A romantic ride...with Mike

After arriving in Ancona early Friday morning, Mike and I sprinted onto a train bound for Siena, Italy, a small city with corkscrewed, cobble stone streets located in Tuscany's country side, just west of Italy's mountainous spine. Saturday morning, we caught an early bus to Radda, one of three hill-top villages in Tuscany's region of Chianti. Radda was a beautiful town. Like all of the villages of this area, it was a fortified town sitting at the crest of one of the countless rolling hills, looking down on miles of green fields and textured vinyards. From a little deli, we got fresh Foccacia bread and sliced salami and cheese. A nice women at the tiny office of tourism located several bikes for us that we could rent from a hotel located on a vinyard just 800 meters outside of town. We strolled along the stone wall at the edge of the country road and met Leonardo at the Hotel La Vina, where he greeted us with a smile and two mountain bikes. It'd been a long time since either of us had ridden a mountain bike but picking it back up is like, well, riding a bike - so in no time we were off with our bikes, lunch and xeroxed copy of a terrible map to tour Tuscany's landscape. We quickly detoured on a dirt road we thought would connect with the main causeway and began climbing and descending hill after hill lined with fields of grape vines. This was the point that we began to distrust our map and realized we had no clue where we were, but it was so beautiful that we continued onward, guessing our direction at every intersection. I wish I could do the panoramic landscape justice in this entry, but you will have to bear with me: the endless hills textured with grape vines and olive trees, dotted with old, stone vinyard houses and villages of two or three houses of the same stone, was simply breathtaking. Eventually, we spotted a paved road in the distance and began to guide ourselves through dirt roads and vinyard drive ways until we finally met the road, found several signs and realized how far off we had been in estimating our location. We had gone half the distance we thought we travelled, and had horse-shoed around a valley to end up only 10 kilometers from our starting point. All the same, we were happy to have a smooth road and a good idea of our placement...besides, we were in constant awe of our situation, bicycling among these enchanted valleys, that there was nothing that could dampen our spirits. We continued up a long, gradual hill and, once at the top, found a nice spot to sit among some olive trees with an incredible vista and eat the first half of our lunch. The next several kilometers were downhill and we happily cruised through vinyards and village's alley streets, resting our tired legs and sore bottoms. The next major climb we took led us to a castle where we purchased a bottle of it's vinyards wine and sat in the castle garden to finish our lunch. Almost five hours had past since our departure and the bruises on our tail bones from the small, narrow, hard mountain bike seats were taking there toll. We found an 8 kilometer route back to Radda, had one more relaxing descent and tireing ascent, enjoying the views equally each way, before we finally cruised back to the hotel where we returned the bikes to Leonardo. To top off the romantic ride, we enjoyed an amazing Italian dinner back in Siena at a restaraunt we located the day before: bottle of wine, three courses - a pasta with salmon, chicken and mushrooms with boccocina sauce (whatever that is, it's delicous), finishing off with a salad. It was a great day to enjoy with your lover...but a good friend was a fine substitute. 10-4, out.