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A few things I have noticed about travelling in Italy vs. South America/Asia:

1. Grammar mistakes are rampant
I am still finding grammar mistakes and odd translations of things here on tshirts and the like. For instance, on our bus map in Florence, they refer to the Customer Cure Center should we have any questions.

2. Weird food is everywhere.
I used to think that food markets, particularly meat markets had gruesome cuts of meat hanging about. But no, there are these sad whole (read with the head) skinned bunnies stacked on top of each other. It did not stop Simon from ordering rabbit that night though.

More on biking, max pizzali, and the daily gelato updates later...

Cycling the Veneto

My real inspiration for coming to Italy was the image of cycling from town to town, stopping at local cafes for an espresso and a brioche, and filling up on wild boar pastas and homemade red wine every night.

Jenn Kahn suggested a hotel about an hour outside of Venice that catered to foreign cyclists looking for a base to explore the Veneto (the flat agricultural region around Venice) and the Dolomite foothills. While she hadn't been there herself, she'd heard good things about it from the Berkeley cycling club. I was not disappointed.

Henry...

...is not his real name. But, to protect the innocent, I've changed it here. I'll also withold the cycling camp's name and location. Otherwise, Google makes it too easy to track this post down online.

Henry has been running the camp for something like 20 years, spends half the year in Italy, and knows the region like the back of his hand. He is 76 years old, and rides every day. His calves look like tan rope, and his narrow shoulders are hunched from decades spent curled over a racing bike.

The brief snippets of his life evoked a cross between Jack Kerouac, Ernest Hemmigway, and Fausto Coppi. He was born in Hawaii, and lived in the Philippines in the 1930s, while his dad was stationed on Corregidor, the military fortress at the mouth of Manila Bay. A camp regular told us of Hank's many lovers, the accounts of which would fill an impressive memoir. As evidence, Hank is currently engaged in a long distance affair with a biligual Argentine psychologist (his second) from Chicago. The highlight of his day seemed to be when the two hot bankers from next door would come into the hotel for lunch. The "carrot girls," he called them, referring to the enormous bowls of shredded carrots they would eat every day. Our pretty Romanian waitress tolerated his caseless flirtation with an equal mix of disdain and affection.

This is what Hank will not do -

° Make pointless small talk

° Cater to your every desire

° Make you feel like a treasured guest

° Tolerate any deviance from his daily ritual of breakfast, ride, lunch, nap, and dinner

° Pretend that he likes you if he doesn't

° Baby or make excuses for you when you get dropped on a climb

Hank will -

° Bring you to beautiful places

° Tell you straight up what he thinks about the state of American society and politics

° Recommend the most delicious things on the menu

° Carefully pick and lead rides that fit your ability

° Select destinations based on the beauty of the landscape, the quality of the pastries, and the cuteness of the waitresses

° Laugh heartily (if you're funny)

° Smack his lips over a delicious pasta or piece of fruit

Suffice to say, his unique brand of cranky old man-ness won us over the course of our stay.

The Rides

Three days gave us just the barest taste of the region, a center for Italian cycling. The area offers merciless hills and easy flats, cafes, villas, castles, vineyards, farm animals, brilliant vistas, the works.

Roadies are everywhere and of all ages. On one of our rides, Franco, an 80-year old cardiologist, came along. At the base of a steep 6.5 kilometer climb, I stopped to fiddle with my chain. I flogged myself to catch up with the group, eventually passing Franco. At this point, he grabbed my wheel, just far enough to be respectful, but close enough to benefit from a slight draft. He then came around me at the top when he saw that I'd burned my last match.

The Food

Rustic homestyle Italian food from the region. The stuff that Bay Area foodies die for. Pastas, sardines, salumis, snails, saltimbocca, osso bucco, fresh local figs, roasted rabbit, and an incredible spead of antipasti every night. Wine was local, and poured generously. With a low alcohol content and none of the preservatives that bottled wine typically has, you could drink this stuff all night and escape with no headache.

Breakfast - muesli, espresso, yogurt, honey, fruit, cheese, ham, bread. And fresh eggs with bright orange yolks.

Lunch - Salad, pasta course, main course, dessert, biscotti.

Dinner - Like lunch, followed by grappa.

Henry advertised good food, but this exceeded all expectations. I rode hard so I could eat all this good stuff, not to mention the almond cookies and whole wheat pastries with honey we enjoyed at the cafe.

Other Cyclists

Did I really cross a continent and ocean to hang out with someone from Livermore and a mom/daughter team from Albany, CA? Apparently.

Venice is for Lovers

Everything I'd read and heard about Venice led me to believe it would be a tourist-choked pit of despair, with stripy shirt gondoliers and accordion players harassing you on every corner. But I fell in love with the place even as we rode the water bus from the airport into town.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Venice is gorgeous. Even when you're seeing it with 10,000 of your closest friends. And with only a little effort, you could wander away from Plaza San Marco (which is actually pretty impressive) to find quiet alleys, intimate plazas, and excellent trattorias on the canal serving freshly-caught- albeit spendy - Venetian seafood.

On our first night in town, though, I didn't have the patience to findthe perfect eatery that balanced value, authenticity, and deliciousness, so we ended up at the equivalent of Domino's. Apparently, it is possible to have bad pizza in Italy. Still, with a view of the setting sun and a can of beer, I was content. Even Jen, who broke her rule about having the correct number of candles to blow out on her birthday, seemed satisfied. Plus, after dinner, Jen diligently started her plan to have a gelato a day for three weeks.

We spent only 1 day in town - about enough for us - wandering from plaza to plaza, eating panini, marveling at the Italian-ness of it all. That afternoon, we took the water bus over to the Island of Glass Blowing, and watched an old man magically transform a blob of magma into a delicate speckled horse in 60 seconds. He's apparently been busy, since every store on that island sold the same horse, along with a million other pieces of glass crap. These are the artfifacts of your grandmother's sitting room. In fact, I recognized a heavy glass ashtray from my own grandmother's house, sending me back to my childhood.

We had dinner by the canal - an excellent plate of polenta, fresh shellfish, and simple tomato and basil pasta, along with the house white.

The Flight Over

We left SFO on a United flight to Chicago, and found ourselves sitting behind Jenn Kahn, on her way to visit a friend. Otherwise an exhausting, but unremarkable trip.

The highlight was being fed on the Lufthansa leg from Chicago to Frankfurt, always a novelty on commercial flights. The Whopper-like balls were great. But I haven't been able to make myself eat the dextrose-flavored energy bar. I think I'll bring it home and keep it in the earthquake kit.