On to Florence!

Well, at least on the way to Florence. After Pisa, I left on my bike to meet up with Greg in Monsummano, a small town with some cliffs and thermal baths (unfortunately inaccessible to us). Here I am leaving Pisa, all packed up.



The ride was good, about 50 km. I didn't have any bike trouble and only got lost a handful of times. I found that the best method was to just point in the direction I wanted to go and take the closest road. Otherwise, roads are very poorly marked. Italian drivers surprised me by being very courteous on the roads. They're very used to cyclists (although not like this one!), and give lots of room. It felt much safer than riding in the states. I arrived at the cliffs around sunset to see this rustico.



Greg arrived later that night and we got on to climbing the next day. I don't have many pictures of it because our hands were full, but it was a blast. A good introduction to some real rock climbing, certainly a level up from working in the gym. I still haven't figured out how to make vertical pictures appear that way, so here is Greg defying gravity as he puts his shoes on.



After 3 nights camping at Monsummano, we took off on our bikes for Florence, another 50 km or so. Aside from my chain snapping and a sign for 'Florence, 30km' and good 10km after exactly the same sign, the ride was quite good. We got into town and relaxed on the grass at the train station before setting out to find a hostel for the night. Our bikes snuggling:



This morning I'm using the hostel computer, so I feel a bit rushed. I'm glad I got the pictures up, but I don't have time to include much more than a summary of activities. If I find a more relaxed place to update, I'll try to include some of my thoughts and impressions of Italy! Now we're meeting up with another Spannocchia intern and will explore Florence for a couple days, then maybe head down to Siena, depending on the weather.

Ciao!

Pisa and Cinque Terre

It took me longer than I was expecting to put photos online, but I've figured it out. It'll be hard to recap everything that's happened in the past week and a half, but the images should help. I arrived in Pisa on Thursday and met Chiara, my couchsurfing host. She is terrific and really took me into her group of friends for the time I was there. The first day we went all around town, then to a pub with a couple other couch surfers from Poland and her roommates. Here's what it looks like:

The next day we went to the beach for the sunset and I taught Chiara and her friend Andrea about throwing a frisbee. They were quite good for the first time! The sunset was beautiful (the second of many, I seem to have more time to watch the sky out here!), with the sun melting below the horizon.

Saturday I took a the train up to Cinque Terre, deciding it would be better to wait to start biking until I got back to Pisa. I spend three days there, and the landscape was unlike anything I'd seen before. Very steep hills in all directions straight up to the sea, with terraces carved everywhere to grow wine. Much of the area is overgrown and has reverted back to forest, but there are still remanents of stone terraces everywhere. There are lots of broken down ruins and old farm houses, giving a feeling of abandonment. It makes sense, their main economy is now tourism (and there is a lot of it in the towns!), so the vinyards are mostly for show. The ones that do work are supported by the government because they can't compete with other places.

I hiked all around the area for 3 days, and returned exhausted on the train to Pisa to stay with Chiara for a couple more nights.

This is a Web Log

Welcome to Stone Soup, my travel web log. You can keep up-to-date on my most recent adventures here, although they probably won't be recent by the time I actually post them. I'm getting ready to leave for a six-month trip to Italy, where I'll be farming, cycling, rock climbing, hiking mountains, and sleeping on random people's couches. Also probably a lot of stuff I haven't even considered yet. I can't give you any examples.

I'm flying out of New York of February 18, so if you want to say "hi" to me before I go, you should hurry up and give me a call. I'm landing in Pisa, Italy on the 19th, and have vague plans to buy a bicycle, go to Cinque Terre for a few days, then meet up with another farm intern who's going to the same program and rock climb for a week or so before we meet up with everyone else. I'll be at Spannocchia, a farm just south of Siena in Tuscany. Check it out: www.spannocchia.org.

That's probably enough for now. If you have any packing tips for someone who is trying to bring as little as possible, but still have everything he'll need, let me know!

Ciao!