The Red List

August 25, 2009

More pics…

Filed under: Uncategorized — Michael @ 9:25 pm

 

Pictures from the last stretch

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 8:52 pm

August 24, 2009

The Last Stretch: Florence to Rome!

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 8:24 pm

I’m currently writing this blog post from the capital of the ancient western world for so many years, Roma. We arrived two  nights ago, finally marking the end to our trying journey. But for now I’ll back up a bit and talk about Florence and the ride to Rome.

After camping on the bank of the Arno, we woke up rather early and finished the last few kilometers into the city of Firenze, Italia (or Florence, if you like). Unfortunately, there really isn’t too much to say about Florence, as for us it was more relaxing than exciting (but then again, for us, the chance to relax is exciting). Anyway, we arrived mid-morning and bummed around the city a bit trying to find tourist information and a map. Florence was not only one of the most artistically rich cities in the world and the heart of the renaissance, but also the penultimate stop on our cycling journey, so arriving in the city meant quite a lot to us. After stopping for a coffee, which we were forced to stand up to drink, lest we pay an extra cover charge to sit down at the restaurant (so it is in Italy), we phoned our friend Freddie Ferraro to meet up. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned Freddie already in this blog, so I’ll give a little background. We met Freddie in a hostel in Girona, Spain, and hung out with him and some of the other guests for a night. After speaking to him for a while, we discovered that he was living in Florence for the summer, and would still be there when we were passing through. Furthermore, he offered us accommodations when we were there as long as he wasn’t too busy. We eagerly accepted in Girona, but didn’t really put too much thought into it then, as Florence was still too far in the distance for us to contemplate without breaking down in tears. Nonetheless, when we arrived, we gave him a call, and he met us by the magnificent Florentian Duomo.

The one thing that had stuck out most in our previous conversation (in Girona) with Freddie was the fact that he rode a custom built purple and white collapsable fixie-bike with white tires, so even in the huge crowd of people gathered in the piazza, he was not difficult to locate. He was also wearing a yellow hat. That’s pretty cool.

So, after we met up with Freddie, he gave us a wonderful cycling tour all around the city showing us all the cool spots in the city. At night we biked up to the Piazzale Michaelangelo to watch the sunset and get a good view of the cityscape (see pictures in previous posts), headed to a 4€ all-you-can-eat apperitivo for dinner, split a big Coca-cola over tourist-watching and listening to street musicians, and biked back to Freddie’s to crash for the night. The next day we spent sitting around the city not really doing anything, trying to recover from the biking, really quite an enjoyable activity.

After spending two nights at Freddie’s, we checked into a hostel for a few more nights (as his family was visiting, so there wouldn’t have been room for us) to try to meet some people and explore the city. Florence is really an incredible city just to go for a walk through, full of ancient architecture and outdoor museum exhibits and built right around the river Arno, whose banks are lined with old stucco yellow and sand colored houses leaning out precariously over the water. Certainly a city to spend more time in one day.

Florence, of course, is also known for its plethora of museums and renaissance art, so we decided that we must visit at least the Uffizi and Galleria Dell’academia. Both were simply marvelous, the Uffizi housing Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and the Galleria Dell’academia showcasing Michaelangelo’s David. If you are ever in Florence, you must at least see David. It’s placed perfectly in the museum, towering over all of the other pieces and inspiring awe as soon as it comes into view. Two thumbs up!

Our last night in Florence, we met a bunch of French kids in the hostel and so had one more chance to practice French on the trip (but in actuality, it kind of made speaking in Italian the next day a little harder). Very fun, but the next night, we decided we’d best be on our way and headed South towards Rome. Romeward bound at last!

Our first night of biking to Rome, we didn’t have to get very far, as we’d booked a vineyard tour and wine-tasting just 20 km south of Florence in the heart of Chianti. So, in no rush, we moseyed our way down into the beginning of the Tuscan hills and stopped in a little town called Strada in Chianti. In Strada we ended up meeting a bunch of very friendly Italians, who gave yet another boost to our growing faith in humanity, the main reason being that they gave us pie. Yes, pie. It happened around 10pm when we biked over to a little park with a couple families watching their children run around and asked for directions to the nearest place we could get some water or coca cola. They quickly indicated that there was a water fountain in the park, so we filled up and started making conversation. And then it happened. Out of nowhere, one of the women came walking out to us with two cups of cold milk and a few pieces of freshly baked blackberry pie. I don’t really know why, but I supposed we must have looked awfully pathetic. But man. Man oh man, small town folk sure our nice. Even the kids we met were nice and polite. They were also mature enough to slow down and circumlocute a little bit when they talked to us so we could understand what they were asking us better. They were the first kids in Europe that we could actually communicate with. Being able to talk to little kids after a long time of having to stare blankly at everyone that passed by and asked a simple questions is a strangely warm feeling. So, if anyone reading this ever gets the chance, I’d recommend it.

Anyway, the next day we went wine-tasting at a fancy vineyard in Chianti, Italy. It was the first one that popped up on Google, only cost 14€, and was exactly on our route to Rome. How could we refuse? The vineyard was built around a hilltop castle/villa named Castello Verrazzano, which more or less means “castle in the land of wild boars” (unfortunately, this fact would come back to haunt us…). Our fellow wine-tourists consisted of a really stuck up Canadian guy and his pregnant girlfriend (who really shouldn’t have been wine-tasting, I don’t think), an American family of four (the first words their 7 – year old kid said were “this is ten times better than the one in Nappa”), another American couple, and a French wine conossieur (probably not spelled right). The tour was very cool, and I got to see more wine than I’d ever imagined in my whole life, mostly stored in enormous barrels (some big enough to comfortably fit two horses inside). I’m still trying to think of how to describe the wine-tasting, and I’ve been struggling between the two words cool and silly. Probably the latter one fits better. Wine culture is still something too strange to me for me to actually acknowledge as being real. The ceiling of the tasting terrace was lined with San Jovessi grapes, however, which tasted delicious and which we could just reach up and pick whenever we liked.

After the tour ended, we packed up our bikes headed south yet again, not nearly prepared enough for the next 100 km in 100 degree weather. Needless to say (yet yes, I will still say it), the bike ride was rather painful, taking us up and down Chianti hill after Chianti hill, and through every hilltop and valleybottom village. It really makes someone just ask “why?”. At least a little ways into it, we ran into an exhausted German guy and then biked a few more kilometers with him before he left us in the dust. That was kinda cool though.

Forty kilometers and much suffering later, we arrived in Siena. A pretty cool Tuscan town, it unfortunately didn’t offer any cheap accommodations, so we continued to press on into the night, trying to get as far as we could towards Rome before camping for hopefully one last time. Despite what Google maps promised, the biking from Siena to Rome was not any easier than the biking in Chianti, still unbearably hot and just as hilly. At least that night, after the sun set, it started to get a little cooler. So, we biked and biked and biked and stopped for dinner in a small town and got some juice from the grocery store and met an old man who had ridden to Rome before on a horse to see the Pope and biked some more and biked some more. How’s that for a sentence?

One point of note, though, is that as we were cycling, at around midnight in middle-of-nowhere, Italy, we noticed a light on the side of the road. At first it appeared to be fellow wild campers simply enjoying a fireside chat, but upon closer examination, we realized that we were witnessing the beginning of a forest fire! A real one, started from who knows what, but a forest fire nonetheless. So, not near any sign of civilization, we biked as fast as we could to the next open building to warn someone (my spoke broke on the way, but it didn’t really matter). Strangely enough, the only open building that we could find was a sleazy Italian strip club. With no other choice, Michael, covered in sweat and dirt from a night of camping and way too many kilometers of biking and wearing a goofy helmet, walked into the strip club and got the owner to call the police. And that’s how we saved Tuscany.

As we continued on, warm in our hearts from our good deed, we began looking for a place to camp alongside the road and eventually located a grassy patch hidden from the highway in the yard of what appeared to be some kind of abandoned warehouse. So, we pitched our dirty stinking tent for the last time and went to sleep for our final night of camping. Little did we know, it would not be an ordinary night. Remember how a few paragraphs back I mentioned that the name of the winery we toured was Verrazzano, named after the wild boars of the region? Well, when we first found out about our forest friends we brushed it off, assuming it would probably not affect us at all. However, around 5AM we both awoke to the sound of footsteps outside the tent.

Our first thought was that it was the owner of the abandoned warehouse coming to ward us off his property, but when we heard no human voice, we realized that it must be something else. And indeed it was. After about 10 minutes of sitting perfectly still in the tent listening, we heard not only the sound of footsteps and munching, but a few loud Pumbaa-esque grunts, confirming that indeed we had been approached by a wild boar. Shit.

We waited a little bit longer and deeply regretted keeping all of our food right inside the tent, cowered over in the fear that the boar probably smelled the food and would likely charge the tent and ram his tusks right through the fabric into one of our bodies. We really didn’t want the trip to end like that, especially when we were so close to the end. Fortunately, we did have one weapon on our side. Previously that night, we had decided that the best way to ward off wild animals was to mark our territory with one of our scents, likely the only real sign they understood. Therefore, before going to bed, we urinated a large circle (which is surprisingly difficult) all around our wild campsite. Considering we survived the night, I am going to assume that last action was what did it. We actually saved ourselves by walking around in a circle while urinating. That’s not your typical hollywood ending, now is it?

Next day we awoke and prepared for our final and longest stretch of 100 miles. The most we had biked until that point had been about 70 miles, and those were only on the days when the majority of the biking was downhill or flat. That day, however, it was just as hilly as Chianti and Tuscany had been. Thankfully, the adrenaline produced from it being the last day of biking of the entire summer gave us just enough energy to make it to Rome. But man, it was hard. It was damn hard. We would have collapsed and died if we hadn’t known that Rome awaited us at the end. But now here we are. We did it. Rome sweet Rome.

We have a week to hang out here and just relax and visit the sites. The hostel is very nice, far superior to all the government-run Hostel International hostels, and the staff is very friendly. Hopefully nothing will happen to us in Rome. We’ll be back in Madison in a week. See you all soon.

Rich

August 19, 2009

more… PICTURES!

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 11:36 am

Pictures!

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 11:14 am

August 18, 2009

Le Cinque Terre and Posers

Filed under: Uncategorized — Michael @ 11:42 am

The following morning we awoke atop the Passo di Bracco, admired the clouds at eye-level, packed up our gear, and bid adieu to our fellow wild-campers before pedalling off on our trusty steel steeds towards Levanto, a sea-side town that marked the entrance into the 5-lands region (Le Cinque Terre). We were relieved to find that the ride was almost completely downhill, and were rewarded by the splendor of a scenic descent to sea-level past lush greenery, untouched woodlands, and tucked away distant villas by the water. When we arrived in Levanto, however, we realized that it would be a winding uphill battle with the mountains just to arrive some 5 km down the coast in Monterosso. While the Cinque Terre area is a wonderful place for hikers, and perhaps experienced mountain-bikers, it is no place for a fully-packed road bike. Well, at least not if one wants to enjoy it. And we were set on enjoying it. So, we payed a negligible €1,70 to take the train from Levanto a short distance to Corniglia, the central-most Cinque Terre town. We had to make sure the hostel there had openings, however, so, before boarding the train, we picked up a sheet with numbers from the tourist station and called the hostels office. It was a bit of a struggle to converse on the phone in Italian, and it took a series of returned calls and repeated sentences, but in the end it was confirmed that two beds were available and that we would have a place to stay.

Once in Corniglia, we lugged our bikes off the train, up the station stairs, and up yet another steep hill until we at last reached our destination. And boy, was it something to behold!

The town was perched atop a cliff overlooking the sea, in a chaotic clutter of vibrantly colored chalky buildings. Vines hung down from them and tangled on to the rocks below and gorgeous, rugged vinyards slanted up the mountainside, emitting a constant scent of grape. The sea was majestic and pristine. Only a ship or two at a time could be seen in the distance, making a romantic voyage from some small port into the big blue — otherwise it was all just water, perfect water, melting up into the horizon and turning light blue as the sky like the most subtle gradient. To the side, down a long series of rocky winding steps, lay a hidden cove, where some people were lying down on the sloped rocks and others swimming. We walked down and jumped into the water, which was — of course — the perfect temperature. A watery cave was to the right, and to the left one could inch one’s way along the cliffside to where, beneath the train station, a more proper, sandy beach lay. After spending some time there, alongside beautiful women applying sunscreen to one another’s backs, we climbed back up the stairs and explored the tiny villa atop the cliff. 

At the far end of town, just along the edge of the cliff, was a terrace that provided an excellent panoramic view of the sea and surrounding towns. We agreed to return at sunset, and ventured back in to town to find something delicious to eat. In a cozy pizzeria, a pizza-master and his apprentice baked us up two of the most delicious pizzas I can ever recall eating in my life. And they were SO good. SO GOOD. Mmm.. And after that.. after that! We had gelato! And it was SO good. Oh man. Soooo good. And we ate it on that terrace! And then the sun set.

I can’t really do justice to that last part — the sun setting. All I can do is urge everyone who is reading this to someday make their way over to Italy, along the Cinque Terre, and see for themselves. We will post pictures, though I don’t think they will even effectively convey the experience of feeling that sky and those mountains and the stillness of the secluded cliff-perched town as the big red ball falls lower and lower beyond the horizon.

Moving on…

The next day we awoke and boarded the train for another quick hop (€1,30) past La Spezia to Sarzana, where we continued biking along the coast to a beach-side town called Marina di Massa. It was a very easy ride, especially after the Ligurian Riviera, and along the way we encountered in two hours more bikers than I think we have seen all summer. Packs of 15 or so bikers would pass us every 5 minutes or so, and a lone biker would zoom by on the otherside in even shorter intervals. Marina di Massa itself wasn’t much to get excited about. It did, however, have a cheap sea-side hostel, complete with a great big neatly cut garden, and a free beach. We visited the beach for a bit, to celebrate the last we would be seeing of the Mediterranean, and headed into “town” for some more pizza. When we returned to the hostel I found a guitar available at the desk and was delighted to be able to play and hear music again — music had become a rare commodity… neither of us had been wise enough to bring iPods on the trip. So we sipped some wine and I played into the night. At one point a Polish kid named Michael came over and played some classical guitar, but it was really rather annoying because he was only interested in impressing us. He suggested we play later, for he had his own guitar in his room, and I said OK, but decided instead to go to bed.

The next day, we biked south to Pisa and stopped in the main piazza for the day to snap some necessary pictures of the Duomo and the leaning tower. But what we found to be much more fascinating, and much more amusing,  was the ubiquitous mass of tourists positioned in silly ways pretending to hold up the leaning tower. In just one patch of grass, some 5 or 10 tourists at a time could be seen in awkward poses, which, taken out of context, looked utterly ridiculous. So, to cause a little mischief, we whipped out our cameras and took photo after photo (and a walking video tour) of the tourists from different angles. As soon as someone realized they were being filmed or photographed, without the tower in the background, they would go scarlet and feel absurd. And it was absurd! Anyways, Rich intends to make a collage of the involuntary participants of our art project, and I will soon post a video of it all.

From Pisa, we were determined to make headway to Florence, where we were scheduled to arrive the following day. The ride marked our entrance into Tuscany, where hills abounded topped with cypress trees and old villas. Got a little lost because the signage was poor, but locals were always eager to help. We camped behind a park that night, next to the Arno, and woke up refreshed and ready for the Renaissance. Florence lay a mere 15 km to the east of us. Yes, we had come from Lisbon, and were now — many weeks later — approaching Florence, Italy.

August 17, 2009

Broken spokes, too steep slopes, and a man named Happy

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 6:03 pm

Despite us having anticipated 3 days of hard biking in the previous post, the ride to Genoa was surprisingly easy! The morning we left, it actually rained, in fact, leaving a cool cloud cover to protect us from the hot Italian sun as we traveled. All the way south to the Ligurian mountains was completely flat, and we made wonderful progress the first day, traveling over 100km. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday as well, so it was very difficult to find any open shops for food. We did manage to stop for our first (of many) gelato, however, which was well worth it. Italy in August on a Sunday is a sight in itself to behold. Almost all of the small towns are dead quiet, most of the population having gone away for vacation and many of the storefronts having hung signs on the windows that simply say “closed for August.” Silly, no? I think it is.

That night, we biked up into the foothills surrounding the Ligurian mountains and camped in a small green patch of land in between two farm houses. No police or angry farmers shooed us away, so I can count it as a good night of camping. The mountains we biked through were absolutely stunning, too, and our path led us on a mostly flat ride in between them. Surrounding our campsite were steep green hills on either side, and a valley river to the east. When I awoke in the morning, I climbed out of the tent before Michael to witness a sunrise through the mountain fog. It was eerie and beautiful, the first pure white sunrise I’ve ever seen. I will post pictures tomorrow from an internet cafe, probably, as the hostel computers will not allow access to anything but internet explorer (also silly).

After awaking in the mountains, we began our journey towards Genoa, a huge port town in Northern Italy. Of course, not more than an hour into our ride, as we passed through a very small and quaint mountain town, I heard a loud snap! followed by a cuchunk cuchunk cuchunk coming from my rear wheel. I stopped and turn my bike upside down to see what the problem was, only to discover that two of my spokes had snapped clear in half! I suppose having bent my wheel a bit on the Costa de Azahar in Spain had put too much stress on some of the spokes on one side, causing them to snap. Somehow, though, luck has followed us throughout this trip, and for every unfortunately, we have found a fortunately. The “fortunately” part of the story in this case occurred when a very nice Italian (there are so many here!) noticed I was having bike troubles and indicated that right across the street and around the corner there was a bike mechanic, perhaps the only one in the whole mountain pass! What luck! So, in a matter of minutes, he installed two new spokes and unbent my wheel, leaving me happy and good to go. Hoorah!

The following part of the bike right was simply breathtaking. As we weaved our way down windy road after windy road to the Ligurian coast, we found ourselves surrounded by hill after hill and quaint mountainside villa after quaint mountainside villa, with little patches of fog settling in the valleys. One surprising thing, however, was the sheer number of seriously hardcore Italian bikers we saw going straight up the mountain slopes as fast as we were going down them. That’s intense, my friend, just plain intense. I mean, damn, you shoud have seen them all. Needless to say, we exchanged more “ciao”s during that ride than I ever could have imagined.

A little bit later, we found ourselves in Genoa, just two big cities away from our destination, Rome! Genoa was a marvelous city, full of sailors, maritime edifices, and cheap food. Built on a hill, though, the city unfortunately boasted only one crappy government-run hostel on the very top of the highest part of the above-mentioned hill. Might not be too bad for backpackers that can just hop on the bus, but for us, it was bad. Deciding we had no other choice, however, we spent the next hour and a half pushing our bikes to the very peak of the city, about 5km of winding roads straight up.

In terms of accommodations, the hostel in Genoa was the worst yet, offering no kitchen, only expensive internet access, and seeming to have been built out of an old hospital ward (I gathered this from the “call nurse” buttons in the bathroom–seriously, there’s no way a hostel needs those). In terms of things other than accommodations, however, the hostel was marvelous. The view of the city, the mountains, and the sea almost made the hike up there worth it. We also met a man from Sicily bound for Barcelona, who turned out later to be our roommate. Having only heard devious things about Italians from the South, we were at first skeptical, but decided to go and introduce ourselves nonetheless. We soon found out that he was a very nice man who spoke absolutely no English (providing us with a good chance to practice our Italian). Furthermore, he went by the name of Felice, Italian for “happy,” and a happy man he was. He showed us how to take the bus down to the town center for free and told us many stories about his life in Sicily. Even though we couldn’t understand him terribly well, we managed to deduce that at least one of his stories involved him meeting a girl on a train and “loving” her all night long, and then never seeing her again. Such is the way of the Sicilians, I suppose… Anyway, I guess he deserved the name Felice.

We spent the rest of the night in Genoa practicing Italian with other hostelers, the majority of whom were from the South of Italy, giving us ample opportunity to speak the language. We also met a funny looking man from France who was playing flute on the street in Genoa to afford accommodations and who told us a story of how he once had a girl who was stolen from him by an Italian man (probably Felice). A good night, overall, despite the poor hostel.

The next morning we departed Genoa for Le Cinque Terre, completely unprepared for what was to be the hardest bike ride yet. Throughout the day, we scaled about six mountains all the way up from sea level to their peaks, over and over again, shifting to the lowest gear each time and slowly making our way along the coast. The ride, however, despite being the most difficult, was the most beautiful, our path sandwiched the entire time by the blue Mediterranean to the south and the green Ligurian mountains to the North, dotted with little Italian villas populated by old folk who say Ciao to all the strangers who pass by. We stopped at a little beach town about half way through the journey and managed to find a pizzeria exactly on the beach selling entire, thin-crust, delicious pizzas for only 5 € each. What a deal! One thing we have learned about Italy is that not only do they like to make wonderful food, but they like to make it in large quantities and sell it for very low prices. Okay by me.

That night, we camped on the highest peak of our journey, at the end of the Passo di Bracco. Having not originally planned to camp, but instead just take pictures by a very cool stone tower on the mountain peak we stumbled upon, we soon realized that on the other side of the tower, there was yet another pair of wild campers! I guess we’re not the only crazy ones out here. So, we asked them if we could share there sight to camp on, and they eagerly responded with the Italian equivalent of “mi casa es su casa.” We got a good night’s sleep, and headed in the morning to the Cinque Terre!

August 8, 2009

Geneva, CERN, and Scenic Switzerland

Filed under: Uncategorized — Michael @ 12:28 am

The train ride from Avignon was short enough. Maybe 2 hours and a bit. Time seems so unimportant lately. May have been 5 hours for all I know. In any case, once we hung our bikes from the racks and seated ourselves in an empty car, we were approached by two shady looking characters. Actually, I was approached — Rich was asleep.

The two men handed me a piece of paper that said something about an 8 year-old boy who was “missing”. The image of the boy weeping was obviously photocopied, and the intentions of the men distributing the slip were obviously disingenuous. When the men asked — or more accurately, demanded — that I dole out 5 euros (which I truly didn’t have at the time) and I refused, they proceeded to threaten me and eventually even assaulted me. They punched me in the leg below the kneecap and poked at my eyes with two fingers (wah, wah). But I resisted and, worried that no one would come to my rescue, roused Rich from his deep slumber. He awoke and, in a daze, presented the men with 5 euros on command, mistaking them for train conductors… It was an unfortunate turn of events that left us fuming for the remainder of the ride.

We switched trains in Lyon and arrived in Geneva, French Switzerland at around 1 pm.

Geneva is an international — and expensive!– city, full of UN and Red Cross peeps, as well as the occasional high energy physicist. One such physicist, the father of a good friend of ours, agreed to accommodate us for two nights in the apartment he was staying in. After we devoured some Swiss chocolate and Swiss cheese, Rich and I strolled along the Rhone and set eyes on Lac Lèman from afar, while carnivals lit the streets in all directions. A 50-foot (I’m guessing) fountain shot up from the lake like a geyser and provided the perfect compliment to the ethereal glow of reflecting pristine waters and the Swiss-style buildings lining them.

The next morning, our host offered to drive us out to CERN, just on the French-Swiss border, where the most impressive scientific feat of the day was, and still is, taking place (data collection hoping to prove the existence of the Higg’s field — wiki it).  You may be familiar with the facility from having read the book Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown. Aside from the production of antimatter, CERN is also known as being the founder of the internet (an international science facility so large requires novel communication technology). Needless to say, it is a dream hub for folks like us majoring in Physics. And the tour, along with an enrapturing conversation with our host about the methods used in creating collisions, the nature of invariable masses, the Higg’s boson itself, and even the potential manipulation of “volumes” wherein a piece of matter or an organism could be effectively miniaturized (that is, its atoms could be “shrunk” by adjusting the smaller components’ “treading” through the field), was one of the best treats thus far on the trip. Furthermore, it marked the completion of our third subgoal.

That afternoon we bought our tickets to Milano for the next day, which proved difficult as few trains could accomodate the bikes (the ticket ended up including 4 station transfers over a period of 7 hours). We then walked about Geneva a bit more and crossed a bridge into the old town where, near the major museums, we found a garden filled with enormous chess boards and chess pieces. We played a game all the way through, surrounded by old cigar-smoking men wasting their own evenings with Chess tournaments (and checkers) and then moseyed on to a grocery store where we gathered ingredients for Pain Perdue, a dessert dish we had been wanting to make since discovering it in Narbonne from our gracious couchsurfing hosts.

Anyways, we made it. It wasn’t perfect, but we made it and enjoyed it all the same. We shared it with our host, as it was the least we could do, and he suggested we stroll down to the meeting point of Geneva’s two major rivers. The view was amazing. The rivers met and, though they touched, the colors were distinct. Mountains surrounded us on all sides. It was really quite a sight.

The next morning, on the 7th, we thanked our host and headed for the train station for a long journey to Milano, Italia. It was a 7 hour stretch of 12-18 minute transfers — just enough to be stressful — but we managed nonetheless. The scenery was spectacular. Enormous alpine mountains with cascading rivers and lush green valleys topped with quaint old Swiss towns, each with their cliff-perched clocktower churches, begged us to return someday. Everything was overwhelmingly beautiful. I think it a shame that we could not spend more time in Switzerland. But alas, money and time have had their way with us, and Milano awaited.

During the train ride(s) there, the transition from French to German to Swiss Italian to full-fledged Italian was interesting to observe. When we at last arrived, we searched for a tourist office at the main piazza, just in front of the city’s epic cathedral, but found it to be closed. We asked around for quite a while until we finally found a hostel some blocks away from the piazza. Hence the blog post.

At the hostel, we met a few characters, one of whom — an Italian fellow, some 40 or so years old — decided to cook for us our own pasta with extra butter in the sauce and the “correct” brand of noodles (he dismissed our store-bought brand). It was an opportunity to practice my Italian and it certainly helped add to the enjoyment of the dish. We ate alongside some folks from California and England (and Utrecht, Netherlands) and conversed with them for some time before wandering the streets at night.

We awoke the next morning and decided to stay yet another night. Milano simply hadn’t been given due attention. So, we — along with our fellow hostel-mates — explored the city in full; we walked in awe through the enormous Duomo, and laughed at shoppers in the 19th century glass-roofed mall (I can recall seeing Gucci, Prada and McDonald’s all lined up next to eachother), visited a castle/fortress and a free aquarium, and finally bought some groceries for lunch and dinner at the hostel, at which point we turned around and headed back. And now I am typing. Or was… I am finished now, you see!

Tomorrow we embark for Genoa on the coast. We anticipate 3 days of hard biking.

Arrivederci

August 4, 2009

Arles and Avignon

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 12:21 pm

We biked to Arles the following afternoon. The ride was relatively flat, save a large hill at the beginning, but a strong sea breeze forced us to pedal as hard as if we were going uphill the whole time. We got there in the late afternoon, but got a little confused as to how we should get into the city, as the only apparent way over the Rhone river into the main town was a bridge with an interstate highway across it. So, we ended up sneaking through the bushes into a small neighborhood and then following the signs to another, less used bridge into the city.

On the way to our next couchsurfer hosts, some dumb adults tried to steal from our bike bags while we were right next to them, but we warded them off. Damn shame we have to worry about such things. Damn shame. Our couchsurfing host was a laid back electrician named Dominique, who shared a profile with his friend Julian and basically ran a free hostel. At one point, he said, he was the only couchsurfer in Arles, and just had a constant flux of travelers for about a month. Tres cool.

We went out that night, and wandering around the town, ended up at an outdoor free concert led by a French band singing all sorts of Bob Marley hits, completely surrounded by Europeans attempting to dance. The funniest part, of course, was hearing him sing Exodus with a very rasta accent and then pausing at the end of the song to say “Merci beaucoup.” It frankly didn’t fit. The following day we spent lazing around the flat and wandering in and out of the town to get groceries or use the internet. When Dominique came back to hang out with us, he put in one of his all-time favorite movies, a very old Peter Sellers film starring Woody Allen (who couldn’t have been more than 20 in the film) called “What’s new, Pussycat?” They sure do have odd tastes in France. Not bad at all, just peculiar. Unexpected, to say the least…

Next day, we downed a can of ravioli and started making our way to Avignon. This, our last bike ride in France, was a clear indicator that we were in Provence. Surrounded by fields of green, hillsides of purple, and horses of white, the ride was gorgeous, simply splendid. Unfortunately, we didn’t end up getting the chance to stop at a vineyard as we’d previously planned, but nonetheless, the ride was beautiful.

When we got to Avignon, we were more than surprised by its grandeur. I had never even heard of the city until the trip, but apparently, the Pope used to live here, and had several ornate buildings constructed exactly to his liking. We haven’t visited his Palais yet, but even from the outside it is quite magnificent. We went out last night for a kebab and a beer with our couchsurfing host here (getting accommodations in France for free has been almost too easy, we’ve only camped twice in the whole country!), and heard yet another French band playing classic American songs like Stairway to Heaven or Knockin’ on Heavens door. So silly, if you ask me!

Today is our last day in France, and it is very hot. Tomorrow we leave for Geneva at 8 AM by train, and then a few days later for Italy. Just a little more than three weeks left, and we’ll have completed our journey!

Montpellier and beyond

Filed under: Uncategorized — rpang @ 12:05 pm

As soon as we got to Montpellier, I added it to my list of places I’d like to live one day, right next to Girona and Lisbon. When we entered the city, we immediately detected a fun, youthful vibe from its inhabitants. A big university town, Montpellier was overrun with students, bookstores, and cheap food. First things first, of course, we moseyed over to tourism to get a map and then over to the supermarket to get a box of ice cream sandwiches. Such is life on the road in Europe. After that, we began walking around the main city and exploring its central Plaçe de la Comédie. A city of festivals, Montpellier exhibited a long line of aerial photographs of Earth’s many scenes right down the center of the plaza. Next to those were a set of chess tables in which a kid who couldn’t have been more than 15 went around to each, playing and winning game after game of chess with the old men who resided there. Later, as we waited for our couchsurfing host to finish up with work, I wandered over to a very cool looking book store, built of several diagonally stacked floors all sharing an enormous window that looked out over the city. The only problem was that all the books were in French. Still, it was enjoyable to wander about and open books up and pretend like I understood every word.

After our short exploration of the main plaza, we met with our couchsurfing hosts and were led by bike (our favorite kind of vehicle) to their apartment in the middle of town. Once again, we were not at all disappointed, and shared a lovely night of food and conversation in their apartment. Compared to the Spanish desert we were stuck in more than a month ago, all of this was still heaven.

The following day, we wandered about Montpellier some more, eventually ending up in an English bookstore in the late morning. After a month and a half in non-English-speaking countries, it was quite a relief to find a whole store full of pieces of media in our native tongue. If I ever do end up back in Montpellier for an extended period of time, I shall work in that bookstore.

Though we didn’t discover it until we arrived in the city, our days in Montpellier coincided with the tail end of the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier Languedoc-Rousillon, a month long festival occuring in Montpellier every July. We picked up a schedule for it at Le Corum, Montpellier’s big theater/opera house, and decided that later in the day we would attend a free film and try to understand it. Thus, when later in the day rolled around, we went to see the film. Because it was some fancy independent art film, there was a short interview at the beginning with the director of which we didn’t understand a word. Still, though, we pretended we were locals, clapping when they clapped and lauging when they laughed, secretly hoping they weren’t laughing at us. When the film started, we understood even less, except that some musician from France was born, lived, played some music, and died at some point within the last century (give or take a century). Furthermore, because they didn’t have much footage, about half of the film just showed stock clips of random objects like cars or ancient ceramics spinning around while someone narrated in French about the musician’s life. Needless to say, it wasn’t as captivating as Harry Potter had been.

After the film we returned to the apartment for more food and conversation, always appreciated, and went to sleep early so we could get to Nimes by midday the next day. And so we did, the bike ride to Nimes was very easy and passed through several small towns bustling with fruit markets in the morning. Getting inside the city of Nimes, however, took a little bit of effort, as the whole historical center was surrounded by a shell of industry and commerce. Once inside, though, we realized what a nice city it really was, full of beautiful gardens and ancient architecture. It even boasted an enormous coliseum, yet another sign that we were getting closer to our final destination, Rome!

In Nimes, we again found a place to stay for the night with some cool couchsurfers from Lyon, but living in Nimes for the summertime. They were a bit older than us, having just finished undergrad, and very friendly. When the night came, we walked down the street to get some Turkish kebabs, and then sat on their terrace to watch over the city and dine. After that, they led us to a fun little courtyard club with a live band that was completely hidden from tourists. There we, as expected, enjoyed fine wines and fine conversation. Yet another pleasant night in France. Hoorah!

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