I took the greatest vacation of my life in the summer of 2000. With 17 wonderful people I bicycled up and down Tuscan hills and through ancient (well, ancient by American standards) towns. Every night, we ate and drank until we couldn't keep our eyes open any more. Okay, only some of us did that.
I dedicate this web site to those people (as they appear in the picture,
left to right, back row first): Steven, Paulette, Claire, Lynda, Nello, Janet, Lora,
David, Wayne, Geri, (and that's me next to her), Joanne, Brian, Liz, Dara,
Paul, Cindy, and Lawrence.
Click here to shut me up and just look at the pictures.
During the fall of 1999, I floated the idea of taking a bicycling trip through some part of Europe with some of my friends. David happened to have been thinking along the same lines except that he was considering Ireland while I was torn between southern France and northern Italy. I (foolishly) wanted some hills to make my rides challenging. Torsten, my brother-in-law, had spent quite a bit of time in Europe and told me I should avoid the French because their reputation is not entirely undeserved.
Meanwhile, David had consulted Geri (his wife) and she convinced him that Italy would be much more pleasant than Ireland for 2 reasons: food and weather. You can't really argue with that kind of logic, can you?
So, we (David, Geri, and I) signed up for the Tuscany bicycle tour on the REI Adventures web site. The trip was managed by CustomWalks. Over the summer months, we booked our flights, went on lots of training rides, read books about Italy and Tuscany, and counted down the days until our September 1 departure.
Finally, September arrived, and we arranged for pet-care for our respective cats and got on our separate flights. What follows is my personal account of the adventures we had in Tuscany, both on and off our bicycles.
Next journal page - September 1: What happened to Friday?
Just the pictures from the bike trip
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