true here, where centuries are like wallpaper on these old walls.

 

We've been mainly wandering around, in typical Agate-Nisa fashion (hi, senior!), and trying to work on our Italian, which is sub-par, even for beginners. Indeed, our first date was to see a film called Italian for Beginners... coincidence? Non lo so. We also did some major touristy things today, like visit San Pietro and the Sistine Chapel. Every so often, I remember something my Latin teacher told me about Rome and I get all excited, partly because it feels really wonderful to have those twenty-year old memories come to life, and partly because my old Latin teacher used to drink beer and smoke in class, and teach in a supine position with his feet on the desk. And that's just a good memory to have.

 

We're off to sample some Prosecco in a park close to our guesthouse. It's in the Trastrevere, which we both love already. Lots of random cats sitting in windows three stories up, golden retrievers wandering around on the loose, bambini screaming, old couples strolling arm in arm... good stuff. And gelato! So far we've sampled some straciatella (both of our favourite), pistachio, and a ridiculous dark chocolate thing that was very good. May go back for more of that tonight... which means we need to get on our bikes and burning calories pronto!

 

 

 

 

N

vino velo...dov'è la mia bici?

My bike took its own holiday to Nice (insert Nisa/Nice pun here). As of this writing, I am still bike-less. Thus far, no worries, as we are here in Rome until Wednesday. But I do hope it arrives soon. The woman who runs our pencione informed me that the airport can take anywhere up to 5 days...so tomorrow if it hasn't arrived, I'll start to worry. The funny thing is, when we were waiting for our flight from Dublin to Rome, we met people at our gate who were going to Nice to start their own tour from Nice through the Alps to Geneva. After they left, I thought: Boy I hope our bikes don't end up in France. Jinx. Nicky's showed up all purdy. Mine went on holiday. So when I was at the airport service counter telling them that one of the main items involved in my trip was not anywhere to be found I said, I bet it's in Nice. When she ran my baggage claim ticket through the computer she looked up at me like I was clairvoyant.

R

At the airport

Getting the bikes through security = beer remedy

We leave in 20 minutes

We're packed and waiting for the car to the airport.
Very excited!!!


R