Italia

Two weeks' worth of Italy makes it hard to know where to begin and end. There's just too much. Instead, here is a random collection of moments that hopefully give a small flavor of my trip. Italy is beautiful, humid, and delicious, but it was the people I met that made it.

1. Waiting to see the David in Florence, I slyly took pictures of the people standing in line around me. This young Swiss guy with incredibly shiny hair leaned over and asked me if I was paparazzi and if I was going to sell the pictures. I said it depended on whether or not he was famous. He laughed and then bought me a bottle of water.

2. Ado, a 60-something-German man who knew no English, stopped me on our first day of cycling to give me a piece of fruit. It was filled with a seeded jam, and he laughed when he saw how much I loved it. It was a fresh fig! He picked me over 20 during our week of riding.

3. Kathy and I stopped to help Magda, the loveliest Brazilian woman I've ever met, with a leg cramp on the side of the road. A 6"5 young Italian guy from another tour company came over to see if we needed help. Kathy couldn't stop staring at him and after he left, she said she signed up with the wrong company. From a few people back, I hear Kathy's husband say, "Down, girl."

4. The climb (there were many) into Assisi was steep and windy. We were going so slow up the narrow streets that my handlebars would wobble back and forth (never a good sign). The tourists stood on the sides of the road and watched us climb, looking both shocked and impressed.

5. Eating dinner in Umbria in a small stone restaurant behind a church. Oil-soaked cabbage salad; breads with cheese, beans, and garlic; pasta covered with truffle sauce. This place is known for its mushrooms, and each course melted with flavors both thick and earthy.

6. Riding on a dirt road to Spello, I saw an old woman walking through her olive orchard early in the morning. Her dress was the color of eggplant; her hair as white as flour.

7. An old grandma hotel owner telling Judith, who is from Australia, to speak better English because she couldn't understand her. Judith, her eyes darting back and forth said, "But this is only English I know!" I laughed so hard, I had to sit down.

8. A cab driver in Rome driving so fast I felt the flesh on my cheeks stretch backwards. The song on the radio was Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue."

9. It rained on my Sunday in Rome, and everyone whipped out umbrellas, all colored. As I walked to the Spanish steps, my shoes completely filled with water, I felt like I was walking through a batch of colored balloons.

 

10. Standing in line my last day in Rome for a tour of the Vatican, I felt someone give me a hug from behind. I turned around to see Judith and Sandra from biking who had randomly scheduled the same tour time as me. The three of us stood like ducks in a row under the Sistine Chapel, our necks craned and mouths open, both out of admiration and awkward angle of viewing.

 

11. Sitting in Campo de Fiori, a flower and food market, for breakfast my last two mornings. I would watch the vendors set up their booths, eating my cream-filled something or other, and then I would buy plums and figs to eat as snacks throughout the day.