The long drive, the naked lady, and a pigeon dinner

First off, I don’t want you to get too excited about the title of this post; the naked lady is, of course, referring to the Dolomites, and not anything illicit. Yes, this morning the geris consummated their visit to the Dolomites by doing the loop around Passo Sella, Passo Gardena, and two other passos that I can’t remember. The climbs were relatively tame, only about 500 – 700 vertical meters each, and it was apparently beautiful. I say apparently because there were about a bajillion cars / motorcycles / tour busses that needed to be avoided on the road, so it was a bit crowded at times. Apparently, on one day a year they close the road to all vehicles so that cyclists can ride the road alone, which is the best way to see the Dolomites. I believe it is in July, if only because Greg asked me if I would be able to come back here with the group in 9 months. He also mentioned that this next trip would probably be for 3 weeks.

A view from the Gavia pass.

Nothing goes together like mountains and beach loungers!

Spectacular.

1 down... 3 to go.

How would you like to wake up and see that every morning?

Just kidding; it’s only for 2 weeks.

In all seriousness, this town has got to have been the most hiking-crazed place in the world. It’s like a hiker’s Mecca, with trails everywhere. Interestingly, they describe distance on the hikes not in miles or kilometers but in the hiking time, which means you know exactly at what point in the hike that you are a wimp, because I think those average times are for wimpy old hikers. But because this is a ski town, all of the hikes start from the top of the mountain, so I took a tram to the top and went on a nice little walk. (For reference: it was a 90-minute hike and I did it in 80 minutes; I also ran the last little bit to make sure I wasn’t slower than a wimpy old hiker) Up top, there were about 50 beach chairs that people were sitting in, drinking coffee and eating some pasta. It was quite a sight. Unfortunately, it was a bit hazy, so all of our pictures are not quite as spectacular as the actual site, but hopefully they will give you an idea of what we got to see.

Greg wants Jen to know that he is taking care of her bike.

Riding up one of the passes. If you squint your eyes, you can just make out one of the legs of the woman.

Looking out over the valley.

So, after finishing in the Dolomites, it was off to Florence (or Firenze [fee–REHN–zay]), the jewel of the Italian Tuscan region. The drive, according to the people we asked, was supposed to take 6 – 7 hours. But we had learned in Northern Italy that you need to times by 150% what they tell you, because they zip up and down these mountain roads at Mach 10, and the gE-v only goes Mach 3. Anyway, we were planning on getting there really late. But it only ended up taking us about 4 ½ hours, so we got in at a decent time.

A typical view of the Tuscan countryside.

Now that we’re talking about it, I thought I would give you a quick lesson in Italian driving. We were talking about it in the car and came up with an apt analogy: Driving in the US is like playing a piece of Baroque music in a recital. It is very rigid, very organized, with rules, structure, timing, laws, etc. Driving in Europe and Italy in particular, is more like playing Jazz improv. There are certainly certain rules that apply (even here it’s against the law to run over pedestrians… I think), and the objective is still the same (don’t die, don’t die don’t die don’t die... there’s a church, there’s a bridge, there’s a statue don’t care, I don’t wanna die, don’t let me die… because living is good, and dying, not as good…), but it’s full of fluid movement, the application of those basic rules into a flowing, mutable, blended cacophony of improvisation that is pretty incredible to watch, if sometimes frightening to be a part of. So, the lesson is that if you come here, think more like Chick Corea than Johann Sebastian Bach.

Oh, and a bonus lesson: whenever you’re about to do something so completely outrageous that it would likely get you killed by a commuter in a fit of road rage if you did it in the states, simply turn on your emergency blinkers. It’s amazing what people get away with just by turning on their blinkers. Double parked while you go get a coffee and talk with the barista for 20 minutes? No problem, turn on your blinkers. Going in reverse and the wrong direction on a one way street? Blinkers on and it’s smooth sailing. Perhaps this is why the police here never pull people over for these stunts, because it your emergency blinkers are really meant to say “Give me a wide berth in every direction, because right now you have NO idea whatsoever what I am going to do and, quite frankly, neither do I.

More Tucanny.

For dinner that night, we went to a little trattoria in downtown San Casciano, which is where we are staying. It’s about 15 minutes outside of Florence, and is also the birthplace of Machiavelli. It’s a prototypical Italian town, an old, crumbling wall surrounding a few narrow streets that make up the downtown section. Our waiter for the evening was the twin brother of Grandpa Joe in the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Seriously, he looked, talked, and even moved like the guy. We were pretty pizza’d out, so we decided to do pasta, and the choices were a tagliatelle al ragu (red sauce), penne all’arrabiatta (spicy red sauce), buccolini ai porcini (mushroom cream sauce), gnocchi al pesto, and stracitelle al piccione (pigeon sauce). I asked the waiter what he recommended, and he said they were all good, but the pigeon sauce was a very typical plate for the area. I was pretty convinced that it was a provincial name, not real pigeons; you don’t have real cacciatore (hunters) inside of chicken cacciatore, right? But no, it’s a sauce that has honest-to-goodness scavenging, pooping, annoying, winged rats in it. I promptly ordered it, which for me is something I typically don’t do, given the fact that I have actually lost my lunch simply by watching “Fear Factor”. I’m a fairly skittish eater, and even the guys at the table looked askance at me a bit. Anyway, it was pretty good, except for the few bites I had that had pieces of pigeon spine in them; it tasted a bit like tuna fish. Maybe instead of “Chicken of the Sea” it should be “Pigeon of the Sea”.

May I get you some Pigeon Pasta, sir?

Anyway, this morning we got up and did a ride through Tuscany. While not nearly as spectacular as the mountain ranges in terms of raw beauty, this part of the country is just as beautiful. Driving through it you pass fields of grapes, olive groves, castles, forts, cloisters, and those driveways with tall, shapely Cyprus trees growing along the sides. It was a fantastic ride / drive which ended in a little town called “San Gimignano”, which was a city that saw its best days in the 1300s but now thrives on tourism and it quite pretty. One thing of interest at San Gimignano is that it tells a great story of what happens when you try to keep up with the Joneses: there are 7 towers that are the prominent features of the skyline, and each was commissioned by a rivaly family / guild that was trying to outdo the most recent construction, so they are all different styles and heights.

The towers of San Gimignano.

Piazza Cisterna, named for the cistern in the middle.

A really neat house on a back alley in San Gimignano.

I'm guessing these guys don't have an Expedition...

"My tower can beat up your tower!"

After that we headed into Florence, and had time to run into the Duomo, check out the Baptistry, wait in line to go to the top of the Dome, then decide we didn’t have time, then pick up our tickets for the Uffizi. We spent about 2 hours walking through, then headed out and got some dinner right by Ponte Vecchio (the famous covered bridge of Firenze).
Ok, I have to go now; the van has been in the middle of the road for an hour, and I’m worried that the battery will die since the blinkers have been on the whole time….

Santa Maria del Fiore, the Duomo of Firenze. It oddly looks more like the leaning tower of Pisa here.

The doors of the baptistry, by Ghiberti. Michaelangelo called them "The Gates of Heaven".

Looking up at the painting at the bottom of the dome.

Ponte Vecchio.

A look at Piazza Uffizi.

The Duomo.

Ciao!