it was a lovely breakfast. The coffee in Tuscany is a consistently good quality. The croissants are sweet and a bit flaky. It is a pity that the weather isn’t as good as the food. Today is rainy and cold.
Just a few seconds before departing I realise that our leader Radu (the rapid one) is wearing a LOT of warm clothes. So I panicked and grabbed an extra sleeveless cover-thingy from the van. Without which I might not have lived to tell the story.
Maybe it’s because I don’t ride in the rain very often. I don’t like rain when I’m cycling, and this rain seems quite cold. It gets worse and colder…. There’s a long downhill at the start today. Several km of downhill. But let’s be positive. Who knows what it will be like?
It is a brutally freezing cold downhill. So cold I go very slow to keep the wind under control. Slow, slow, slow. By now I am so cold that I start to pedal hard. Even the non-cyclist will realise that this doesn’t seem to make sense. Pedalling hard downhill, but going slowly? Yes, because I have brakes. Big fistfuls of brakes, just to make my legs work hard. But it’s too late. Even several km of uphill fails to warm me up, so I strip off my wet kit, find a dry jumper and jump in the van. Then Sarah jumps in, too. She is probably colder than I am. Nothing of her. I have more body fat than she has body. How her ancestors made it through the ice-ages is a mystery to me.
In the next town we huddle in a coffee shop, I ordering multiple hot chocolates and coffees, and our resourceful leaders call for more coffees and a bus. So the last 30km of riding is replaced by drier, warmer, safer conditions. After 350 km, it really doesn’t matter. Maybe come back next summer? Hmmmm….
But This is becoming a long and wordy post, so I’ll stop now and paste some photos of Florence (Firenze).
Some notes about the photos. That’s Victoria laughing like a drain, it’s the Arno river that runs through the city (and Pisa), and yes, the Statue known as David has got freakishly big hands. They look ridiculous. And his right arm is too long. Your elbow isn’t next to your hip bone, is it? His is! Weird. Just weird. Ok, so people adore this statue. I’m sure they see something in it. They wouldn’t just be adoring it because they’ve read somewhere that it’s really good….would they? People aren’t like that, are they? Phffft!
Me? Hey, I’m just saying what I think. And here’s some more thoughts.
They say every cloud has a silver lining. It might be true (or not), but today the rain and clouds and a quick bus trip meant that I had some extra time in Florence and visited the Galileo Museum. Ask me how good it was. Go on.
It was SO good. I could go there every day for a week. Yes, I’m a nerd. A big fan of medieval science and scientists. So, in celebration, tomorrow’s post will be 100% about the Galileo Museum [Excited shivering. Or am I still cold?]
Ciao from Firenze.
Bicycle travel. Motorcycle travel. Life. 