Italy is SO Italian, and How About the Food?

PART I: Italy is so Italian. 

I love cultural differences. Daily occurrences we don't think twice about in our home place are turned inside out in other parts of the world. 

I've really enjoyed how much Italy has agreed with it's stereotypes. That it's iconic spirit hasn't been lost to dilution...

Here's a list of what I've experienced as Particularly Italian Things: 

People talking with their hands. So much movement! So much nuance added. Very helpful for us foreigners who are trying to speak the language. 

Siesta. We've been burned by this, for instance missing a bike shop along our route because it closes between 1:30 and 4. Also enjoying the roads being quieter during this time. 

Shops being open until 8pm. Not just big grocery stores, but the sweet small Mom n Pop stores that you can never get to in the States unless it's a weekend or you skip out on work. 

Smoking. It's not frowned upon like it is in the states. It's just another habit. 

Espressos. At absolutely any time of day or night. At bars or in your home. Almost every single BnB room we had came equipped with a little espresso maker. 

Parking without regard for anything. Blocking an entrance. Half on the sidewalk. Against direction on the one-way road. Blocking other cars. The lack of regard in this manner we found to be hilarious. 

Keeping up appearances. Men have tidy and trimmed facial hair. Women generally have make-up and perfume. People follow the latest trends of bright white sneakers and faded jeans or they are wearing timeless classics like leather jackets and dark slacks. I was constantly admiring people, just enjoying how GOOD everyone looked.

((Aside: Italian women would probably consider me--as far as women go--to be an absolute disgrace. An ANIMAL. My nails are not "done". I am wearing neither heels nor clean white sneakers. I have no lipstick or mascara AND my skin is ruddy as a side of beef. My hair is not cascading just right over my shoulders (I've seen only one other pixie cut). I am not wearing sufficient beige or black or leather. I am not spritzed with perfume; I carry no handbag. I snack between meals, I eat all the food on my plate, and perhaps worst of all: I eat fruit... using my HANDS.))

Almost everyone is thin. I saw all of two overweight Italians the whole trip. And this in a population where people eat pastries for breakfast! (How? While I didn't study this myself directly, I did read another's blog post about why this may be, and the main factors have to do with a reverence for food, not snacking between meals, whole foods rather than processed, and lower stress levels than in the states). 

Capetto, the older Italian gentlemen wearing the drivers caps, driving the tiny Fiats, and strolling around together of an evening. 

Dinner only after 7:30 pm. And it's not just that no one eats at 6pm; the restaurants aren't even open UNTIL 7:30. 

Iddy biddy breakfast. Breakfast is an espresso and a croissant. I don't know how anyone survives on that without a major sugar crash. 

No to-go drinks. You know how in the US when it's a beautiful day and everyone is walking around with a piece of cardboard with coffee in it? You do not see that in Italy. People drink their espresso in the bar or at home, and that's that. 

The everpresent classics of: Cheese, salami, pizze, pasta, olives, pears. Bread ("Italian bread" of course!) all white and crusty. Wine. Olive oil. 

The Italian bakeries, all those little round, coiled, rolled, cut-out, ridge-y cookies on trays, some dipped in chocolate, bought by the pound. The kind that makes crumbs when you bite in. 

The language. It is so full of vowels! It bounces! It is true that the Italians love their language, enjoying the mouth making the words. The way they'll repeat words, "bella! bella!", just because they feel good to say. 

Pants. The only people we saw in shorts were tourists. Italians are wearing pants. I'd not had this realization before, but I don't actually need to be seeing other people's legs, thank you very much. That's a piece of information I just don't need. (Of course, I'm a hypocrite in bike shorts, the most offending shorts of all) 

There's been other comparisons I've made, just from my own little perspective of having done this bike travel thing in Latin America. Italy is MUCH quieter than Mexico, for instance the pharmacies aren't fortified with chest-high speakers blasting reggaeton. There aren't cars with loudspeakers driving around broadcasting whatever is for sale. You don't hear music bouncing out of people's houses onto the street. 

Italy also feels like the people are more serious. I didn't have cashier's at grocery stores calling me "my love" like I did in Colombia. In fact most Italians were very disinterested in our presence, while I felt many Mexican folks would wave and cheer as I biked past. But interestingly, once any Italian person had seen us for a *second* time, they were so interested to engage with us. We easily made friends because the folks from the coffee shop earlier saw us again in the park. Or the morning after checking into the hotel, the receptionist was much more friendly and engaging. 

Little cars. The largest cars we saw in Italy were just about the size of the SMALLEST cars you see in the US. And you'd quite frequently see 4 people sitting neatly inside. So efficient! In the US these huge 4WD raised-up trucks with mirrors wide as wings feel bloated, excessive, ugly, compared with the compact little Fiats that could park anywhere. In Italy there were antique cars so small that when next to them on our bikes, the drivers looked up at US. 

The small old towns so delightful. Stairs that are actually streets, narrow everything, cobbles, brick, stone, laundry on wraught iron balconies, potted succulents, tiny Fiats parked. I'm going to miss how storybook and compact and sweet it felt. 

PART II: Italian. Food. 

The words "Italian" and "food" are such a famous pairing that it is indeed a blessing to do a cycling trip requiring enormous calorie intake here. I could write an entire book about the food from different regions, the culture surrounding it, the expected customs, and our experiences with all of it...but I will only share a few bites. 

For instance, taking leftovers home from restaurants Is. Not. Done. I am not sure, but I think it's because Italians have such high regard for food and for cooks, that eating reheated food would be an insult to the chef. But Matthew and I are absolutely against food waste, culturally appropriate or not, and so we developed a slight-of-hand routine for restaurants. We always had a shoulder bag with some ziplocks inside. As we were eating, we'd slide our extra pizza or uneaten bread into the bag on our laps when the servers were away. This made for many a useful breakfast later. 

Restaurants were daunting, if delicious, and also expensive. You can't know exactly what you're getting from a menu. More often we made a grocery store stop, which is glorious good fun because you can SEE everything. I was always so giddy in grocery stores because I was basically in those fancy Italian Import shops in the states where everything looks delicious, is prohibitively expensive, and should only be used for gifts. But in Italy it's all for real and you get to eat it for dinner! 

We did have some stunning meals at restaurants, though. Roasted eggplant and tomato over tube pasta wide as culverts. Grilled salmon. Mussels served in the shell with olive oil and garlic. Pizza with sauce all roasty and mellow, with a crust so stretchy you could poke a giant bubble in and out like a frog croaking. Focaccia, handheld, easy bike snack, the dough soft and glistening with olive oil, a smear of tomato sauce on top with fat olives. 

Grocery store standards for us were arugula (somehow everpresent and very cheap), smoked salmon (same), pesto (in tiny jars), olives (salty enough to make cheese taste plain), bread (we got lucky to occasionally get whole-wheat), tomatoes (usually excellent), multiple types of cheese (angels sing at the cheese counter), pears, oranges (few other fruits was enticing or local), and greek yogurt (boring but essential protein). We fell in love with some new recruits in tiny jars like pistachio pesto (think nut butter?) and artichoke spread (delicious). 

I am ashamed to report we drank very little good wine (wine was not expensive in the shops but we just couldn't be biking around a glass bottle, and we'd had mixed experiences with "vino della casa" when out) but we did come to trust the Aperol Spritz (bitters in soda water/champagne), which was refreshing and wouldn't have us completely plastered. For some reason (ha!) biking all those miles, we were indeed lightweights. 

For snacks, we ate more cornetti (croissants) in the past three weeks than we've eaten our entire lives. Some come filled with saccharine pistachio frosting or Nutella. We loved the Panificio shops (bakeries) which were perfect for cycling fuel: multiple shelves under multiple counters all of different cookie species: thin ones, round ones, nut-rolled balls, miniature pie things. We did what we called Noah's Ark and got two each of different types to try. 

One misconception I'd had about Italian food is that all of it would be packed with herbs, garlic, flavors. That eponymous "Italian Seasoning" that you buy here in the states would be on everything. Absolutely wrong. We did have some complexly flavored pasta dishes (the most memorable being with roasted fennel and anchovy) but sandwiches and pizza were simple. I'm used to sandwiches in the states having sauce (maybe mayo, vinegar), the main load (meat, cheese), and then additional flavoring on top of that (onion bits or pickles, say). In Italy you had: bread, a slice of prosciutto, and a slice of cheese. End of production. More adventurous panini maybe had a dribble of olive oil. At first I found these dry and boring, but then I read that Italians want to focus on the quality and simple goodness of the ingredients rather than muddling it all up with more flavors. So I came to appreciate the simple as well. Especially when cyclist-hungry. 

Post-script: this trip was an amazing experience, a blessing to share together, adventures engaging and fun and challenging, set in a beautiful landscape, among so much history. Thank you all for reading along, I am honored. 

Final stats: 

730 miles total 

52,000 ft elevation gain (this is more than twice up Mt Everest)

1 flat tire 

No accidents  

The Box-Car Children (how to get home)

THE BOX-CAR CHILDREN

Or: the little-known trials of ending a bike trip 

Or: The Large, The Broken, and The Small

"Then just pack up your bikes and go home" sounds so simple at the end of a glorious bicycle trip, however, accomplishing this in a foreign city where you can't communicate and don't have a phone with an Italian SIM card is more like working through a 400-level calculus problem. 

When in Rome...

We tried the two bike shops within walking distance to our lodging (hopefully thus able to walk the boxes back): Mr First had one beautiful cardboard box taking up a third of his shop, but refused to engage with our lousy Italian and wouldn't let us have it. Mr Second Shop apologized profusely in rapid Italian--we could intuit his goodwill--but he didn't have any boxes. 

This box gathering was chipping away at our precious Rome Time, but we certainly weren't going to leave them behind us. To try and save a little time, I asked our helpful inn-keeper if he might phone a farther-away bicycle shop on our behalf. I explained we were looking for CARDBOARD bicycle boxes. He shared the results after his phone call: "They have! It is different type of bike bags, some German brands." Enough of a tantalizing lead to warrant getting on the bikes to investigate. 

When we arrived, I was mentally psyching myself up to spent many euro on fancy bike transport cases if need be. And Mr Farther Away Shop showed us the bike bags in question: a set of neat little panniers. Oh geez, lost in translation indeed! 

But thank the Roman God of two wheels, there was a conglomeration of old bike boxes in the recycling pile! 

We found one (1) box that was broken, one (1) box that was colossally too large and one (1) box that was too small. Goldibox and the three bears, was it? We'll just see what some cardboard arts and crafts can do. 

Now we had three unwieldy cardboard items and two bicycles to schlepp across Rome. Ride the bikes back, then return walking for the boxes? Such a use of time. Load the whole mass onto public transport? Crowded and nigh impossible. Uber? We would be scorned by drivers. 

Could we make a two-person parade? We stuffed the boxes all inside the giant one, I took my bike in my right hand, Matthew his bike in his left hand, and with our spare hands we lifted the boxes in the middle between us. We took a couple tentative steps. 

Does a honeymoon include a test? 

Can a marriage withstand the coordination and communication necessary to navigate busy Rome sidewalks, crosswalks and curbs while maneuvering many awkward items? HELL YES IT CAN. Our hands and shoulders ached from it and we had to "scusi! scusi!" frequently and take lots of breaks, but we successfully got the maddening lot back to our lodging. My favorite was crossing the streets; our giant box wider and taller than most cars, and I just barrelled into the street without a pause. "Be careful babe!" said Matthew from the caboose. "Oh they are stopping whether they like it or not!" I called from the front. 

Back to the 400-level calculus problem. A single main problem (we need boxes) unfolds into multiple sub-problems. For instance, the evening after the Great Roman Schlepp, we came out to discover our hard-won boxes had disappeared. Gah!! A new problem! We found them outside the gate by the dumpster, thankfully. Which became yet another problem: the gate closed behind us and our key was non-functional in the lock. Sometimes little daily things in a foreign place, like a sticky key, are so defeating.

Someone with better keymanship arrived and got us inside again. 

Arts n Crafts Build-a-Box was a fun project, made possible by my pocket knife and a roll of packing tape from your local grocer, although it was time that could have been spent waiting in an hours-long line to get in Saint Peter's Basilica. To be sacrilegious and frank, I was happier with the boxes. My tolerance for crowds has evaporated.

I can say that when you approach carrying two enormous and slightly misshapen boxes, that Uber drivers, bus drivers, airline check-in personnel, and baggage handlers will NOT look pleased to see you coming. 

Bicycle trips are fun, wild, freeing, exciting, but the price-of-admission of getting your bikes to and from is STEEP. We've paid it the past couple days. We navigated an enormous airport with hundreds of flashing ticket counters (an airport that is inconveniently distant from city center), repacked everything to meet weight restrictions (we did this the day before for an airport pre-visit to access baggage scales), pleaded with grumpy and insulted Uber drivers to try and fit the boxes, and witnessed my bike box fall off a baggage trolley with a crash so fierce I cringe now to reflect on it.

We've made a number of decisions that ended up being poor, but that we made with the knowledge we had at the time. The specifics of travel woes bore anyone who's woes they aren't, so I'll spare you. But we are frayed and exhausted and ready to understand how things work again in our own system. 

(Post-script: for future trips we will get a SIM card for the country, contact bike shops ahead to have them save proper boxes for us, or somehow fly out of one of the two airports in Switzerland that provide complimentary bike FOR YOU). 

A Tale of 3 Cities, with Kissing Obligatorio

Since the day after Easter, our trip has been a tornado of experience. Our sweet routine of 'Ride, See, Sleep, Repeat' ended on Easter Monday, as we reached Palermo and treated ourselves to a ferry back to the mainland. 

Our last day bicycling on Sicilia was along the coast; we passed harbors with blue and white fishing boats that looked cute as large toys, stone walls draped thick with wisteria, castles sitting ancient-ly on hilltops. During a fueling break we sat by the water, while an older man in a sweater and cap intently surveyed our bicycles. He padded off, then returned with a phone and a selfie stick. While we messily ate oranges, he took photos of the coastline through the spokes of the wheels, experimented with landscape and portrait, and was so enraptured with his project that he even asked if we would move the red bike for better lines. This tickled us immensly. Then I realized we had an opportunity; "e possibile NOSTRA photo?" and handed him my phone. We stood there like dumb posing tourists, but he cawed at us and waved us into positions to better suit the light. It felt like our wedding photos again; how fun! 

We got back on the bikes and tootled through the remainder of the sweet coastal town. We passed a sign at a particularly beautiful cove that read in Italian, "kissing here OBLIGATORIO." Just then a miniscule white Fiat drove passed and started tooting furiously at us. It was Senior Camera! He waved his arm out the tiny window, we must pull over. What synchronicity! Our photo shoot continued to everyone's glee. Many moments on this trip we felt physically tired and with unmet needs and like adventurous explorers but those moments felt just like a characteristic honeymoon. 

Rolling into Palermo had us dodging rain drops and with no plan or direction for the city. We had hours to use before we could become un-homeless by boarding the ferry. Where should we go? A turn down a side street vaguely towards city center had us immediately enfolded in that magical passage of balconies, flower boxes, cobbles, and tiny restaurants with umbrella'd tables. The rest of the old city was beautiful, fountains and monuments, queer and intricate buildings, a Moorish church. After a monochromatic experience of Italians thus far, we saw people of all colors. We heard Arabic, smelled Indian restaurants, saw women in burkas, navigated a gaggle of Asian boys in the grocery. There were little bodega type shops, all seemingly selling the same bottled sodas, statues, bracelets and fruits, one after the other down the street. 

We felt like we'd gone from Montana to NYC's lower east side. Palermo buzzed with an urban energy that we hadn't felt for a long time, pulsating with people, zesty, positive. It was far less crowded with tourists than Syracuse or Ragusa, but the whole city of Palermo is so ancient and so full of gorgeous buildings and Moorish influence that the city itself is a UNESCO site. We loved being a part of it. In Palermo we saw Europe's oldest fig tree (planted 1845) and this living thing was so massive and so akimbo with aerial roots and the park where it grew was so quiet this was basically a religious experience. 

Following this, the experience of the ferry felt like being a carefree happy child again, playing Boat Voyage, cozying up in the little sleeper cabin we splurged on, weaving down the narrow inner corridors all blue and red carpet, being mesmerized by the wake in the waves, giddily sharing a mini bottle of wine at our very own porthole (which I had imagined would be a donut, but it was luxurious and grand). We slept like babies being rocked, with our bikes tied in the hold next to all the cars. The ferry experience was so serene and so relished AND we had simultaneously gotten where we needed to go. This splurge was wholly worth it. 

The ferry docked in Naples in the early morning light and we watched a single pigeon waddle up the bridgeway before the cars began rolling off. 

We took the train to Pompei. How incredible that a disaster that ruined lives provided such a gift to Humanity millennia later? I was struck by the immensity of the city, the color still in the art on the walls (somehow historical places are stuck in B&W in my mind), the complexity of the tile work, bits of plumbing pipes visible in some walls. The more stick-figure-y wall paintings in the smaller homes that wouldn't have been "worth preserving" because they weren't fancy, but actually spoke more to us as being commonplace.

The crowds were stupendous and exhausting by the middle of the day and having the same needs (water, potties, somewhere to rest, food) as approximately 30,000 other tourists had us ready to leave. 

We thought a bike-ride pilgrimage circumnavigating Vesuvius would be a cool and reasonable way to spend time until our evening train to Rome. Instead this ride was ill-fated with a never-ceasing stream of vehicles and drained us of energy. Experiencing Naples by pedal was hellish, and I don't say that lightly. Drivers were honking out of anger and impatience, not polite "ciao I'm here!", leaning on the horns. You get multiple angry people backed up in fat traffic horn-leaning and it's cacophony.

Some of the people walking around had a slink to them I hadn't seen yet in Italy, men walking alone instead of strolling in groups, looking tough, tired, gritty. 

Naples streets were multiple lanes wide, unlike any Italian city we'd been yet. What was this, Los Angeles? We gave up attempting to ride with traffic and pushed the bikes on the sidewalk. But crossing the streets felt thick and impenetrable. Anywhere we wanted to move was a river of cars. The usual effortless float for a pedestrian to cross did not exist here: I witnessed a car whip inches from a man in a cross walk. No translation needed for what he yelled at the driver. I nearly got run over by a motorbike going --get this--against the flow in a round-about. 

It was the motorbike that caused us to give up our expedition to the highly-rated pizzeria, and stop hungry and defeated into the spot we saw next. 

Our Margarita pizza (which *looked* beautiful) came to us tepid, with two weensy leaves of basil cowering in the middle. The manager stood in the doorway, practically over our table, yelling a conversation in Italian into his phone. The pizza maker surveyed us with scrutiny from the back, tattooed arms crossed. 

They had a nice bathroom. 

Arriving in Rome on the train after Naples negativity, Pompei crowds, and bad biking was like an expansive sigh. The streets felt wide and full of space, boulevard-y, the first city with some trees, people sitting at tables for drinks as you round a quiet neighborhood corner. 

Anything I try to write about how vast, old, and beautiful Rome is will be useless so I won't even try. But what they say is true: Rome is amazing. There are famous old things and nameless old things anywhere you look. I was overwhelmed by piazzas and fountains and churches. To me, a smaller but empty old church is more profound than a famous and crowded old church. We found both, but those moments of pristine calm in the former is what will stick with me, the lone monk outside sweeping. 

We walked 11 sunny springtime miles around Rome on Wednesday, checking out some big cheeses: the Colosseum, the Pantheon, Trevi fountain, Spanish steps, Piazza di Popolo, Via dei Coronari, Basilica Papale di Santa Maria Maggiore. History has never been my best pair of pants, but walking with Matthew is a dream. "What's that obelisk?", "Tell me about the Roman gladiators?", "What does that say in Latin?", etc etc. He just KNOWS all the things. I feel like a kiddo to her parent, "why is the sky blue?" It's awesome. 

Sicilia: Easter Special!

Easter in Sicily is a very important holiday; from what I've read on blogs, the island is supposedly more religious than the mainland. There is also "Pasquetta", Little Easter (Easter Monday, a day off work). 

Pedaling from town to town over Holy Week and the holiday had us steeped in Easter. First off, all grocery store billboards were advertising their specials for Pasqua: rounds of red sausage, big breads, these chocolate eggs the size of footballs wrapped in colorful foil. Shops had springy pink and green pantsuits and dresses in the windows. 

Maundy Thursday we were just getting ready for bed around 10pm, when we heard what sounded like gun shots. That's unnerving, this feels like such a sleepy little town. Then I heard a band with brass and drums. Ah, fireworks instead. "Put on your shoes!"; this was a non-negotiable thing to witness. We followed the wafts of music down the dark streets until we reached the town center. The main intersection was packed with people and in the center of the crowd was a band playing, people singing, and two statues with candles around them being held aloft. I didn't recognize any of the music but it felt pensive and holy. We were definitely the only foreigners at this night scene. 

Then on Easter day, right at 10am as the bells were tolling we passed a church, with that characteristic trickle of people picking their way up the stairs. Without questioning, and of course wearing my appallingly ridiculous bike outfit, I left my bike with Matthew and slipped up the stairs into the back. The sound of a pipe organ and the feeling of it in the air had me nearly in tears. People were singing--again nothing that I recognized --but it was so sacred feeling and intentional and beautiful. I didn't want to stay for the whole service--that would have been too much, so I left when it was still too little. 

Later on Easter day, just before noon, we were passing through a small hill town and found the entire population in the square outside the church. There was no music this time, just a constant pulse of drumming. Six young men dressed in white pants and shirts, with red sashes around their waists, were holding aloft a statue of an angel with a sword (this must have been Gabriel?). They were slowly walking through the square, the thick crowd passing to let them through, and they were pulsing the statue up and down rhythmically. The young men were being directed where to walk and pulse next by an important looking man with gelled hair and a grey suite. Every single red-sashed dude was chewing gum (because they couldn't be smoking?) and indeed the statue pulsing looked rather like hard work. 

We enjoyed watching the crowd, the little girl holding Mama's hand, wearing a puffed white dress with a bow. Teenagers more involved with themselves than the event. Friends running into each other and stopping in a foursome to chat. This all had the air of a festival! The angel statue was paraded to this building, that building, and back to the center. Bopping up and down the whole time. This went on for long enough that we assumed we'd seen it all and were putting on our helmets again. But then there was cheering; the be-sashed men were sprinting with the statue the entire length of the square. Sprinting! With the statue held aloft above the crowds, it looked like an angel skimming along above it all. 

After a while a statue of Mary and one of Jesus arrived from a street at the edge of the crowd, both lifted along by 6 other fit young men in blue sashes. There was cheering and the drums reached a frantic braying: the statues of Mary and Jesus were being bent in towards each other. They were kissing. Mary had realized her son was risen from the dead, this fact that the angel Gabriel had been rushing around to tell her all this time.  

How fascinating to witness this! A cultural gift we hadn't known about or planned, just lucky circumstance. 

The crowds then flowed into the coffee bars, the pastry shops. Time for the treats before the big Easter family dinner. 

In one coffee shop, I was sipping a macchiato and taking in the scene. There was a woman in a neon pink pantsuit, tan heels. Teens were feeding each other bites of cornetto. A few pastel rabbits and those big football foil chocolate eggs were about. Everyone knew everyone. Half the folks had Aperol spritz in wine glasses or beers. A baby with a mini mouse balloon tied around her wrist was being passed around. Uncle Someone came in loudly with open arms and everyone got louder to receive him. I thought of my own loud Polish Catholic family and our Easter day traditions, how I could connect with the celebrations here, all while feeling enormously out of place.

Lambs made out of marzipan were on display at the counter. My Polish family does a lamb molded out of butter, and I enjoyed this parallel. 

Easter Monday felt like a day for parties, at least where we were passing. Tents set up in front yards, hip hop, beers, voices talking over one another. But mostly it was the music. This was the first day this whole trip we'd heard music coming onto the street. (Compared with Latin America where I've made many other bicycle travels, Italy has been impressively quiet.) 

Sicily 3-6: Climbs, Windmills, & UNESCO

We've been pedaling our way across, down, and now up Sicily since I last wrote. Our days have taken on a rhythm, one of the most satisfying things to me for bicycle trips, the little patterns of the day you can come to trust when in such a wonderous place of the unknown. 

There has always been an espresso machine in each BnB room (or in the common room) and navigating this mystery is the first task of the day. The day may or may not get more challenging after that; I have no experience with these contraptions, and I've now gathered they come in a withering diversity. As soon as I master one breed, the next place has one completely different. There's buttons, handles, symbols, catchment systems...and of course no instructions, and I can be found pressing and pushing, either creating a runny brown mess or getting no action at all. Italians must be born with the innate capacity to make an espresso. Sometimes we are lucky enough that our host makes us a cappuccino, or we circumvent the matter entirely and go to a little bar down the street and join the 6 men with elbows on the bar all talking at once. 

Packing up before the day's ride involves de-exploding the room, as it usually blooms when we arrive with bike shorts drying from a cabinet door, lights and phones charging from every socket, and bikes serving as clothing racks. I love folding and fitting, bagging bags into bags, knowing where every item goes on the bike, the comfortable routine of preparing my belongings to be pedaled to the next spot. 

My husband is still true to form. He left one sock somewhere on the mainland of Italy and packed two right-handed gloves. 

And then we ride. The center part of Sicily is rugged: steep hills, deep valleys, rocky outcroppings. Sheep seen from a distance, little white puffs flowing through a narrow path between rocks, dogs proudly running behind. We can hear their bells jangling like distant wind chimes if the wind is right. The views have us exclaiming as we round each curve; we feel like we're in a national park out west. 

Oh the elevation! We passed underneath a wee town perched on top a hill thinking, "good thing we don't have to go there, that looks like quite a climb." And miles and miles later we looked out across the view, and saw below us what looked like a muffin with nuts on top: that hilltop town!  

Our ride yesterday had over a vertical mile of elevation gain. 

This island is windy. Sometimes we've fought gusty pushes from the side, or that draining siege upon us coming straight into our path. Headwind Husband: when I groan and complain he whips out in front, "let me take a turn up here, babe" and catching his draft allows me to breath again and realize there is a beautiful world to look up into. He is so incredibly strong: "how you doing up there?" I'll ask, "that looks pretty windy". "Great!", he'll say, "barely feel a thing." "That's good, because I'm just back here eating figs like Queen of the Nile." 

Today we bicycled beneath windmills; we could hear their stories-tall blades whisking the air sounding like airplanes taking off. We were heading north to the coast and the wind was fierce. We were exposed on a road near the crest of the mountains, the air was pummeling from the west and trying to equalize with the air from the other side. The few acacia trees that were present were bent and fluttering madly. Climbing up the hillside, I felt my bike chuffing sideways beneath me and I slowed to a painful 4 mph crawl. The sort of wind where it's hard to breathe.  

From all the elevation and the wind on back-to-back days, I am pretty exhausted. And also proud of the climbing and the wind we've pushed through. 

We've made our route to include two UNESCO sites, the beautifully preserved ancient Greek temples at Agrigento and the Roman house of frescos at Villa Romana de Casale. 

The Greek temples (the best preserved including in Greece) felt looming, mysterious, beautiful and so old I couldn't even properly feel the importance of them. 

The Roman house was an enormous mansion, owned by a big rich Roman family. They had the floor decorated by artists with millions of mosaic tiles, showing scenes of hunting, animals, a chariot race, fruits, and even a suggestive bedroom with a well-endowed woman. That all this is preserved so well is incredible, a way to travel back in time to see what was important to humans. Matthew and I reflected on how millennia have gone by and people are still flashing their wealth in their big homes, enjoying eating figs, and obsessed with butts. 

Can you see the figs above? 

Yesterday our ride took us through a small hill town, San Biagio, that decorates it's town center with whicker arches and bread (yes!) every year for Easter. We arrived as they were setting up, a loud busy community scene. Baskets of decorative bread shaped like doves and woven circles waited on the sidewalk. A crane idled with three men wobbling in the basket, reaching to erect a large woven archway. A man walked by carrying a flock of smaller bird breads. Groups were cutting branches of green leaves. A dude with huge sunglasses and a cigarette was on the phone balanced on a ladder. There was such an air of teamwork and anticipation! 

Our days have ended in hilltop towns, attractive places; but this means we finish with climbs in heavy traffic. And then once in town, we wobble around narrow, steep, cobbled streets trying to locate our BnB for the night. The feeling of arrival and success after all that is VERY delicious.

Sicily 1 & 2: Archimedes & Montana

Our first day in Sicilia actually began at midnight (mezzanotte--one of my favorite words in Italian), as our train was delayed by the bad weather--and I can't imagine the logistics of inserting a train into a boat is easy with sloshing waves--and so we pedaled in the dark over empty cobbles to open the keybox of our BnB. We were in Syracuse. The original! The ancient Greek colony one, not the upstate NY rust-belt snowy one. Archimedes is from Syracuse. The amount of years passing and the number of humans in this beautiful spot and all that stacked on itself just makes our minds reel. 

The next morning we opted for a self-guided pedal tour (ha!) of the old city and there were so many tourists that pedal tours were indeed part of the scene. For the first time this whole trip, I could have bought a souvenir key chain. We heard English and German. It felt so different to see crowds of foreigners; where had they all been on the Amalfi Coast and in Calabria? 

And everyone was here for very good reason. It was history Disneyland, all the narrow streets and beautiful buildings. 

Our first ride in Sicily (heading south and west to Modica) had us buffeted by criss-crossing headwinds, cars ripping past at our elbows, straight roads where you see the serving of climb coming ahead. I much prefer the tight winding roads of switchbacks. The roads were punctuated by large piles of sun-blistered trash, and also lined with wild-flowers so bright we couldn't stop yelling to each other, "the poppies!", "oh this yellow!", "what's this blue one!" 

The scenery was all agricultural production once we escaped the grit and gas stations on the outskirts of the city. Lemons seemed to be the theme of the day: a truck full of crates of them passed us, the yellow glinting out like boxed sunshine. A station wagon had every surface but for the driver's seat supporting lemons. 

All of the fences were stone, and they were the veins of the landscape. Stone walls stretching everywhere, marking boundaries, containing cattle, lining the road. These stone walls must have been crafted by masters, all the stones aligned to make smooth lines, like when you carefully spatula the frosting on the outside of a cake to remove bumps. 

Rest stop #1: Coffee Bar, "bistrot" is in the name and Italian hip-hop is on the speakers. "The kids here are too cool for school" I said to Matthew; they were wearing leather and sunglasses and chain smoking at a round table. 

"We're too cool too... just in a completely orthogonal way," he said, as we took off our sweaty helmets and adjusted our padded bike shorts. (Has it occured to folks that bike shorts are basically underwear?) 

Rest stop #2: Cheese with a View. The hilltop city of Ragusa was visible after switchback climbs and with all that architecture you just have to stop and gape for a while. And stopping on a bike = someone gets out a snack. Which means the other is reminded they might like one too. I opted for some hunks off the cylinder of salty, almost plaster-consistency formaggi with it's mysterious forest-like flavors. "We need to buy more cheese!" I announced to Matthew, "we're only carrying one variety right now!"  

The lengthy, diverse cheese counters here are my happy place. 

Day 1 ended in Modica, famous for baroque architecture, another popular tourist destination. From our little room in this hilly old city, we could open our window and see across the town above the reddish-brown terracotta roofs. This view had us enraptured, and I'm trying to figure out what's so enticing about it. It feels like when you're taking off in an airplane and the buildings are pint-sized below you, and you can SEE and maybe begin to understand place and relativity. I felt like a child playing Town, the buildings all small from a distance but the details still perceptible. Someone's balcony laundry. A tree in a large pot. A garbage bin. 

Cut to the morning of Day 2: 

I'm having a cappuccino at a little outdoor table (it's too cold for anyone else to sit outside) directly in front of the Duomo Di San Pietro in Modica, attempting to put my thoughts into words on this tiny rectangle screen. I keep looking up at this edifice of old church complexity: the pillars, vaulting, buttresses, naves...and thinking about what Matthew said last night, that humans ALWAYS, since all time, have been moved to create things of beauty to express the awe of the unknowable. 

This trip we have been surrounded by beauty, by awe, by kind people, delicious food, big hills, bright flowers. I sometimes feel overwhelmed to bring it all in, to experience it as fully as I can. The yearning to do so is so strong that already I'm grieving the end of our travel. 

Of course, all while navigating flat tires, locking myself in bathrooms, the rain, dinner customs we don't understand, and bike clothes that won't dry. 

Our second day biking in Sicily (from Modica to Caltagirone) was a cyclist's dream (I wonder if it's because Matthew made the route, and he has so much more patience than me): car-free roads, beautiful vistas of green pastures and those stone fences, WHOLE PASTURES full of bright red poppies, great climbs and swooping descents. 

We're trying to describe what Sicilia feels like here, and currently we're going with: Wales plus Montana, with a little Greece and a serving of palm trees. Because of the bucolic quaint-ness, rugged rock outcroppings and expansive sky and big wind, and the old stone and brick buildings just scattered about, but the palm trees remind us we're southern and warm. 

Each cow has a big bell around her neck, but they sound different than what I've heard for cowbells before. They sound like rustic wind chimes, and when the cows walk it's as soothing as the low tones of gentle rain. We encountered a herd of sheep yesterday and I laughed out loud because they also had bells, but smaller and sheep-sized bells so they rang about an octave higher and sounded all high and flutey.   

Coming around a bend, Matthew: "The trees! Look at the trees! They are shorn!" Shorn? They all still have leaves though? I'm slow on the uptake when it comes to trees, but then see where the fat rich bark stopped suddenly to reveal a dark pink, smooth, essentially freshly-trimmed sheep underneath. Cork bark! For wine corks! How cool to see. 

Wheat and barley and oats are growing in those small fields bounded by stone fences, and the wind sweeps them like sloshing green waves. The grain maturity is about what it would be in NY state around mid-June (heads are out but are still soft and green). How the growing season works here still mystifies me. What I love are the weedy oat and wheat plants, which line the roads outside of the stone walls. I imagined years ago a bit of grain spilling out of wagons, growing roadside, falling to the earth and seeding itself over and over. 

Thank you Sicily, for such a beautiful second day.

End The Shin; Turducken (Days 9-11)

 

The morning of the Last Day of our Down The Shin Trip, we left the magic-land town of Scilla. We admired it from a promontory a couple miles down the road. How did this town even exist in reality? It seemed like a painting. Anywhere one could put a building on the hill, one did. So contained, no sprawl at all, just stacking. And the castle on the mount: made me think of childhood playing Legos and building forts with the best placement for viewing attackers at sea. The sun was bright and the ocean a thousand christmas lights and tinsel. 

We finished our Shin Trip in Reggio Calabria. What a glorious leg (pun intended?), what beautiful days of cycling. An incredible part of Shin Trip was first seeing Sicily days ago, a nearly imperceptible duff on the ocean. "Could that be....Sicily?!" we had said back then. And then we'd ride more and it grew bigger and bigger. Then we saw the volcano Etna for the first time! Sicily was like a banner marking our finish line.

Sicily across the water 

"Sicily is the ball that the boot is kicking", Mom had explained to us as kids. I didn't know many things as a child, but I did know where Sicily was.

We've been in Reggio Calabria for 48 hours now, the longest we've been in one place, and we're getting wiggly to ride bikes again. We're not progressing due to sheltering out a Big Bad Rainy Day, needing to plan our next leg, and some unfortunate misunderstandings involving trains. 

You can make all of the detailed plans using a guidebook in the comfort of your own home with speedy Wi-Fi, but there are pieces that are truly unknowable until you're in vitro. We HAD planned to go to Puglia (the heel) for our second chapter, which is almost entirely flat. But we've learned along the way that flat is less fun than the curvy rugged topography, and drivers are faster when they see down a straight road rather than curves. An Italian friend of a friend confirmed for Puglia, "we would experience some boring time." 

We also cannot know the weather in advance. Our first week spoiled us rotten, days of sun in the 60s. And now we're in a cold and gray chapter. 

I'll offer only a little bicycle-tour-planning-behind-the-scenes: we were considering to go to Basilicata (middle of the instep) because of the beautiful terrain and hill-top towns. But there are River Problems (have to go miles around because no bridges) and Elevation Problems (a 20 mile day crammed with 5,000+ feet of climbing? it would take us weeks to get anywhere). And also Train Problems. It's one thing to read online, "many trains in Italy will take bicycles", and something entirely different to be at the ticket counter and have them tell you "no." And finally: Weather Problems. We were seeing forecasts in the 30s and 40s. We came here to leave that behind. 

And there was Sicily. Warmer. Fewer rivers. Fewer impassable mountain areas. Supposedly loaded with castles, baroque cities, ocean views. But so much we hadn't studied, so many unknowns. Was it wildly different from the mainland? Would the roads be okay? We researched and analyzed and plotted and found problems and fretted and considered and then gave up and went out on our bikes for a little break. Swooping down a hill, Matthew yelled: "I feel called to go to Sicily!" 

We had been waiting for a calling. I trust his gut more than my own analysis paralysis. 

And so we taking the train to a mystical place we had never expected to visit. It feels centering to have a direction again, and also wild to go to a place we never planned to. 

Sondra: "So you said there was a tunnel under the strait?" 

Matthew: "I just assumed that. Unless they put the train on a boat..."

Sondra: "...which is SO not a thing." 

[Train slows; long wait; train backs up; stalls] 

Matthew: "This is the slowest train EVER." 

[look out window] 

Matthew: "What. Well THIS is novel." 

Sondra: "Know what this is? Transport Turducken!" 

[fade to laughter]

Indeed, our train car was being inserted clunkily into the belly of a boat. We could open the doors of the train and climb out, up some steps, and then onto the deck of the ferry. The waves were chaotic and the wind made my coat whip loudly. 

However today has been mostly frustrating as we've navigated train stations with loaded bikes, bought the wrong tickets and then had to wait 4 extra hours, been pelted with the kind of windy rain that goes places it shouldn't, and got a train car with a bambino being played insipid candy child music--for the listening pleasure of everyone--the repetitive Ee-iy-ee-iy-oh stuff. "This music makes me want to pull the heads off dolls", I said to Matthew. 

So instead it's nicer to reflect on our time in Reggio Calabria this weekend. Reggio Calabria was a city city, with shopping galore, a wide walking plaza, beautiful historic buildings, and on the other side of the highway empty parking lots filled with trash, half-completed construction projects with fraying tarps, and pooped-upon sidewalks. It feels like it could be a sister city to Rochester NY. 

Saturday night we wandered downtown to the plaza in search of dinner and found something amazing. A wide river of people, flowing slowly in both directions, groups gently spilling around each other like for rocks in a stream. 

And people were dressed up. Not just dressed nicely; they were STYLING, and there is a distinction to make there.

Trendy eyeglasses, smart cable sweaters, suit jackets over turtle necks. Long beige felt overcoats. A silk scarf tied just so. Black leather boots paired with black tights. Huge white sneakers. Men in tight jeans. Jeans with pockets in unexpected places. Leather. And no other bumbling tourists like us. Perfumes and cigarette smoke wafted above the crowd. 

What was the occasion for all this? It wasn't a street fair with vendors selling trinkets and snacks. There were name brand clothing stores, high-end cake shops and bars along the street (think Ithaca Commons), but it wasn't like people were running errands.

It was a Saturday night before dinner. People were out to see and be seen, to stroll their bodies amongst all the other bodies, to be amongst friends. And there was no hustle or rush like you feel at a crowd in a fiesta. It was an incredible feeling to be part of this, this grand stretch of beautiful people as far as the eye could stretch. 

There were gaggles of teenage girls, lipstick, mascara a bit too heavy--they're still learning-- the global outfit of tiny skirts. You see gaggles of girls like this all over the world. But here you also see gaggles of old men, drivers caps, puffy coats, dark slacks. And I've not seen that type of gaggle before. 

And so ends our first chapter. Ciao fino a doppo Sicilia! 

Basilica in Reggio Calabria