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April 5 Wednesday Bicycle touring Italy from Capanne Italy to in the mountains above La Spezia Italy Happy Birthday, Dad! I wrote you a postcard, but it is still in my bicycle touring bag waiting to be mailed. Traffic was still thick on Hwy 1. Lots of trucks. No passive drivers in Italy. Motor scooters, motorcycles, bikes, mopeds, three-wheeled dinky trucks, cars, and trucks pull out from every streetside in front of oncoming traffic. Drivers patiently slam on their brakes or go around. No daydreaming while driving in Italy. Just before Sarzana, we bought some Brie and blue cheese (I thought it was some herb cheese spread from the container picture -- but it's not that bad ... after one gets over that first tang). Bought some Coke that I've been having a craving for, but it is not good warm. After Sarzana, the traffic became less and the scenery became better. At Vezzano Ligure, near La Spezia, we took a yellow road and it got even better. We cycled along a river so clear that we could see schools of large fish swimming as we cross a bridge. The sun is shining warmly. We have a slight tailwind. It is a tailor-made perfect day for bicycle touring. We cycle along until we see a park sign to the river. We follow a one-lane grassy, rocky path to a lone picnic table made from skinny wooden poles. Sharon washes her hair. She is tempted to go for a swim. The water doesn't feel all that cold and it looks unpolluted. We get back on our fully loaded touring bicycles and continue. There is hardly any traffic. We are cycling in the mountains. The road surface is smooth. The scenery is wonderful -- terraced vineyards and olive trees. Lots of green areas. Forests. Pink and white blossoms. Tiny yellow and blue spring flowers dot the hills and along the roadside. We cycle onwards, climbing up and up, forever up. We can see the autostrata below us -- it goes through the mountain -- we cycle up and over. But what a great view! Villages, much like us on our touring machines, cling to mountainsides. We have left the bunches of racing cyclists in the flatlands and have the whole amazing panorama to ourselves. We pull our bikes to a stop for water by a house. The water is spouting from a pipe in airy gushy gurgles. A woman tells us it is another eight kilometres uphill. Is she trying to cheer us up? She says it is cold for this time of year. She said she saw the news and they had shown it was snowing in Siena. We know, we said, we were there. We wipe the accumulated perspiration from our brows and fill three 1.5 litre bottles with the cold water. We cycle up another kilometre and find a spot over a rock pile. We lift our bikes over the rock pile to our night's free camping spot. We have great views of rolling mountains to one side of the tent; a town is on the other side, built on a cliff edge. A huge bell tower dominates the skyline, gonging out the hours. Actually, we have three competing churches. One gongs first below us, then the first of two up on the cliff top. I would think they could synchronize them, but no, just in case you missed the first eleven gongs, here are twenty-two more. They actually overlap, which really makes things confusing. It's 23 o'clock! |
