Setting the record straight!

So, to set the record straight, yes, that was me asleep on the sofa last night. Never before have I fallen asleep like that - I don't even remember it happening. Anyway, that is not in dispute. I had, however, written a considerable amount of a blog post before narcolepsy took hold. What happened to it is anyone's guess - I always write my posts on my tablet, and for some reason it had not auto-saved while writing, so Helen couldn't pick up where I'd 'left off' last night. Brownie points to her for having managed to write that entire post after I had crashed out - it took all the effort I could muster just to crawl upstairs and brush my teeth before climbing into bed (and I don't even mind admitting that I gave into my rebellious side and switched off the electric toothbrush BEFORE it had finished its three-minute cycle).

Talking of cycle, I rose at half past six this morning - early, if not quite as early as the cats would have liked, but their persistence paid off in the end, and while I could probably have stuck it out for an hour longer, I decided to get up and give them their breakfast in the hopes that they would stay downstairs with me, leaving Helen to sleep some more (after all, I had gone to bed at around 9pm, and Helen didn't make it to bed for another two hours after having to rewrite the entire blog post, so I figured she deserved a little extra sleep to catch up).

Anyway, back to cycling: I was still feeling a little groggy, but by 7.45am I had mustered the enthusiasm to go for a bike ride. I'd planned a new route online yesterday, heading for the first time through Pescia. It was only 8.5 miles long, but I wasn't sure what kind of climbing I would need to do - and besides, I'm simply working on getting into a regular routine at this point, so longer rides will have to wait for weekends once I've got Helen back on the tarmac.

It's a nice steady descent all the way into Pescia for three miles - those three miles promised to be a little less fun in reverse, but still nothing compared to the climbs I've done recently. Once through Pescia, I turned left to cross the river and started to climb up towards the village of Querceta. When driving towards Pescia from the autostrada, you can see a village perched on the ridge to the right of and overlooking Pescia - there is a very prominent large, red house/villa, which makes it something of a landmark (for us at least). Anyway, that is where I imagined my cycle route was going to take me. It was a fairly short, but really quite steep climb - at one point I ran out of gears and had to get out of the saddle just to keep moving! It was only short though, and once up the hill there there were some lovely views back across Pescia with the Duomo in the foreground. However, the place with the red villa was in the next village up, so I'll have to amend the route for next time.

Pescia and its duomo.

Pescia

After a short descent, I crossed the river to the north of Pescia and was soon on the gradual climb back up towards Pietrabuona - just outside of which I was overtaken by the first of the day's cycle clubs heading up into the hills beyond our house. They came past me fairly easily, but I managed get a snap of them before they got too far away. I'm sure they'd have found it harder to overtake me had I not already done 6-7 miles and besides, they were in a peloton and that's an unfair advantage (at least, that's what I'm telling myself to make myself feel better).

A bit blurry, but I was going fast (although they were going faster).

My gears needed tweaking when I got back - the chain was rubbing the derailleur in some gears - so I put the bike in its workstand and, with a cup of tea, tinkered with it for 15 minutes as the morning warmed up, It really is beautiful cycling weather here early in the morning, I must get back into my early morning routine and make the most of it.

By the time I'd finished sorting my gears out, Helen had finished her own daily workout session, so after a shower and putting some washing on the line we sat together on the patio, having a late and leisurely breakfast in the warmth of the morning sun.

After lunch today, we were torn between what we felt we ought to do and what we felt like doing. After much deliberation, you'll be pleased to hear that the rest of this post isn't (for once) full of strimming,  language issues or trips to the bank or supermarket!

We jumped into the car and headed out - we'd talked about revisiting some of our old haunts further south versus places nearer to us that we hadn't yet explored. The latter won, I think partly because deep down we knew it was more helpful by means of research for our holiday business (and in no small part because we knew more tourists awaited us further south).

Decision made, we headed north towards Abetone to see what ski resorts offered during the summer months (and to recce the cycling terrain of course, in case one day I get further than Vellano). Having looked at the route on Google Maps, we had two options from here: one was to head towards Vellano and beyond, and the other was to take the Sorana road - a road used by the lorries that visit the numerous paper mills along the valley. Google said the latter was ten minutes shorter (at 1 hour 15 minutes) and the map suggested that the road was somewhat straighter, so was the option that got our vote.

It was a twisty-turny route to say the least, but interesting nevertheless and with plenty of picturesque views along the way. Somewhere about halfway along the route before we joined the 'main' road from Pistoia to Abetone, the scenery changed: the woods felt other-worldly, and we soon came across a large camp/caravan/motorhome site amongst the trees, complete with small chapel. I say 'large' campsite, but there a were only half a dozen motor homes there, as well as the ubiquitous fruit van selling its wares, a bar and alimentari - which all seemed a bit weird considering the remote road we'd been climbing for half an hour.

Shortly after we passed a sign saying:

Standing on the 44th line of latitude.

We deduced that we had just driven across the line of 44 degrees of latitude. It was so strangely intriguing that we had to stop for a photo - crossing this imaginary line gave you a real sense of your place on this globe of ours.

As we got close to the main road from Pistoia, things took a turn for the unexpected again - the villages became more civilised (with bars, restaurants, pharmacies, ATMs...) and inhabited. That was not what we had expected at all after driving along such twisty roads for so long, all the time gaining altitude - but I guess the relatively easy road link with Pistoia makes all the difference. Anyway, we passed through many a small village, all dotted with restaurants, bars, post offices, alimentaris and all manner of civilized establishments. They were all very pretty too, with a nice feel to them, some of which I'm sure we'll be revisiting.

Cutigliano

Piteglio

Within 45 minutes of leaving home, we felt like we were driving through another country, such was the difference in scenery, architecture and so on. As we neared the ski resort itself, things got a bit more tacky - not in a bad way, it just felt a bit cheaper and more homogenised, and I think we could have been in any one of a number of resorts set up for skiing.

Abetone's never going to win any prettiest-village prizes, but looks much like any other ski resort. Probably more attractive when covered in snow.

Patches of snow on the mountains behind.

On entering the centre of town we came across trucks and trailers everywhere, all emblazoned with Italian livery and the main central car park had been turned into a small 'village'. It turns out that tomorrow is some sort of Italian youth off road biking event. The bikes were definitely an off road variety, but not at all like the motocross ones we have in the UK. They had strange seats that were very low down and large rear tyres. I suspected the seat was for a lower centre of gravity which, combined with the large rear tyre, meant they must be hill climbing bikes. Sure enough, as we took in a view of the mountainside that has most of the ski slopes on, we could see tracks on the ski runs that bikes were working their way up! 

Ski slopes - off-road bikes were tearing up and down them!

Notice the patches of snow still at the top of the mountain - Abetone is as 1400m and it was definitely colder here, as well as very hard to believe that only a couple of hours previously Helen had been sweating profusely having mowed the lawn.

After a little walk around to get our bearings, we bought ice creams and sat on a bench overlooking the mountains (or what we could see of them - a large bank of cloud was covering the tops of most of them, somewhat spoiling the view!) before hopping in the car to head for Pescia - we had lemons to look at!

Helen had cioccolato and mirtilla; I had bacio and pistacio.

Sadly the clouds covered the mountain tops. It was chilly too!!

On the return journey, we opted for the route past Vellano - it looked a little longer (and that's certainly what Google Maps would have us believe), but at least we would have tried both routes. As it happens, Google Maps doesn't know what it's talking about!! I couldn't tell you how long the drive was, as we stopped so many times to take photographs - pretty hilltop towns, amazing views of the massive plains around Pescia, this route had it all! Not only that, but it was actually a better, wider road, and before we knew it we were rounding a bend into Vellano then were passing the end of our driveway heading for Pescia (we had to summon up a fair amount of willpower to drive past our house - it had been a long afternoon and it would have been all too easy to just head home and relax on the patio!).

I knew from my haircut adventure last week, and chatting as best I could to my new friend Nello, the artisan barber, that the lemon exhibition being put on tonight by the Oscar Tintori dynasty was somewhere near the Duomo in town, so we drove through that part of town with our eyes peeled for any signs of lemons or people looking like they were about to go and look at lemons. Sure enough, an old convent(?) had its doors open with two lemon trees placed just inside the entrance. We quickly ditched the car and walked back to peep our head in and see what was going on. On entering, we were met with the sight of all sorts of citrus trees placed around a pretty central courtyard in which throngs of very well dressed people were chatting, milling about, and wandering around, with very civilised background music being played by a violinist and a harpist.

Pretty courtyard, well dressed folk, and lots of lemons!

Couldn't believe the weather and *temperature* difference between here and the mountain tops!

We ambled around, reading about the different species of lemon (and other citrus plants) and their hybrids and their history. Apparently, all but one citrus varieties come from Asia, the other from the Carribean - who knew!?

Citrus fest!!!

In the corridor encircling the courtyard there was a display of a quite bizarre series of photographs of ballet students in the grounds of some agricultural building (I don't mean a corrugated shed, but a huge villa with a cypress lined driveway and sculptures in the grounds...). We found the displays about botanical art in the churches of Pescia more interesting (highlighting the flora that appears in the various religious paintings in the churches of the area) - however, we were feeling rather frazzled by this point, so we took a few snaps of the notice boards and we'll make use of the high res DSLR shots to read and translate them when we have some time.

Feeling rather pleased with ourselves that we had actually been to an event that seemed exclusively attended by locals (or at least Italians), and that we hadn't seen advertised anywhere, so only knew about it via the barber, we finally headed for home to take in the last half hour of sunshine on the patio.

When the last of the sun had disappeared behind the ridge opposite, we headed indoors to blog and consider dinner, while Lucca finally ventured downstairs from the safety of his hiding place under our bed and told me in no uncertain terms that he wanted brushing by rubbing his head on said brush that was waiting for him on the arm of the sofa.