This blog was only ever intended to be a self-motivational tool as part of a bigger strategy to lose weight and get active again ahead of a planned trip to Europe to watch 2013 UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Florence. That trip went ahead as planned and I had a ball. But a lack of words doesn't mean I haven't kept active.
When I last wrote, I was sitting in the airport here in Wellington about to head for Dubai on my way to Europe for a month of cycling and exploring. I'll keep the words to a minimum and tell the story of this adventure through photos.
Dubai was just a short stopover for a couple of days. Enough time to be amazed by the excess of wealth and the sharp contrast between the old and new, and the haves and have nots.
To be perfectly honest though, I didn't really find Dubai my cup of tea. The place was insufferably hot. At 51 degrees outside, at least there was the refuge of Ski Dubai for a couple of hours of indoor skiing. But I'd have to be pretty flush to sustain my liking of gin and tonics at $33 a pop at the bar beside the hotel pool. I did the touristy thing and took a 4WD trip out in the desert... together with about 50 other Land Cruisers and a good couple of hundred other tourists. It culminated in an 'authentic' Bedoin camp dinner. Tacky tourist experience at its most cringeworthy.
After a couple of days it was back on a plane and Italy. I hadn't really been that excited about Rome and only scheduled myself a couple of nights there before heading to the Cinque Terre. What a city though. The history, the people, the gelato... all amazing. I loved just wandering for hours, taking turns down interesting little lanes and enjoying the surprises that many rewarded me with.
From Rome it was a train ride up the coast to Liguria and the stunning Cinque Terre. I had booked myself a room right in the heart of the gorgeous village of Vernazza. Whilst being the most basic of lodgings, and up what seemed like a million steep, narrow stairs, being right in the village was fantastic. In the evening when the bulk of the tourists had left for the day, the place became magical. Affittacamere da Nicolina where I was staying also had a wonderful restaurant down in the piazza, right beside the water, which served delicious fresh local seafood. Ahhhh... both scenic and culinary heaven.
For a couple of days I explored the Cinque Terre. First by foot through the famous trails of the national park, walking from village to village through forests and vineyards as far as Manarola, then by boat the next day to the southern most village of Riomaggiore.
Best travel find ever, and a place I can't recommend highly enough is the B&B La Martellina. Home to owner Claudio and his big softie of a dog Emilio, this gorgeous bed and breakfast is a restored medieval defensive tower and mill on the banks of the river Arno, just 7km from the centre of Florence.
What a joy it was cycling back along the river at the end of each day. The little village had an amazing little pizzeria, where I did my best to order in Italian, much to the staffs' amusement! And Emilio became a good friend once I'd slipped him a slice of prosciutto from my pizza on the first night there.
Speaking of cycling, the whole reason I'd come to Europe was the road world championships. First up was the time trials. For the team time trials, I set myself up right beside Florence's iconic Duomo, a spectacular spot for a bike race!!
After watching Kiwi Linda Villumsen take silver in the women's race, I set myself up for the men's individual time trial down from the Basilica di Santa Croce and was treated to a wonderful display of time trialling from winner Tony Martin and medalists Bradley Wiggins and Fabian Cancellara.
The women's race was taken out by the great Marianne Vos for the Netherlands. The Kiwis rode a brave race, but it was great to see Reta Trotman give me a little wave on one of the laps. Reta's brother deserved a gold medal for his enthusiastic support on the side of the road too!! Cycling fans in general are pretty fantastic with their patriotic fanaticism always tempered with good humour and a willingness to enter into a bit of banter.
After two weeks of stunning weather things took a spectacular turn for the championship showpiece, the elite men's race. The temperature plummeted and I got to experience an eight hour long thunderstorm on the hillside above Florence. At the end of the day it was Portugal's Rui Costa who got to don the rainbow jersey and who broke the heart of the tifosi favourite Vincenzo Nibali who eventually finished fourth behind Costa, Joaquim Rodriguez and Alejandro Valverde. The real story though was the abysmal weather. I'll let the pictures do the talking...
Casualties of the day included my iPhone, my passport, cash and a Canon 1D MkIII. Thankfully with the help of a hair dryer all made a recovery... except the iPhone.
In between the racing days I of course explored beautiful Florence, and also made a couple of road trips to Assisi in Umbria and the medieval hill town of San Gimigniano in Tuscany.
No urgency then. I had a long and leisurely final breakfast at La Martellina and talked at length with Claudio as to how much I had enjoyed my stay. Most of the morning had gone before I finally packed the car and turned on the GPS to put in my destination for the day. It was then that my plans got thrown out the window. My Garmin GPS was predicting 14.5 hours of driving if I stuck to my original plans of avoiding toll roads!! I trusted Garmin a lot more than Google so it was the toll autostrada all the way to the French border and my plan for a lunch stop in Monaco turned into a juicy peach eaten whilst doing my best to navigate a reverse lap of the Monaco formula one circuit.
I had made pretty good time to this point so decided to take the coastal road from Monaco, through Nice and Antibes and Cannes. This took a further 3 hours! So it was back on to the motorways until I eventually made it to Nimes 11 hours after leaving Florence.
Nimes is a small city of 150,000 but its history is incredible. Built on a site that has been populated due to its natural springs since 4,000BC, it was a key city in the Roman Empire and contains some incredibly well preserved monuments of this time such as the Arena, Maison Carree, Tour Magne and nearby aqueduct the Pont du Gard.
My second stop in France was Chamonix, another long drive away but with enough time to take in an icon of the Tour de France, the giant of Provence, Mt Ventoux. Even though I was cheating by driving up, my little Fiat 500 rental struggled and I got the full sense and scale of this mountain as I drove from Bedoin up to the summit and then down to Malaucene.
Chamonix-Mt Blanc had been a dream destination of mine since I saw the 1988 Greg Stump ski movie The Blizzard of Aahhhs. This featured a segment of legendary extreme skiing pioneers Glen Plake, Scot Schmidt and Mike Hattrup ripping it up all around the Chamonix area including some incredibly steep couloirs off the 3,842m high, gondola accessed Aiguille du Midi. Whilst it wasn't ski season, the Midi was still a hub of activity from the tourists like myself taking in the incredible views of the roof of Europe to the alpinists venturing far outside the safety of the terminus.
I had another great hotel find in Chamonix, or nearby Les Houches to be exact. I thought I was in the wrong place when I walked into the plush luxury lodge like lobby of the Hotel Les Campanules. Officially this place is a two star hotel and I'd picked it purely on price. Believe me though, it offers up lots of 5 star level comfort and friendly hospitality. Another place I'd jump at the chance to go back to.
My whirlwind exploration of this small slice of France had come to an end too soon and it was now time to head back into Italy. Next destination was Lake Como a half day's drive away. My hotel here was high up above the lakeside tourist town of Bellagio on the famous Ghisallo climb of the Giro di Lombardia, the last of the 5 one-day monuments of cycling. Unfortunately the gorgeous sunny warm days of the first half of my trip hadn't returned and at the altitude that I was, the hotel was largely shrouded in cloud. On the days I had around the cycling, I took a short road trip to Milan for the day and explored nearby Bellagio.
The great feature of the hotel that I'd picked at Como was its proximity to the cyclists' shrine, the church of the Madonna del Ghisallo which sits at the summit of the iconic Ghisallo climb. I got quite a surprise as to just how close, as it was only 400m up the road from the hotel. A short walk early on race day then and I spent my time checking out the church, local market and interesting cycling museum.
The Madonna del Ghisallo is just as fascinating a museum as its neighbour the Museo di Ciclismo. Every wall of the small church is crammed with memorabilia of the great "campiones" and of those riders who are no longer with us. Even though I'm in no way a religious person, there was something special about being at this place on such a special day.
The crowds built throughout the day and I found myself a good spot on the barriers at the top of the climb and had a couple of entertaining attempts at conversation with a few of the people around me, including giving a photography lesson to a Russian (I think) who spoke only about four words of English. He gave me a big wave and a thumbs up from across the road after the race had gone by so I think we must have communicated okay!!
The atmosphere built as team cars arrived to drop off soigneurs at the top of the climb and then the far off sound of the TV helicopters signalled that the race was on the Ghisallo. Excitement peaked as plucky Frenchman Thomas Voeckler came past in one of his trademark adventures off the front of the peloton. Just half a minute or so came the peloton containing all the favourites including new world champion Rui Costa in his first outing of the rainbow jersey. And the crowds cheered and supported every rider as they came through right down to the very last battered and bloodied MTN-Qhubeka rider.
And then the crowds on via Gino Bartali quickly dispersed, heading for their homes or the nearest bar to watch the finale on TV and see Joaquim Rodriquez take a victory. It was clear from the considered nods and expressions of the many more elderly locals who had packed out the bar of my hotel that Rodriguez's was a fine victory too.
This pretty much drew my holiday to an end. The next day I drove back to Florence to drop off my rental car and to catch the high speed train back to Rome for a final day of sightseeing before flying home.
I don't know when I'll be back in Europe. I hope I don't have to wait too long.
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