After a relaxing ten days in Greece, we arrived in Italy well-rested and ready to jump back into the fray. Our Airbnb, just around the corner from the Vatican, was spacious and hip:
But its best feature became evident when our host threw open the window in one of the bedrooms and told us to get a whiff of the “secret bakery,” a wholesale outfit that supplies pastries to neighborhood restaurants and cafes but will deal with you on a retail basis if you know how to find it in an unmarked internal courtyard next-door to our apartment.
We could have happily hunkered down in our apartment save for occasional sorties downstairs to the bakery. But instead, our two days in Rome turned into an all-out sprint. On the first day, we did another of the ubiquitous “Big Bus” tours to get an overview of the city, riding the whole circuit with a quick stop to see (and toss coins into) the sensational Trevi Fountain, which I find so charming because it’s crammed into a tiny little piazza.
From there it was off to the Vatican, which we visited to the hilt. We walked the grounds outside the museums with a guide and then into the museum and the Sistine Chapel.
After a half-hour looking straight up (and over, at the Last Judgment), we spilled out of the Chapel and into St. Peters at just the right moment, as the late-afternoon sun streamed through the dome windows and created a spiritual bath of light. We lingered in front of the emotionally moving Pieta for a good fifteen minutes and talked about the biblical story. Mom and her boys had a teary embrace afterwards.
Then we climbed up into the dome to take in the various views: first from the dome cupola down into the nave . . .
. . . then, once on the outside, panoramic Rome. . .
. . . and then from just behind the statues of Jesus and the disciples that line the top of the cathedral’s façade.
From there, we caught a late dinner at a hip place down the street from our apartment – their specialty was a “traaaaanch,” a cross between a bruschetta and a flat-bread pizza – and then hit the secret bakery just before closing time.
The second day started early with a trip to the Colosseum, which mostly just creeped out Nora, because our mediocre tour guide played up the grotesque bloodsport aspect of it, in which prisoners and slaves were made to fight professional gladiators to the death, and thousands of animals were killed for entertainment, rather than what I understand to be an equally common use: fights pitting professional gladiator against professional gladiator, who were celebrities in their day and did not typically fight to the death. In any event, the visit produced a bunch of obligatory pictures but was less than successful.
The Roman Forum was better, with a solid audio tour full of explanations of the high-priest vestal virgin priestesses, Caesar’s cremated resting spot, and the like, but was also just cool because of the Forum’s sweep and scale compared to the more limited Acropolis. Wandering around the dozens of partially intact structures that make up the Forum, one can far more easily imagine antiquity life.
Leaving Rome, we headed north to Tuscany for a bike trip in the countryside. The trip began in Pienza, which was, even in mid-May, already overrun with tourists, perhaps because it is impossibly picturesque, with narrow cobbled streets, sweet little piazzas in front of gorgeous churches, and views out over the Tuscan countryside from the bluffs on which the town sits.
From Pienza, we were supposed to do an initial warm-up ride – six or seven miles down the road and then back again. We took a picture at the very first stunning overlook and were giddy at the prospect of another three days of the same.
But soon after, we knew we were way in over our heads. The hills in Tuscany are steep, and the roads lack bike lanes and are full of traffic, including weaving cars driven by wine-buzzed tourists, motorcycles zipping by at light-speed, and pelotons of real cyclists on speedy road bikes traveling far slower than the cars and motorcycles but still roughly twice our rate on our measly hybrids. Nora and I both questioned whether we could do it and even discussed canceling. But we decided to forge ahead, both because of the cost of the trip (one of the more expensive segments of our entire 4-month journey) and backed by the hopeful view that we could rely extensively on the support van – normally available, I think, only for breakdowns and emergencies – to tweak and, in some cases, dramatically alter (and shorten) the roughly 30 mile routes each day from town to town.
Launching the next day, it was indeed hard. It was a loop ride, so we were returning to Pienza, which was nice. But the climbs were crushing, and Nora and Connor in particular were suffering. On the uphills, we often had to stop and walk. Indeed, walking was faster than chugging up the hills in the lowest gear of our bikes.
But then the trip started to grow on us. Even as we struggled up the hills on the first day and wondered if we’d live to tell the tale, the day produced one of those transcendent travel moments: As we traversed the Tuscan countryside on a Sunday morning, we were treated to peeling church bells from all sides. We stopped at a monastery – marked on the map we had, but name now forgotten – and stood outside as a choir of monks sang inside one of the sanctuaries.
By Day 2, the ride was challenging and still plainly beyond our capacities, but kind of great. Nora got an electric bike, so she was more capable of kid encouragement and management, a task which had mostly fallen to me on Day 1.
And on Days 2 and 3, we started off with long, 12 km downhills, which felt a little like skiing and was thrilling for the boys, especially when their bike computers showed they were hitting 40 km per hour. We made another stop at a church, this time at the beautiful Abbey of Sant’Antimo, which was a prime pilgrimage stop in its day, and fueled up on snacks and spirituality for the rest of the day.
By the time we hit the tiny little town of Chiusure on our last day for pick-up and transport to Siena – part, once again, of our generous use of the support vehicle! – we were grizzled biker veterans. Here’s a triumphant photo at the final overlook.
This put us in a great mood for a stroll through Siena. . .
. . . and dinner at Tar-Tufo, a truffle restaurant for my birthday where every course, from amuse-bouche to dessert, came topped with shaved truffles.
It was a great start to Italy and put us where travel is most fun — right out at our limits.
Fanatical Sabbatical 