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April 6 Thursday Bicycle touring Italy from the mountains above La Spezia Italy to past Genova Italy Phoned Dad at 8 this morning to wish him Happy Birthday. The operator answers with "Welcome to Canada." Nice to hear first thing in the morning. It is still yesterday in Canada, 10 PM, and I thought it would be easiest to reach him in the evening (it's even still his actual birthday there). Yep, after two rings he answered. Aunt Myrt had told him to go home and babysit the phone because I was going to call. So much for the big surprise, eh? Found out that Mom has been in the hospital since mid February. She has had breast cancer for a few years now. She went through a bad spell for a week or so ... they didn't figure she was going to make it. Fluid in her lungs. They drained the fluid. Guess she figured Hell can wait. She is still low on white blood cells. She is taking estrogen pills for the type of cancer she has. She's had two chemo treatments and has four to go over the next 18 weeks. She's still in the Princeton hospital. My cousin, Deb, goes up to feed her in the mornings. Bless her. A woman with a Yorkshire dog was waiting around the phone booth. I thought she wanted to use the phone, but, instead, when I hung up the phone I found out she wanted to talk to us. She invited us to her house for coffee. Sharon's eyes lit up just thinking about that caffeine rush -- we haven't had any since Bruno and Iole's back on Sardinia. Lorenza gave us cookies too, and a bottle of wine for our bon voyage. She indicated the wine was very good by using a hand signal; dimpling her cheek with an index finger and then turning her finger. That is the Italian hand signal for something that is sweet or very good. (Maybe it represents a cavity in one's tooth and a dentist's drill?) Lorenza's parent's house is her summer home now. She lives in Genova with her husband of thirty years. She has two daughters, aged 29 and 23. They are all soccer aficionados. We discover that Lorenza's mother was Sardinian.
Her sense of hospitality must have been inherited from her mother.
When we asked her why she invited us for coffee, she looked up
a work in our English-Italian dictionary and pointed to the word
'duty.' She says she feels it is her duty to be hospitable. Wow.
Certainly would make bicycle touring a lot easier if there were
more folks in the world like Lorenza. "Come and stay with
us in Genova," she says. "When can we expect you?" She said the village is serene and tranquil. How about those infernal church bells? I wonder. Tranquil? Serene? Her house is right below a bell tower! From our free bicycle touring camp spot, we continued to climb as our previous evening's water lady had indicated. Why are people only right about the uphills? We had a great view over the edge to a mist and fog enshrouded valley below. Overlapping mountain ridges in the background and blossoming fruit trees in the foreground hillside. We continue to cycle amongst beautiful vistas. Forest. Mountains. On one crest, we had a view on both sides of us. Not much traffic until we descended on our fully loaded touring bicycles to the flats and then traffic was intense to Genova, then overwhelming through Genova -- which we happened to hit right at rush hour. Mama mia. The whizzing motor scooters were the worst. They zip in and out of traffic and come inches away from us on both sides. Insanity at its finest. We pulled our bikes to a halt to take a break for an hour, but it didn't help much. Finally, I took a wrong turn and that calmed things down for a while. The burbs were just as hectic as we cycled to the outskirts of Genova. We got water at a gas station. I asked to use the washroom. They were just closing. The attendant guy told me to get lost with a hand signal -- the one where they put the thumb and index finger together and then banged against the palm of the other hand. I frowned, said, "Canada. No capito," and used the washroom anyway. We climbed over 4000 feet today on our heavily loaded touring bicycles and over 100 kilometres in six hours -- our first 100 kilometre day in a while. It was dark when we headed up Hwy 456 searching for a free camp spot. We found one on a terraced hillside below a cemetery. |
