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.
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| 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.
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| 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...
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
