Under the Tuscan Hills

After wandering through the Vatican, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, The Forum and seeing all the artwork depicting Gods, Saints, Martyrs and Angels I began to wonder.  We don’t have monuments to such people any more but what we have is our own version of such.  We have movie stars, sports figures, rock stars and super-heroes.  All of our current demi-gods i.e. movies stars, sports figures, rock stars and super-heroes are all fake and we know it but we persist in believing in them.   Why is that?  Did the Ancients know that all those Saints, Martyrs and Angels were constructs and yet still believe in them?  Back in Medieval times people did not have television or movies and virtually everyone was illiterate so their form of entertainment was story telling.  Were all these wonderful stories of the demi-gods stories that were told again and again by the evening fire and became better and more wonderful with each telling?  

We have our own demi-gods, as I say, but there are versions of them in every civilization.  What is it in our psyche that needs them?   I don’t have an answer or even decent speculation about why this is so.  Just putting it out there.

The Tuscan landscape

Cycling in Tuscany has its ups and downs.   I am here to tell you that there are a LOT of ups.  I don’t think there is a level spot anywhere in this landscape.  Tuscany has many picturesque hill towns.  Do you know why they are called hill towns?  

IT IS BECAUSE THEY ARE ON TOPS OF HILLS!!!

I rode my bicycle across Canada last summer but since then I have basically sat on my behind as we travelled through the rest of our journey.   Granted I did a little cycling in Laos and Vietnam but it was only a little.  My fitness, apparently, slipped away unnoticed while we were gawking at Angkor Wat and Milford Sound.  Getting on a bicycle in Tuscany has created a terrific uproar in my quads and glutes who have been sending strongly worded messages to my brain.   My cardiovascular system has threatened job action and my lungs have been showing solidarity with them.  I remember cycling in Tuscany 10 years ago and I don’t remember this many hills.   Maybe they built more hills, maybe I am 10 years older or maybe God is getting back at me for my snide remarks.  Whatever the reason, it has been challenging.

Telen near one of the Medieval Towns

Telen, of course, kicked ass.   She does not ride anywhere near as much as I do but, in spite of that, she was flying up those hills with gay abandon.  Talk about humbling!   I am a good hill climber – in fact it is one of the best things I do on a bike (think about that – a little fat man whose best skill on a bike is climbing…. Just how bad is he at the rest of the skills!) so I was able to get to the flatter spots faster than Telen.   But I would only have to wait a little bit to see here come breezing on up as if there was no effort involved.   I guess there is a lot to be said for the power-to-weight ratio thingy...

At Montepulciano.   No power-to-weight ratio here - only weight to weight

We started off from Pienza.   That was, and still is, my favourite spot in Italy.   It is a little hill-town that was constructed around 1459 as a Renaissance showcase of urban planning.   It is a beautiful little town…on top of a really high hill.   We did a couple of loops out of Pienza to nearby Montepulciano and Montecchiello.  Each loop was about 50 km.   The aforementioned towns are hill towns as indicated by the “Monte” bit in front of their names.  It means “Mountain”.  To finish off - the ride up to Pienza at the end of the day is grueling.   At the end of the first day when I got to the very top and was about to ride gloriously into the town I felt a sudden sharp pain in my groin.  So my victorious ride into town was accompanied by colourful language punctuated by groans.

Telen enjoying the brief Pienza sunshine

Luckily Telen was able to whip out her magical acupuncture needles and set me straight.  Don’t get me wrong, she waited until we got back to our room and, no, none of those needles actually went into my groin.  As it was she kept rolling her eyes at my whining and repeated mantra of ow, ow, ow.   If she was thinking of putting those needles into my groin the whining would have been more like shrieking and the mantra would have been no, no, noooo!

From Pienza our next destination was Montalcino.  You guessed it.   On a mountain.  We rode for the first 30 minutes in the valley and that was the last time we saw level ground.  We had a 9 km ride up a mountain where the wind nearly threw us off the bikes and then a nine kilometer ride down into the next valley where we stopped, breathed, drank and started up the next climb.  Luckily at the top of the climb there was a little ristorante where we were able to eat and drink coffee.  Down briefly, then up another climb that seemed to go on forever.  Nothing looked so good as to come around a corner and see Montalcino…below us.   Montalcino is famous for it’s Brunello Wine but I, for one, think that seeing the rooftops from that road was far more intoxicating.

Montalcino from above

 We have been ensconced in Montalcino for a few days doing loops out into the countryside seeing the sights.  The climbs back into Montalcino have been challenging.  I certainly know where my climbing muscles are now.

Montalcino from Below

In spite of my whining, I have been enjoying riding around Tuscany.  The land has so much history.  People called the Etruscans lived here long before the Romans placed one stone atop the other.  It is basically farming country growing olives, grapes, tomatoes and all those other wonderful ingredients in Italian food.  The area is like a postcard everywhere you look with Villas on the tops of hills (hills again, groan) in the middle of vineyards with Cypress trees lining the driveways. 

  

The Tuscan countryside is beautiful if you can change your perspective on hills.  The last time we were here it was August during the hottest summer Europe has had in decades.  The temperatures were hanging around the mid to low thirties and the landscape was painted in shades of brown.  This time we are facing one of the coldest springs they have had in decades with the temperatures hovering around the single-digit to low teens.  And windy.   The landscape is painted in shades of green with streaks of naked tree branches.  Both sides of the same coin.

You cannot talk about Tuscany without talking about food.  I have been trying to reduce my intake of wheat and dairy products to try to maintain my svelte figure.   Ok, maybe the term “svelte” is a bit of an exaggeration – maybe “stout” would be a closer approximation.  To say that it is difficult to do that in Italy is a bit of an understatement.  If you do not eat wheat or dairy in Italy having a svelte figure is easy – the same way it is easy to be slender after a nuclear war.  Pasta and cheeses are part of meals the same way that wet is part of wine.

Telen enjoying the Pasta

They take food seriously here.  Everything shuts down about 1:30 to 4:30 daily as everyone goes home for lunch.  There is none of this North American power lunches – how fast can you swallow a sandwich while you are working?  It doesn’t matter what is in the sandwich – you cannot taste it anyway.  Then your blood sugar goes through the roof and your body pumps out massive quantities of insulin to bring it back down and, as a side-effect starts depositing fat around your middle.  The Italians sit down to lunch and savour the flavour and share it with their family and friends.  Food is important as a social lubricant and a pleasure to be shared.  You seldom see fat Italians in Italy.  You also seldom see Macdonald’s or KFC (thank goodness).

We have been the recipients of this style of eating.  We went out for dinner in Pienza at a family run restaurant and met a nice young couple from Norway sitting at the next table.  We ended up visiting with them for almost 3 hours over dinner and no one came to give us the bill until we asked for it.   We were not the only ones sitting in the restaurant for that long – almost everyone did.  The food was fabulous.

Wild boar is a specialty in Tuscany.  So, I had wild boar.  Interestingly the Norwegian man had suckling pig.  He ate the baby, I ate the dad.  How gruesome is that!  I got to thinking that wild boar is a nasty- albeit tasty- creature that can devastate the landscape like almost no other animal.   It is a dangerous beast that is armed with a pair of long lethal tusks.  Wild boars cannot be roaming the Tuscan landscape – there would then be a shortage of dogs, cats, and more importantly –cheese!  There must be wild boar farms.  Tame wild boars?   Isn’t that an oxymoron?

After dinner Telen asked the owner who did the cooking.   He said that his mother and grandmother did.  Telen then asked the grandmother where she learned to cook.  She said, “Mama!”  I guess Italian cooking is a family thing.

Telen Writes:

The Tuscany hills are indeed beautiful.  Think of scenes from “Under the Tuscan Sun” along with some Italian opera music in the background.

I have forgotten however about cycling up these hills.  It has been 10 years since we brought our bicycles here.  I think my subconscious deliberately blocked out the pain and agony I experienced then.  I tried all kinds of ways to trick my mind into keeping going up these hills.  I tried humming a tune, counting “1, 2, 3” in Cantonese and then in English and then in Italian.  My best one was to fantasize about a taxi suddenly pulled up next to me, offering to drive me and my bike up the long hills.

Food is delicious and proudly prepared by the locals here.  The pasta here is invariably “hand made”.   It is indeed wonderful with a definite al dente texture.  I tried making pasta at home in the past but the product always came out rather soggy.  We wondered into a kitchen today and discovered that the pasta maker is exactly the same one I own at home.  Obviously the trick in making good pasta is the dough.  I asked the lady in the store who was more than happy to give me some tips that her mama has passed onto her.  With lots of hand gestures, in broken English on her part and broken Italian on my part, we discovered trick in good pasta is to use 00 wheat flour, allow one egg per person, some water, a bit of salt and olive oil.  Knead for 5 minutes or so, not too long.  Add lots of love!

Yesterday at dinner, Rand actually ate all his vegetables including zucchini - which he detests normally.  I sampled it to figure out how the dish was prepared.  I confirmed with our server who, I believe, was also the owner of the restaurant that there was a touch of tarragon, fennel and garlic to flavor the dish.  His demeanor instantly changed from one of formality before to a warm Italian host who wanted to advise on you everything he knows about Italian cooking.  He was horrified that I would want a cappuccino at the end of the dinner because “it is too heavy for the digestion and would interfere with sleep”.  Instead he recommended an espresso and with a little milk if desired.  I did sleep pretty well that night.