Sono – ma no siamo – arrivato

 

N: 40km done so far, now I have some easy 30km, then 10–15km of shit and I’m in Arezzo. There I’ll have 100km of pure flat­ness so I’ll check how much time I have before sun­set. Now I’m eat­ing in a spa­get­ter­ia, fab­ulous car­bon­ara for 5€. How are you doing?

L: Food is scarce, all closed (the time zone maybe?). Started after one but found a Decathlon. Just got a flat tire. Terrain very nice.

N: I thought I was going to die in Arezzo, some very wor­ri­some knee pain, but when get­ting out of it I found a won­der­ful EuroVelo com­pletely isol­ated of cars, well sig­nal­ised and fuck­ing flat. A guy gave me two gazow­anas and some bread, so let’s see how far I reach now. By the way, so far 110km and I also reached my 3000km right now. How are you doing?

L: 98 or so. Siena’s straight ahead. Let’s see weth­er that hostel has some closet under the stair­case left. Otherwise the camp­site. Large anim­als in the forests… Maybe just deer. But someone in Firenze has told me they had seen a boar.

L: did­n’t even see the hostel. Campsite: 18.—€. Wish we could split those up. Well, bet­ter than being gored by a boar.

N: right, I’ve done ~140km and there is the Chiusi lake with huts and rest­ing places just 15km ahead of me, or Chiusi itself an extra 5, oth­er­wise I’m in the middle of nowhere, and I already hit some­thing before that threw me to the ground and almost broke my handle­bag, and when I came back there was abso­lutely noth­ing on the way so I’ll always be a mystery.

N: Holy moth­er of San Sebastian

N: THERE ARE FUCKING BOARS EVERYWHERE!!!

N: I just saw a huge black mass 10km ago run­ning ahead of me and I yelled and pan­icked and then there were more and more all the time and I cycled to a camp­ing in Lago di Chiusi that I saw in the maps and it’s closed but they did­n’t secured the lock in the fence and I sneaked in and I hope they don’t shot me in the morning.

L: anec­dot­al evid­ence sug­gests to not move in front of the boars. Please veri­fy before actu­ally encoun­ter­ing them again.

N: big black masses, I’m going to ask what kind of anim­als do they have in this region. Anyway, 156km done yes­ter­day, if I now do 200km of moun­tains I might just arrive to Rome today xD

N: I just poured water on my brakes after a ter­rible down­hill and I lit­er­ally saw the water evap­or­at­ing as soon as it touched them. I’ll record the same exper­i­ment on the next descent 😀

N: I’m so much in trouble. Trapped in a Sandomierz style thun­der­storm in Baschi quite help­less, this is shit

L: I heard some thun­der, but it’s gone and Siena stayed dry and sunny. You mean I could expect some fun tomorow? You know, it’s tra­di­tion to have a grand finale.

N: anoth­er day of sleep­ing in the streets, I found a nice medi­ev­al pas­sage behind the town’s church, looks empty, dry and warm. Still 140km to Rome and tomor­row might still be wet although no storm, so I guess I’ll need two days, at least doing as much as pos­sible tomor­row so I arrive to Rome the earli­est on the next day. Bloody thun­der­storms, always work­ing out with the finales.

L: which city are you in? Baschi?

N: yeah Baschi, just a bit after Orvieto. I’m ringing bells and the best I’ve got is people call­ing to remote and expens­ive hotels for me.

L: but the pas­sage is fine, at least? 🙁

N: holy shit after a lot of ask­ing I made the whole town ask every­one else until they found a ran­dom friend of a friend of a friend who offered a free room for any dona­tion, gave her 15€ and I’m afraid she was expect­ing more but at least did­n’t com­plain. So now, shower and sleep.

L: you might remem­ber Paria, Parella, Firenze, but Baschi remem­bers you.

L: 25km from Siena to Asciano; huge, thun­der­ous clouds to my right all the time with thick grey rain cur­tains. When it caught up I hid under a tree. Rain was over after five minutes. Hope to stay that lucky, the sky still looks indecisive.

N: the storm seems to be mov­ing north­w­est, so from my pos­i­tion to yours. I’m sup­posed to encounter some light rain today but so far I have a Saharan sun and I’m just at 60km from Rome.

N: IN HONOREM PRINCIPIS APOST FRANCISCUS I BVRGHESIS ROMANVS PONT MAX AN MMXVI PONT III

L: yeah, and I just arrived in Chiusi, where there is a warm­showers bloke. Description reminded me a bit of Gunar. Meet up every moment.

L: no, actu­ally he’s alright. Only two down­sides: he wants a mon­et­ary con­tri­bu­tion for the din­ner he made (fine din­ner, fair enough) and speaks fant­ast­ic German (and French. He’s bey­ond help. Where are you stay­ing? Host? —el?

N: hostel, did­n’t even both­er to look for CS. Found one in front of Termini for 21€ the night. I’m feel­ing, as you would say, dec­ad­ent. And exhausted xD

L: go to the statue in front of Termini. You’ll see which one I mean. You could have slept inside it.

N: oh, I did­n’t notice I was already home, that was quick.

N: so, I made friends with the pil­grim organ­isa­tion, got a pil­grim paper with my name, entered the basilica three times without cues, got two tick­ets for the audi­ence with Paco this Wednesday morn­ing, and some truly unique post­cards I’m wait­ing for you to arrive and enjoy.

N: by the way, be care­ful with the wild anim­als around Chiusi; Orvieto and Orti are super beau­ti­ful and fun to climb, and from Orti the way to Rome is very straight and easy, unless you’re being chased by a windy thun­der­storm, or you take the detour to Viterbo.

L: wed­nes­day morn­ing? Fuck, no time to see Viterbo then. I’m stand­ing in front of the cathed­ral in Orvieto right now, tonight I have a host in Vitorchiano. How’s the train stuff doing?

L: Öh, now got my thun­der­storm. Standing under a dry medi­ev­al arch. Really! In the cas­tell in Orvieto.

L: wow, I think that due to Orvieto’s situ­ation the weath­er gets a bit extreme here. I mean, hori­zont­al rain –ok, seen it, been there. T h i s rain goes up again, so strong does the storm blow.

N: that storm looks famil­i­ar, I think I get what you mean. So, when are you arriv­ing to Rome? Weather says anoth­er storm on Thursday but very clear today and tomorrow.

L: I’m leav­ing Vitorchiano right now. Don’t like to, it’s the most beau­ti­ful vil­lage I’ve seen so far in Italy and the host is awe­some, but Pope. Going to have a look at Viterbo for a few hours too (7km from here). Are there still free rooms in the hostel and how much is it?