Tuesday, January 08, 2008

From a summer long ago...

I'm not sure what this has to do with the BL, but... I found some long-lost pics from my summer cycling tour of Europe (1987) and thought I'd share one. The pic was taken late in the afternoon and I was just outside of a village on the Italian coast - somewhere between La Spezia and Genova. There was no road for cars into the village, only a train. I was riding along a path overlooking the shore. A few minutes after this picture was taken, I rode into the village. The approach was downhill through an archway that led to a stone courtyard next to the church. The local kids were in the middle of a soccer game in the courtyard when I came through the archway. I ended up in the middle of their match. I remember a seething assemblage of screaming ten year-olds shaking their little fists at me. While at the market, I met a German fellow who was vacationing and sampling the acclaimed local white wine grown on terraced vineyards along the coast. We made dinner, drank wine and camped on a scenic vista along the cliffs. The ride out the next day was over some pretty rough terrain. Anyway, it was a great summer adventure from long ago.

2 comments:

Jen B. said...

Holy Bicycle Diaries, Batman! Stone archways? Vineyards and wine? A rocky coastal landscape?

Why am I in soggy drippy Iowa right now. WHY???

Iowa City Bike Library said...

I was cleaning out a file cabinet over the holidays and I found three packs of photos from that summer. I thought they were gone for good; I hadn't seen them since we moved into our house in 1995. It was nice to find them and relive a bit of that summer. Included in the pack were pics of my old friend, Kevin Joyce. Kevin was killed on his bike on June 14, 1995 on his way to W Branch. Alas, we will never share another Mutzig. RIP Kevin!