San Lorenzo Nuovo to Rome

So I haven't updated my blog in quite some time, sorry about that. As I guess many of you would know, I'm now back in sunny Melbourne. The weather here is just amazing compared to what I experienced in Europe for the last 3 weeks of my trip, it's currently 40.5 degrees Celsius outside.
I plan to write the rest of my blog over the next few weeks, covering the last 3 weeks between Rome and London before I flew back to Australia for Christmas. Also since I'm now on a desktop (as opposed to my iPhone), I'll be able to include photos from my Canon Ixus 85IS compact camera rather than just photos from my iPhone which are of poorer quality.
I'll now take you back to Tuscany, where I rode from San Lorenzo Nuovo to Rome.

Monday November 29, 2010
I didn't sleep very well at all, the hard uncomfortable ground and the fact that I'd slept so much the day before meant I had a very patchy sleep. I didn't get up at 4 am because it was still raining. It was still raining at 5 am and 6 am too, so I turned my alarm off and woke up at 8 am, it had finally stopped raining and the sky was clearing up. About time!

A view of a large lake I had to skirt around, called Lake Bolsena, in Italy.

I packed up and headed off, and stopped about 10 km down the road when I found a supermarket. There I grabbed some milk and ate breakfast.
I was grateful for the fine weather but not for the sub-standard Italian roads. All day I was on narrow roads with constant traffic. I had to thank my lucky stars that I wasn't hit by a car.
After about 80 km, I was 40 km from Rome. I'd been making good progress when all of a sudden, the road I was on turned into an Autostrade, which cyclists aren't allowed to ride on. I checked the map for a suitable alternate route but there were none. The only ways I could go were huge detours, either to the coast or further inland. I went for the inland route, since I planned to take the coastal route on the way back out of Rome.
This detour would have added a good 30 or 40 km onto the trip distance.
So because of this, it got dark well before I was near Rome.
I ran out of energy at about 4:30 pm, so had stop for a late lunch and finished the last of my left over stroganoff which I cooked in Siena.
I listened to podcasts along the way when I could, but often there was too much noise from the traffic. The situation got worse as I approached Rome; the roads got busier and were still narrow, then it became a dual carriageway, and I wasn't sure if I was allowed to ride on it. Either way, I didn't feel safe or comfortable. So when the bike path started about 10 km from Rome, I was keen to get onto it. This proved much more difficult than expected and than it should have been but after hitting several dead-ends, I got onto it (see the map of my track, the bike path follows along the river).
Then, after I'd been on the bike path for only a kilometre or two, the path was closed off, because some of the wooden planks on a bridge were broken, and I couldn't get past the block. So then I spent the next hour or so trying to get back onto the bike path. I eventually did, but it was so difficult it was ridiculous, ended up taking a dirt track where a few vicious dogs chased me, and I was worried they would bite my leg.
The frustrations of cycling in Rome didn't stop there though. There were lots of little narrowed sections designed to stop cars and motorbikes, but they were so narrow that I struggled to get the loaded bike through them. Then there were things like steps on the bike path, and no bike path where my map said there was meant to be one. Oh, and it started raining too, so I couldn't easily look at my map. The whole experience of cycling there in Rome was inconvenient and frustrating.
Once in the city, I found some Wi-Fi and picked out half a dozen of the most suitable hostels from hostel world. I didn't think any would be full, so I just wrote down the address of one and went there. Unfortunately they were full though, except for a few €28 beds, much too expensive!
It was about 10 pm, steadily raining. I rode into the city a bit further, in search of Wi-Fi to look up more hostels. I found a sketchy connection outside a cafe/bar, so I sat down there under the canvas to shelter from the rain.
There was a middle aged Italian man and two middle aged Italian women sitting at the table beside me. 

Some Italian locals in Rome.

They asked if I needed any help (they spoke English well enough for us to talk). I told them I was looking for a hostel. The bloke said he knew where one was nearby, and he described how to get there.

However, I stayed there to look up hostels, but the Wi-Fi connection wasn't working at all. We chatted a bit; I told them I was from Australia and about my trip (the usual). We introduced ourselves, the blokes name was Donato, the blonde woman was his ex-girlfriend, Daniella, and the brunette woman was Daniella's sister, Gabriella.
After a few minutes, Donato told me to follow him and he'd show me where the hostel was. Daniella said she'd watch my bike.
The hostel was only a minute or two's walk away, there were actually two right beside each other. It turned out that one of them was full, and the other ones reception was closed, so no luck there. We walked back to the bar and sat down. They kindly bought me a pot of camomile and lemon tea, and Daniella gave me her fur cardigan. These were just what I needed since I was getting cold. We chatted more, Daniella kept smiling kindly at me. She could speak the best English of the three of them. She told me the reason Donato liked me and was being friendly because I was a cyclist - he was also a cyclist apparently. He got me to feel his leg quadricepts. They mentioned a few times that they were all crazy. But also that they had good hearts so I needn't worry. Donato would also randomly break out into song.
Anyway, Donato offered for me to stay on the sofa in their flat, but warned that the flat was very small. I went along with it.
The four of us walked up to Donato's flat, and yes it was very small. We rearranged every item of furniture in the flat (that is, the sofa, a cabinet, a table and a coffee table) to create more space.
We all hung out in the flat for a while. Donato had a guitar so I had a strum on that.

Donato having a strum on his guitar in his flat in Rome.

Daniella told me she broke up with Donato because he was too crazy. But she said he was the best man she'd ever met, and they seemed very close. Donato had said a similar thing to me about Daniella.
I ate choc-chip biscuits and mandarins for tea, and a little later Gabriella went home since she had work the next morning. Donato and Daniella headed off to get pizza and go to some clubs. They actually both work at a club called rHome, one of them is the manager.
I decided not to go with them and went to sleep on their sofa at about 3am. It wasn't where I expected to be for my first night in Rome, but I was happy to be there, I'm always up free spontaneous accommodation.

My bed for the night in Donato's apartment on Via Cavour, Rome.

My route for the day, San Lorenzo Nuovo to Rome.

An overview of my route so far, from France to Italy.

Ride Stats:
Distance: 172.96 km
Average: 19.2 km/h
Maximum: 57.2 km/h
Time: 8:59:14
Total ascent: 1244 m
Total descent: 1650 m


Route Map:
http://maps.google.com/?t=p&z=15&ll=42.688220,11.904607&q=http://share.gps.motionxlive.com/shr/x/kmz/e93f4cca6553c3c27dc2a34651772b9d

San Lorenzo Nuovo

Sunday November 28, 2010
During the night it started raining, and it sounded very heavy. The sound of the drops falling on the tent was so loud that it was hard to sleep.
When it became lighter in the morning, it was still steadily raining, so I kept dozing. The rain continued the whole morning, so I just kept dozing, even though I didn't need the sleep, I would have happily gotten up at 7 am but I didn't want to get up in the rain.

Looking out my tent from inside, unwilling to get up in the rain, in San Lorenzo Nuovo.

My campsite for the night, and indeed the whole day and the following night, in San Lorenzo Nuovo.

I drew the line at 12:30 pm and got out of bed. This gave me 14 hours of sleep! Although most if it wasn't proper sleep, I was often only just in the sleep realm, dreaming a lot. And it seemed my dreams were melding with reality because they were centred around rain. I dreamed that I'd set the tent up in a bit of a ditch, and because of all the rain, a steam started flowing right under, and into, the middle of the tent.
This wasn't far from the truth as I discovered when I got up, water had soaked through the base of the tent, and outside the whole ground was like one big puddle, water everywhere! I started packing up and ate breakfast inside the tent because it was still raining. Then I thought "okay, I'll just wait a little longer, it's been raining all night and all morning so it will have to stop soon. I waited, and listened to podcasts of Dr Karl on triple j in the meantime. It continued to rain, and I just couldn't bring myself to pack up and start riding in the rain. Besides, I'd woken up with a bit of a blocked nose and sore throat, and I didn't want to make myself sick by riding in the rain.
One of the local residents must have noticed me camping there because he came out to see how I was going. He couldn't speak much English but I got that he was offering for me to sleep in the back of his van where it was warmer and drier than the tent. I think he was a tradie of some kind, and his van smelt of fumes. I politely declined the offer.
Then he asked if I liked pasta and lasagne, and I was like "yeah, definitely", and he was like "you wait here, and in five minutes, I come back". Sure enough, in five minutes he returned back with a plate of lasagne and a bag of mandarins. What a kind man!

A meal of lasagna and pork ribs donated to me by a local resident of San Lorenzo Nuovo.

As the hours passed by, the option of spending the whole day in the tent and camping there the night was becoming more likely, I was convincing myself of this. It was still 130 odd kilometres to Rome, and call me soft, but I really didn't fancy riding for seven hours in the rain, it would just be miserable. I knew it would put pressure on me later on in the trip, trying to get back to London in time, but i thought this would be better.
After making this decision, I wanted it to rain heaps justify my decision.
Speaking of the word 'heaps', I'm conscious of whenever I use it now, because Simon, the guy from Bavaria, indicated that it was fairly uniquely Australian thing to say and that Europeans typically didn't use the word. I use it all the time though.
I had another dream that I just remembered too: We were catching a bus, not sure why or where, but it was in Victoria. And at one point we stopped in the main street of a town and I met Colin Lane's family, he had lots of brothers who all looked similar so I wasn't sure which one Colin was. And I think it was Josh Cowan [friend from college] who was telling me while we were on the bus something like "yeah the amount of rain we've been getting is astonishing, we've had 500 mm and 600 mm in the last two days", and I was like "wow, Melbourne's average annual rainfall is only 600 mm."
At one point I smelt smoke from a wood fire and it made me nostalgic of camping in Australia. I think The experience of camping is greatly enhanced by having a camp fire. One of my favourite parts of camping is having a yarn with friends around the campfire while drinking beers. And call me bogan, but I reckon one of the best beers for camping is VB in cans. I don't drink it normally but for some reason it tastes really good when you're camping.
So I guess I've been camping for about half the trip so far, and this is one aspect of camping I miss.
Anyway, the plan for the day was to temporarily adopt the lifestyle of a cat, and go to bed early even though I'd woken up at 12:30 pm and had fourteen hours sleep. Then I would wake up really early the next morning (I'm talking 4 am or a little later if it's raining) and set off to Rome. I have to go tomorrow morning whether it's raining or not, I'm not going to waste another day in the tent.

Ride stats:
No riding

Siena to San Lorenzo Nuovo

Saturday November 27, 2010
Due to my late bed time, I decided not to set the alarm for 7 am as previously planned, but went for 8:30 am instead, giving me almost three hours sleep :(
This wasn't good for Maja though, since I'd told her I was getting up at 7 am and I was her emergency alarm - she had an exam at 8:30 am. And as it turned out, she was fast asleep at 8:30 am when I got up, so I had to wake her up. She got up quick as a flash, went into panic mode and rushed off to her exam.
Luckily for her, she got in and everyone was twiddling their thumbs because the lecturer was late. This would never happen at Melbourne Uni! They seem a bit more laid back at the University of Siena. She can thank the lazy Italians.
I spent the morning packing up all my stuff and downloaded a few maps.

I was just about ready to go but Rosanna had to rush off to the police station to get her permit of residency card, since they are only open until 11:30 am two days per week. She forgot a form so I had to run it to her. I wandered back to the flat and took a few photos on the way:

Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

A building by the Piazza del Camp, Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Piazza del Camp, Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

Heading out of one of the city gates of Siena, Tuscany, Italy.

I finally headed off at around lunch time.
It was sad to leave; I'd really enjoyed my stay in Siena. I left a bottle of wine for each of them to show my appreciation for them having me stay in their beautiful flat. To be honest, I wasn't itching to get back on the bike. Somehow the joy of cycling has gone for me at the moment. I don't know what it is. I must have killed it by doing too much cycling in a short space of time.
The scenery wasn't too bad.

Tuscan countryside. On the Strada Cassia Sud, past Cerchiaia, Italy.

Tuscan countryside. On the Strada Cassia Sud approaching Colle Malamerenda, Italy.

Tuscan countryside. On the Via Cassia, past San Quirico d'Orcia.

Me on the road again, on the Via Cassia, past San Quirico d'Orcia.

I was also glad that the weather was sunny, since it had been raining for the previous week.

I listened to podcasts for most of the way. Hamish and Andy had their moments but it wasn't that interesting for me. I think their show is too mainstream for me; they talk too much about pop music and pop culture. I've never been a fan of commercial radio.
Then it was Dr Karl on triple j, always a good listen. The podcasts helped the kilometres pass by; I don't know how I've done without them for the whole trip.

On the Via Cassia, near Bagno Vignoni, Italy.

On the Via Cassia as the sun sets in Italy.

As it got dark, it also got really cold, right down to zero degrees. I had to ride with my polar fleece jacket, and I was still cold!
I could really do with some company I reckon, someone to ride with.
I was so tired after three hours sleep that I was almost falling asleep on the bike. So after 100 km I finally spotted somewhere to pitch the tent - an open patch of grass with a few seats, right next to the main road in a little town. I didn't think it being open would be a problem though.
I spent a while trying to find a toilet, then ate left over stroganoff for tea and set up the tent. I really miss staying with Rosie in Siena already. She's got a really good set up there, living in a beautiful city with a beautiful flat, good friends and her being able to speak Italian, I must say I'm a little jealous. I wish I could have stayed longer and done some more sight-seeing with Rosanna but I need to get to London in time to catch my plane and like Rosanna said, if I stayed much longer her housemates would probably start asking me for rent.
I could easily live in Siena though, for a stint.
Having to set the tent up, on your own, in the cold, really makes you appreciate having a house to stay in and friends to talk to.
As Dappled Cities Fly said [an Australian Indie rock band], "Is it the night that makes the day seem bright?"

My route for the day, Siena to San Lorenzo Nuovo, Italy.

An overview of my route so far from France to Italy.

Ride stats:
Distance: 107.43 km
Average: 18.1 km/h
Maximum: 53.4 km/h
Time: 5:55:29
Total ascent: 871 m
Total descent: 759 m