Week 3 and vai Cadel vai, vai, forza ecc!

20/7/2011..no pm class today..can't miss a minute of TdF

Now I’m not quite so tired…temp in the 20’s and low humidity…I’ve started to be VERY aware that the local church clock strikes ALL night, 24/7! 

Unlike the one in France that struck the hour  twice, just in case you’d missed it the first time, this one strikes  to tell you the hour, then another bell strikes once for quarter past, twice for the half hour etc…soooooo, the whole rigmarole of the two bells occurs every fifteen minutes….like I said, 24/7.

I’m still trying to get used to the fact that my window, when open, allows all who pass to look in and if they want to talk to me!!!!

I was delighted to see this style of parking…makes my efforts look 100% neat.

 Check out the muscle car.

 Yet more chains on bridges....?

baby seat..everywhere here..but in Aus?

Sunday 17/7/2011

Training
Yesterday’s ride was a circuit.it was s’posed to be for >3 hours, but I arrived back at 2.75 hrs and stuff it, that was it, I wasn’t gonna do anymore!  Today’s ride, on the other hand was s’posed to be a short spin with a hill… but more than 2 hours later I got home…..seems I just can’t follow orders!  I met up with another cyclist on this ride…actually I even caught him up and found out from him that Marco Pantani was from hereabouts.  He was telling me about good rides and indicated one Marco used to train on..a 15% climb….!  At which point I used the little old lady/get out of jail free/ thanks but no thanks card!..it was somewhere in this range of hills.  Castles abound around here, one on every corner it seems.  Castles and churches.

Grapes and sunflowers..could be France, but it isn't.

Peglio in the distance, but it's the building on the left that interested me most...is that a ladder on the left of it's wall?

A question to my cycling friends…we all know that while in Europe stopping during a serious training session in order to take pix is totally acceptable under the “I may never pass this way again” banner..right? However, and I’m not quite sure if this is a question or a statement(!)…it IS perfectly ok to stop when going up an extremely long somewhat brutal hill to give your legs a micro rest isn’t it?  And if no-one sees you do it, it didn’t happen…RIGHT?

Italian language lessons

This week we have to prepare a one hour talk plus questions/discussions about our country.  I’ve already downloaded a heap pix of typically Australian things and will start the presentation with didgeridoo music. On Friday we discussed Italy and one has to say vive la difference!..Italian hands up in horror at the thought of what philistines we are to even think of having a cappuccino after a meal or offering an omelette as a meal, whereas punctuality and efficiency don't appear to be governed by the same attention to detail.

So already I’m half way through my four week Italian language course and I’ve decided to make a few changes in my timetable.  I guess there are plusses and minuses for being in a small school with small classes…plus=individual attention but minus=the range of ability within the class is very wide, and is my class of 4, at the top is a Danish girl doing Italian as a major at uni and at the other end of the range…me.  So I’ve decided to have 6 x individual 1 hour conversation sessions, 3 each week instead of some of the group lessons. And with the added spare time I might also manage to get out in the car and see things…what with classes in the am and pm, watching TdF, training, shopping etc, I’ve really only got to see the sights from the saddle.