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April 3 Monday Bicycle touring Italy from Florence Italy to along Italy's Arno River Foggy this morning, cloaking around our cycling tent. The tent and fly are both saturated. Didn't look like safe, or enjoyable riding weather, even though it's not too chilly, so we hunkered back down into the tent and read. Around noon, as we were trying to decide either to stay or go, the sun peeped warily out. We took that as a signal and packed up our cycling gear. Earlier, I had washed my hands with a sprinkling of water from my bottle and was admonished as that's the only water we have for our pasta tonight. I think there was so little anyway, we would have only been able to cook two noodles -- one each. We cycled along the Arno River. The route we are cycling is flat. And we're going with the flow, so it's easy cycling. The scenery was good along the river, but soon we crossed to a yellow road on the other side of the river (yellow lines on our map are supposed to mean a less-used road). Our new cycling route more or less left the river. We hit urbanization and industry with one town ending and another beginning. Found a large Co-op grocery store that had a great selection. Is this because we're getting closer to France? Even the bread, packages of meat slices, and various packaged cheeses were self serve. I went wild and bought Swiss, Brie, mozzarella, plus a hearty helping of ricotta from the Deli. Bruno would be pleased. Somehow we managed to get $70 worth of groceries into our bike panniers, with a few items tied on top of our bike's rear rack in an extra grocery bag. I need expandable panniers for these successful shopping forays. Even though the wind was blowing towards us, and we had plenty of added extra weight, it didn't make much difference in our bicycle tour's forward progress with the flat terrain we were cycling. The only problem being the constant traffic. And the industrial view is uninspiring, so the whole cycle experience certainly was flat. Also, smelly industrialization that has been lacking so far on our Italian bicycle tour made its nasty appearance. Mostly tanning hide factories --for Italian shoes and leather furniture, no doubt. As we were cycling along, looking for a free camp spot to pitch our compact Kelty cycle touring tent, Sharon saw a road behind a locked chain that led along a small river. I had ridden past and was a hundred metres up the road. With great difficulty, due to the huge traffic volume, I finally managed to get across the road and turned around. I rode the short distance back and then had to wait again to cross the road to get back over to where Sharon was waiting. Crikey. I should have just stayed on the original side and pushed my bike back along the road's shoulder. It certainly would have been quicker. The chain reached the full length across the one-lane dirt road. A bush-covered hillside formed one terminus for the chain and a concrete pillar formed the other end, with a fifty foot drop off to the placid, barely perceptible, moving river below. I stood on the concrete outcropping from the base of the pillar and nosed the front of my bike around the pillar. Then, while still standing on the base, I swung the rear end of my fully loaded touring bike across the empty space of the river below. Unfortunately, I forgot to anticipate how much heavier the rear of my bike is now, loaded with all the just purchased groceries. Almost let the bike and contents get away from me there for a moment. I laughed in a high strangled voice as I felt my hernia strain. I must say, if I had lost my bike over the edge and into the river, our cycling day would have ended on a very flat note indeed. We found a ledge above the riverbank that was just the right size for our two-person bicycle touring tent. We cooked chicken in olive oil and wine sauce with French provincial herbs, along with vegetables and pasta. (When we were cycle touring the outback of Australia, we came across a couple of fellas in a rugged vehicle. They asked us what we were eating, and when we told them some of our culinary items, they exclaimed, "You two certainly eat different than we do!" They were eating old army rations out of cans.) As I was cycling along today, I kept wondering how the heck they manage to get garbage up in the trees. Finally figured out why there is garbage way up in the treetops along the rivers ... the flooding last autumn was that high! Yikes. I hope we're high enough on this ledge. |
