europe Archives -

Day One: Rome

Amazingly, no problems getting bikes to Italy. The boxes were untouched, and after about two hours we had the bikes together and took them down the stairs, fully loaded with double panniers, where signs indicated we would find the train. What awaited was two flights of stairs up — it was an underpass. We thought about it and put the loaded bikes carefully on the escalator. Nothing bad happened.

Then we bought tickets for a different train than the one we actually took but I think the conductor simply didn’t want to deal with a couple of non-italian speakers, especially with the bikes, so he punched the tickets and let us alone. Another bit of luck got us off at the right station and to our Air BnB spot. Yay! Here’s hoping this luck holds!

Today we went to the Coliseum and Palatine Hill and the Roman forums and wandered around. That stuff is amazing for its age and all but what I ended up thinking about was not how it was in some gilded past, but how it has changed.

Near the forum, a sign informed us that the stone paved street we stood on, Via Nova, had been built over the ruins of a house. The coliseum was built over what had been an artificial and decorative lake Nero had built. In the Palatino area, windows had obviously been bricked over in centuries past as many places as walls had been rebuilt in the last hundreds years. One of the displays in the Colosseum described a massive fire, after which a new neighborhood was built on top of four meters of rubble. The restoration work for the benefit of twenty-first century tourism is only the most recent of more than two thousand years of remodeling. In another half millennium, it may become something new again.

New Adventures – Bike Touring in Europe

My husband and I are leaving tomorrow for a bike tour of Southern Europe.* We are flying to Rome and from there we will start to meander towards Spain.

I say meander because we don’t have any specific plans except for the first five days in Rome. We’ll stay and see the sights, get over jet lag and witness whatever Catholic extravaganza accompanies Easter in Rome. I don’t really know what Easter in Rome will be like–and yes, I could probably just Google it, but then there’s no surprise–but I imagine it involves more parades and less chocolate rabbits than in America.

It’s all speculation right now, though. What’s concrete and knowable is what we’re packing, although of course there’s some speculation involved about what items we really need.

So, this is what I’m planning to use for the next two months.

Click to biggify!
Not all of my purple items show up that well
against the purple bedspread. Go figure.

First, everything is going to go into the Ortlieb Backroller Classic Panniers, which I got in the awesome yellow dot style.

More or less from left to right

Gray North Face polyester/merino long sleeve warm layer
Light blue tank top, light blue sleeveless bike jersey
Black Mountain Hardware long sleeve (something like this)
Tan long sleeve button up quick drying shirt
Merrell Women’s Bare Access Arc shoes – less than 10 oz. for the pair!
Shimano mountain biking style bike shoes
Novara Express 2.0 bike jacket in beautiful purple, black rain pants
2x Canari gel liner cycle shorts, 3x non-cotton quick drying undies, 2x Moving Comfort sports bras, 4x cycle socks
Merrell Alexandra dress, which is so comfy that I sleep it in all the time, and black leggings to wear under it or on cold cycling days
Bike helmet
2x pair of shorts, one purple, one blue-gray, and a pair of capri length spandex, something like this
1x batik sarong for use as scarf, towel, skirt, etc and 1x purple tiedye bandana
Orange REI stuff travel pack
Mess of toiletries/first aid, incl. one wee loofah, one bottle Dr. Bronner’s soap, one large bottle sunscreen, bandaids, neosporin, painkillers, hand sanitizer, tiger balm, chapstick, handwarmers
Small camera w/ case & battery charger
Little blue flashlight
Kindle, small notebook, pencil
Lady kit
Shea butter & tea tree/vitamin E creme for prevention & treatment of saddle sores
Red dry bag containing REI Halo 40 degree down bag
3L platypus bladder
Sunglasses
Leatherman, multi-tool, bike lights, spare tubes, patch kit, chain lube
You can never have too many zip ties

Not pictured – toothbrush and a few other personal items, sleeping pad (I’m about to swap this for this because dammit, for two months of regularly sleeping on the ground, I want that extra half inch of cushion), and my husband’s pile of gear, and the common gear – a variety of tools, spare parts, a tent, the same cookset and sporks we take camping, the initial set of trail mix we’ll be bringing along so when we get to Rome and we’ve been awake forever but we have to be awake a little longer to put the bikes together and figure out how to get to where we’re staying we will be sleepy but not starving.

And there’s also the bikes, which are semi-disassembled and packed into boxes which are triple reinforced with tape at all the corners. We’ve said a few prayers of safety over them, and I made some hand-written signs that say

Please, be gentle with my bike! His/Her name is Virgil/Beatrice and we are going from Rome to Barcelona.

Per favore, siate gentile con la mia bicicletta! Il suo nome e Virgil/Beatrice e stiamo andando da Roma a Barcellona.

(Because we’re heading towards Barcelona, at least.) But my taller half says I’m not allowed to tape them to the boxes in case we somehow have to convince the check in agents that these bike boxes do not in fact contain bikes. Just crazy American cardboard luggage. Very sustainable. I’m sure it’ll soon be the next big craze, just wait for it to catch on across the pond, amirite? I’m not sure how that will go down with British Airways but we already made sure boxes are within the specified measurements for British Airways so it has to go smoothly. *fingers crossed*

*If your reaction is anything like 100% of the people we’ve told about this, then yeah, I know you’re jealous. Except maybe for the biking uphill in the Alps part.