Hello Italy. More boats and winter riding

Dear friends and family,

Yup, I’m in Italy. The plan was to get across the Italian Alps with an easier method than riding a loaded bike across. There’s the plan and there’s the reality.

Day one I took the hotel shuttle van with Liz to carry her bagged bike to the check-in desk at the airport. A big van and curb drop off service went well so I was feeling comfortable with my planned next day shuttle ride with my bike to the bus station.

Since I had a 10:05 departure and the airport was only about ten minutes away I reserved the van shuttle for 0900, giving me spare time to find my bus.

At 0900 there was no shuttle showing so I asked at the front desk to be informed that the van had broken down overnight and now they only had the tiny car of the van driver to shuttle people to the airport. Soon the car showed up with a passenger from another hotel. The driver looked at my bike in bag and mentioned that there was no way that the other passenger, driver, me and the bag would all fit in the car, so he would first drive the other passenger to the airport and then return to see if my bike in bag would fit into his tiny car. 

I asked whether there would be adaquate time and he gave me the shrug, that I think can only be done properly by the French : “It’s in God’s hands now and you have to believe”, kind of shrug.

Off he went and I was left to worry. Would he get back in time and would the bike fit were my worries. Sure enough, he returned at about 0930 and opened the back seat and we maneuvered the bike to just fit, if I pressed in on the bike fenders while I slammed the door. 

It really was only ten minutes, so I made it easily, even found the correct bus pullout with my bus number and time posted electronically. Except that 1005 came and went and then the posting went away from the sign and the four of us passengers waiting started to share a group worry that we somehow missed it and then our the bus pulled in.

The young driver made a face upon seeing my bike in bag, checked his phone and showed me that his app showed no large luggage and I would have to stay off the bus. I dug out (do you dig out an older email?) my confirmation of payment for oversized luggage and then he reluctantly let me and the bus on. 

I paid extra for the view seat of the first row so I could enjoy the view of the French, Italian, and Monaco Rivieras on my way to Venice. What I didn’t enjoy as much was the driver texting on his phone as he weaved his way around the mountains and through the endlesss tunnels of the Alps. When he was texting and would stray out of lane or too close to car in front, the bus alarm  would beep and he would look up and correct. It felt like he was imagining himself driving the Monaco Grand Prix and multitasking with his texts. 

I buckled my seat belt tight and tried to enjoy the scenery. At the first stop a young man with a backpack and climbing shoes came aboard and sat next to me. When I asked if he spoke English, he mentioned he did, as well as Spanish, French and some Italian. We talked briefly about climbing and I told him stories of the “old days” of climbing in Europe before he or maybe even his parents, were born.

I asked him where he was from and he said “originally, Colombia, in a city called Bucaramanga”.

I casually told him that I liked Buca a lot and visited just last year. I think that blew him away as he hardly expected that this Gringo would have visited not just Colombia, but his city. He had bike packed some of the same areas around Bucaramanga that I did and we shared memories of our favorite  little towns near there.

Diego was his name and he was a mechanical engineer presently based in Belgium, but had lived in Portugal, Spain and France so far at age 31. It made for a fast ride with lots of enjoyable discussion of  quality of life issues and the choices we make to work towards that.

It didn’t seem that long a bus ride, but once Diego got off at the halfway mark I had another six hours to go, now in the dark. The ride was long enough that one of the drivers (they tag teamed the 12 hour drive) had enough time to grow a slight beard. 

The bike seemed really heavy in its bag on the walk to my hostel from the bus/train station. Only about a half mile walk, but after the 12 hour bus ride, while fearing for my life, I was exhausted. 

The hostel here is super modern, part of a chain of big hostels throughout Europe. I appear to be the oldest customer, but the youngster energy is fun. The first day I met a guy from China touring alone and the next day sat with three Argentinians and got to practice Spanish again, as they spoke little English. No, I am not doing the group dorm room for fifteen dollars , but a private room for sixty five. 

Venice is the biggest tourist place I’ve visited so far. They get twenty million tourists here per year and even though it is way off season, it is still crowded. I cannot imagine it in the summer!

What fascinated me, of course,  was the boat life. Note the attached picture of the boat delivering packages, including Amazon Prime.

I watched the gondoliers propelling their boats with the remo ( oar) sitting in a forcolo, which is the ” oar lock “, which is always on starboard side. By twisting the oar, they can propel the boat forward, aft and sideways, including braking. 

Equal rights for genders seem to be on their way in this trade as it took only 900 years to allow the first woman gondolier so far out of the 426 licensed in the city. I won’t guess as to how long it will take for the second.  

I’m again surprised at the quantity of food I see consumed by people in restaurants. Yesterday I sat next to a few people at lunch. They started with an appetizer, then each had a whole pizza before they got their main course of meat and potatoes ( can they be called “French fries” here?), followed by a fairly big dessert. Beers during the middle of the meal and a cappuccino with dessert. I can eat about half of that at a meal and I’m not a small person, plus I’m exerting some calorie burn. They only have 12% obesity rate here, so go figure.

I read in France that the obesity was so low as people walked a lot and used stairs instead of elevators. Our experience was that they walked a lot and rapidly. Liz called it RPM walking and we were able to keep up only if we focused and nearly ran. When someone at a hotel said they would for instance meet us upstairs or in the basement they showed us ( the tourist customers) the elevator and then ran up or down the stairs and met us there, so I guess that it really is true, that culture of stair climbing.

So far, my restaurant meals have been cheap and excellent. Spaghetti and pizza are most popular, but also lots of fish and shellfish. It’s for sure a coffee culture as shops are everywhere. There’s a Starbucks right on the main square, St Marks, and seems unnecessary, but I suppose some people want the familiar wherever they go. 

I stayed an extra day here to allow a weather front with big winds and rain to pass. It’s cold enough here that the bridges across the canals had to be rock salted to melt the early morning ice. Cool, I get to use my new gloves and mittens.

I’m looking forward to getting on the bike for more riding, this time in the Italian countryside. Because of crowded hotels for the Christmas holidays I’ve booked myself out for the next ten days. Now all I have to do is make those distances to my lodgings.

On Saturday I packed my bags and felt rested and eager to go. City riding isn’t my favorite part so I felt braced and ready to get to the country roads.

In the elevator down from my room I met an Italian woman ( who spoke English) touring her own country. She correctly assumed I was bike touring and asked where I was headed. 

I told her “Three days of riding to Trieste”, which seemed to stop her cold.

She paused, rolled her eyes to the heavens ( actually it was the ceiling of the elevator) and then looked me right in the eyes and said “I hope God watches out for you today”.

My enthusiasm drained quickly with the assumption that she knew something I didn’t, but off I rode.

It turned out that leaving the city was quite easy with the chance to ride bike paths all the way out of town. Just as I was thinking she was exaggerating her prayers for me, the route turned to a two lane highway with the only shoulder being the white line, nothing else. Now I was left hoping that whoever she was looking up towards had heard her and would indeed watch over me.

It must have worked since I managed to arrive safely, but an hour early for my check-in time. “No problem, I’ll just get lunch and be back right on time” I thought to myself.

Google maps showed only one restaurant in the whole town open and off I rode. It looked like a house with no sign, but a lot of cars parked outside, so I approached. I locked the bike and pushed the door open to hear quite a loud roar of humans in vigorous discussion. The entry was a small bar with no one around, even when I loudly said “Bonjourno”, using up my full repertoire of the language.

Since no one showed up, I gingerly pushed open one of the doors to the dining room and saw it was in the middle of some kind of banquet going on, with long tables of red and white tablecloths, stacked with big bowls of spaghetti, chicken, roast beef, clams and mussels, holding twenty persons each filling the room. What struck me was the volume combined with about 100 people talking vigorously with their hands! Those stereotypes are there for a reason.

I recoiled and shut the door imagining some wedding or family reunion taking over the whole restaurant. I would just go- nowhere else TO go, so chose to walk into the middle of this and got the attention of a waitress, among other attentions I garnered ( see funny dress picture) and mimed myself eating. 

She pointed to an empty chair at the end of the only unused long table and I sat. An elderly waitress with a big smile at me came to take my order, but spoke only Italian. She made chicken noises, touched her thigh, and I nodded. She then said “Spaghetti” and “Spinach” and I nodded and we both laughed.

I did get a big bowl of spaghetti followed by the chicken leg and spinach. And I was worried that the language would be a problem.

I just finished a six hour ride, pushing hard to try to beat the rain forecast. All the ditches of water were frozen this morning as I left, but melted by midday as the clouds rolled in. It was a hard push, so at the halfway point I came across a cafe and stopped and ordered a hot chocolate ( luckily the server spoke some English as I didn’t know how to mime “chocolate”).

It was maybe the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had. It was thick, like a melted chocolate bar, and I chased it with a donut. Give a boy an icy cold ride for three hours riding hard and the bar might not be that high. Not sure.

Anyways, it sure powered me the next three hours to my destination town of Cervignano del Friuli and I arrived at my hotel just as the clouds opened up.

Since I didn’t get a real meal all day I was almost ravenous. Next door to the hotel is a Japanese sushi restaurant, so I headed there, ducked inside to get out of the rain and heard these wonderful words: “Tonight is all you can eat for a fixed price”. 

Somebody’s God is indeed watching over me!

Sending love,

Charley