We’re on the road again!

We wanted to do a week-long cycling trip somewhere closer to home this year, and decided to go from Ottawa to Quebec City via Montreal and the Eastern Townships. This route allowed us to visit family in Ottawa, friends in Montreal, and hopefully have some time to enjoy local cheese and beer en route!

Trip planning went about as expected:

• 1.5 weeks beforehand we had a day of finagling getting a bike rack and bikes and gear onto a car headed for Ottawa, as Via Rail doesn’t take bikes from Toronto to Ottawa
• grand intentions of packing four days before we left became most of the packing done two days before we left (at least it wasn’t the day before!)
• a clever friend asking the night before we left if we had re-waterproofed the tent since we had damp patches when last we used it (we hadn’t, and the tent went to Ottawa already with the bikes)
• but also some excellent route recommendations for Ottawa-Montreal from our cyclist friend Lasha (take old Highway 17 on the shore road instead of the Google-recommended route, which takes you over loose gravel)

And then we were off! We took the train to Ottawa on Friday after work, had some family visits that night, and treated the tent fly with waterproofing spray. Saturday morning we had a delicious and fortifying breakfast with Joel’s mom, brother, and aunt, and then we headed out! The first part in Ottawa was lovely (Joel lived there for 18 months and knows all of the cycling routes), and the rest of the route took us by big houses along the river as we retrained our muscles into cycling shape. Notable food: delicious strawberries and squeaky cheese curds from a farmer’s market, and cold beer at 100 km (a welcome relief from the “feels like 32” weather). As we continued on, we found a fortuitously-placed campground just west of L’Orignal, at 120 km into our day. We swam in the Ottawa river and watched the sun set across the water as we made dinner, then watched a fireworks show on the Quebec side of the river before falling asleep.

The next day was also spent covering ground. We had rain right at the Quebec border, and spent the rest of the ride barely ahead of the storm as we raced towards Montreal. At 70 km in, we hopped onto a commuter train to get to Montreal sooner… and ended up using that time gained to recover at Lasha’s place, instead of going out on the town! It was definitely time well spent, after 190 km in our first two days.

The next day we had alternating sun and thunderstorms as we went along the dedicated cycling trails of the Route Verte: through tropical-feeling Île Sainte-Hélène in Montreal; through fields in the suburbs; everything paved and mostly flat. Despite our late start (and complaining butts), we still covered 100 km before arriving in Granby in the Eastern Townships. We scoped out a spot to camp in a park before heading to a microbrewery for dinner, but it turns out that camping spot wasn’t needed: a friendly man at the bar named Denis was flabbergasted by the amount of bags we were travelling with, by bicycle no less, and he insisted we stay with him and use his shower. (We decided to not not read that as commentary on our ‘arome de cycling’!) We were happy to accept, and were delighted and grateful to find the next morning that he also fed us breakfast before we rejoined the cycling path that was 500 m from his door.

The Route Verte that we followed for most of our trip is part of the 5000 km of dedicated cycle paths that various levels of Quebec government have invested in. The level of maintenance varies from route to route; paved paths with kilometres-travelled signs suddenly give way to chunky gravel running along the riverside, which eventually led onto hard-packed gravel with rest stops every 5 km or less.

That day of cycling was also full of variety. After second-breakfast we decided to detour for some local food, alas it was not to be (the microbrewery was not serving at that hour, and the cheese factory had been turned into a restaurant), after that it was flat and paved path over old rail beds for a while, and we passed many other cyclists on fancy fast bikes, seems to be quite a popular area! That eventually gave way to what Joel called “nice variety”… I realized I should have known we were in trouble when this Route Verte path was called “La Montagnarde”, ‘montagne’ being French for mountain. We took several breaks and went through lots of Gatorade, but we made it up and over them and enjoyed the downhills as we rolled into Magog, 60 km later. I was extremely grateful that Joel had booked a nice B&B that night that included massages; that plus the short(er) day of cycling was our only rest day of the trip. (Oops.) We wandered the shore at sunset and had an incredibly filling dinner of fondue and beer at La Memphré (microbrewery), and vowed to return to Magog!

After a great cooked breakfast at Au Virage B&B, we headed out. Sherbrooke, the first city we passed through, was full of unnecessary hills and earned no love from us. We briefly joined the tail end of a pack of fifteen local cyclists as we climbed up more hills, but lost them on the downhills as we needed to go fast and make up ground. This plan felt like it was being thwarted as the Route Verte led us along rough gravel paths fo a while, so we did some executive decision-making: we’d strike off in a slightly different direction and visit a cheeserie (cheese factory), and still arrive in the same place after cycling the same distance! …except that early into the 20 km and 300 m of climbing (and descent) later, we realized that there might have been a reason why this was not the way that the Route Verte took us (HILLS). But we continued on, and enjoyed exceptionally fresh cheese and a blueberry-chocolate ice cream sundae at the top of a hill before continuing to camp down at the bottom of a hill. The next morning we discovered, to our delight, that the hasty waterproofing in Ottawa had worked, and we were all dry despite the overnight storm!

We were back on the Route Verte the next day, this time on a flat gravel rail bed (think baseball diamond gravel) from outside Asbestos to a fairly direct route northwest through Victoriaville, a beautiful little tourist town which broadcast early 2000s music in the streets. We stuck around for the farmer’s market and headed out. We intended to do at least 100 km that day to make a short day to Quebec City the next day, and at 85 km we found ourselves taking a rest/gatorade break outside of a small town. We were intending to make a few more km before surreptitiously setting up our tent at a rest stop somewhere outside of the town of Lyster. As we rested and sugared up for the final push, two women on bikes stopped to talk with us. One of them asked where we’d be camping, and didn’t buy our vague generalities — “I don’t think there is camping just outside of town! …do you want to stay at my house?” — which was surprising, to say the least! Her son had cycled across Canada and she remembered how much he appreciated whenever somebody offered to host him. She offered us a bed, a shower, and produce from her garden, and we were incredibly grateful.

The next day was more mix of paved and gravel trails along fields and treed paths, but since it was our last day on the road, it flew by. We made our way along the cast-iron truss-bridge where our awkwardly wide bikes meant we got to talk to other cyclists, who let us know we’d be seeing the Grand Prix Cyclists Quebec that day. Watching the Grand Prix cyclists was humbling: we’d been impressed at how we’d finally gotten into shape with our bags by cycling just over 600 km in 7 days, and here they were racing over 200 km in 5 hours, with over 3000 m of altitude gained (same as our entire trip!) as they cycled up into Quebec’s Old City and then dropped down to the riverside, repeating that 12 km course 16 times. We meandered and admired the public art along the riverside, and made our way to our Airbnb and then delicious food as we explored Old Quebec.

The next morning we continued our explorations of Quebec: pastries, tourist traps, wrought iron shops, and lunch at the Plains of Abraham. We eventually caught a bus back to Montreal and spent the night with our friend Gab before we took the train back to Toronto.

It’s been a wonderful trip, and we are so tired, happy, sore, delighted, incorrigible and again reminded how fortunate we are.

7 days, 611 km, 3057 m ascent, what a trip!

We’ve heard Rome called the Eternal City, and it’s quite apparent why: modern buildings next to Renaissance buildings (1500s) built around Roman ruins (300 BCE–300 AD), and museums containing Egyptian treasures (1300 BCE) and Etruscan artifacts (3500 BCE). It’s shockingly different from Canada, where we don’t have the same physical reminders of the peoples who have lived on the land for the past 5000 years.

Foods of note:

• Gelato: liquorice, pine nut-hazelnut-almond, pineapple and lime, lemon biscotti, zuppa inglese (sponge cake and custard), Sicilian pistachio, mango, and more…
• ​Olive oil tasting with ricotta, bufala mozzarella, homemade tomato antipasti, and four different homemade breads.
• Bread, cheese and meat picnics in the park. This is something we did in Toronto when we first started dating, and it feels right at home here.
• A dinner involving almost-poutine (potato wedges with cheese and pepper) and deep-fried artichokes.
• Fancy lunch: sous-vide egg with parmesan foam, hazelnut and mushroom risotto served in a bowl sealed with onion paper that was then broken with a goat’s cheese cream, and pig snout.

And now we're back in Toronto! It feels both familiar and strange, and definitely surreal to no longer be on bikes and living on the road. We half-joked about putting up the tent in the living room our first night back, to ease the transition… but ​it's good to be back, and we're excited for the next adventures.

We left Florence and headed to San Gimignano, a medieval hill town best known for its towers. Fourteen towers remain out of an original seventy-two towers of one-upsmanship, with each family trying to outdo its neighbours in a skyward show of wealth and prestige. A number of people we had spoken to raved about its beauty, but also cautioned us about the hills we'd have to ride to get there. And sure enough, the ride was filled with glorious swooping downhills where we regretted every metre lost, and painfully slow uphill grinds where we wondered why a road was ever installed at such a dramatic grade. We're very glad we didn't do this trip in reverse by starting in Rome and hitting these hills early, and we are very appreciative of the conditioning we've developed over the past few weeks! The views also made all the uphill worthwhile.

We rolled into San Gimignano and dropped our bags off at our 13th century palazzo accommodations, then headed out to… climb some more, up the tallest tower in town. We also explored the palazzo museum below, and the gelateria of the world gelato champion from 2006-2009 (saffron & pine nuts and Gorgonzola & pear were two standouts). Dinner was at a delicious local restaurant that had artichokes on the walls and bundles of wheat hanging from the ceiling.

The next day we saw 12th century religious art and wandered through the city, before we headed on towards Siena. The route was slightly hilly and very lovely, and we did lunch (local pasta with wild boar) at a restaurant recommended by our host in Florence. We stopped early that afternoon outside Siena to make camp near the road, and had a leisurely evening that included Joel seeing a wild boar or two!

We rolled into Siena early the next day, checked into our hostel, and went to see the city. And there is much to see, especially from high up! We took a tour through the upper galleries inside the zebra-striped cathedral, admired the mosaic floors and illuminated manuscripts inside, then walked down to the cathedral's crypts, then back up several flights of stairs to the viewpoint that would have been the cathedral's new entrance if the planned expansion had been completed in the 15th century (they planned on turning the nave into the transept, aka taking a church shaped like a cross and extending the short section so it became the long section of the cross and the current long section became the short section of the cross). Unfortunately for the renovation planners, the plague that halved the population of the city, war with the Medicis in Florence, and insufficiently-stable foundations (you get a different answer depending on who you ask) ruined their plans and only a few walls were built including the grand front entrance, which now leads into a parking lot.

The last tower we climbed was the bell tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, or the seat of government. The frescoes here were interestingly different, depicting good government in addition to the usual religious iconography. From the tower we drank in the panoramic views of the city square and terra cotta roofs beneath us, and the rolling hills further out as we tried to guess at which route we'd take out of town.

Our cycling time was winding down before we were due in Rome, and we had to choose between turning to the coast and booting it 240 kilometres there, or turning further inland, meandering through the lush hills of Tuscany, and catching a train to Rome. We'd seen a lot of the coast and we love the Tuscan scenery (and wine), so it wasn't a hard choice! The next day, we set our GPS to Montepulciano and began meandering through jaw-dropping view after jaw-dropping view. It's difficult to travel fast across this country by bike because the hills take your literal and metaphorical breath away.

We finally stopped in Asciano for dinner, where it proved to be impossible to find pasta at 6 pm so we settled for meats, cheeses, and various pickled and delicious vegetables. We left a bit too late and found ourselves racing to find somewhere to wild camp before the sun set. We chose a secluded spot in a forest off the highway but after we set up camp, we found out that the neighbouring property had a very irate dog that barked at us, at traffic, and at the world. The night's harmonic counterpoint was provided by what we could only guess was a wild pig being squeezed, so it wasn't the most sleep-inducing animal symphony we've had… but after ten minutes on the road the next morning, we were happy again and delighted by the scenery.

We spent our first night in Montepulciano finishing off some of the food we've been carrying for far too long, and enjoying the wood-burning fireplace in our Airbnb while a storm blew by. The next day we climbed up the volcanic crag to Montepulciano proper, and explored through some of the wineries which let you roam freely through their cellars. We saw a "wine cathedral" built in the 1500s and still in use today (it also served  as a bomb shelter for 100 families durning World War II). We saw enormous barrels aging for the 2-4 years required for the Vino Nobile di Montepulciano denomination; bottles that have been aging since the 1970s; Etruscan tombs from 500 BCE, and sea fossils. This was the steepest town we visited; we would walk into a winery at street level, descend several stories into its vaulted-ceilinged cellar, and walk out of the cellar at another street level. It's humbling to think that this town was once at the bottom of a sea!

We were wandering through the streets when we heard interesting sounds, so went to investigate. We found a third-generation coppersmith at work, and he invited us into his shop after querying us to make sure we had a "grand'amore", or great love (we sure do!). We got to see the raw copper ingots he starts with, the pedal-powered blower forge he uses to heat them, the tools from his father and grandfather that he works with, and learned that he had made the gold-plated copper ornament on top of the cathedral in Siena, which we had seen three days earlier! He finished off the tour by making a copper memento of Montepulciano for us, which marks our anniversary date and predicts that we’ll have four babies — he told us to get “frisky frisky” to make sure of it!

We meandered up and down the streets, then brought fresh pasta and pesto home for dinner. The next day we looked at routes to the train station and decided to skip the route through the valley with 80 metres of elevation gain (me: “Pfft, that’s so simple for us”) in favour of the scenic route through the top of the hills (I certainly ate those words from earlier, as we gained 494 metres before lunch). We flew down from the top of the hills and into the valley, and caught the train for a two-hour trip to Rome, which would have taken us at least two days to ride. Now we run around Rome before returning home!

Foods of note:

• ​Gelato! Saffron and pine nut, ginger raspberry, ricotta and pear, gorgonzola and pear, vernaccia wine, dark chocolate and Grand Marnier, peach, espresso, and more!
• Pasta with wild boar, beet and turnip and parmesan layered and roasted, and limoncello in San Gimignano.
• Several delicious meals of cured meats (notably the local Cinta Senese pork), cheeses (pecorino especially), and vegetables.
• Delicious craft beer and excellent burgers (rare beef, and chicken and pistachio curry) in Siena.

Just as all good things must come to an end, so too did we need to come down from the high that was staying at the castle. Luckily for us, the work we did in cycling up to the castle was handsomely rewarded with a downhill ride to the coast! (With frequent stops to cool off our disc brakes.)

It was slightly surreal cycling through towns we had passed through by train earlier that week, but soon we took a different course and started riding up… and up… and up, with frequent breaks dictated by the amount of sun and hill grade we were experiencing. 2.5 L each of water later, we reached the highest peak we’ve climbed so far: 540 m.

Just after we passed that high point we got a thumbs-up from a guy on a Vespa, which hasn’t been too unusual for us this trip. We waved back, and then cut across the road to get a photo. When we turned back, we saw that he had stopped and was approaching. He turned out to be a friendly Australian who understands cycle tourists and made us a tempting offer: If we rode another 30km we could stay at a villa he is staying in and could have a shower!  It turns out he is part of a crew for a luxury yacht, and they are currently land-based as the boat was being rebuilt in the dockyard nearby. So, they were staying at an incredible villa that belonged to a famous Italian architect. Needless to say, we changed our course and kicked it into high gear at 5pm to make it there that evening!

That motivation carried us down all the uphill we had gained, and into the valley behind the Cinque Terre. We arrived at the villa just before sunset and were invited to share their for a South African braai (like a barbeque, but better).  We had a fantastic evening visiting with everyone, sharing stories and revelling in their generous hospitality.

The next morning we visited some more and then headed out to La Spezia and the Gulf of Poets. La Spezia is a major shipping town, and has the largest naval base in Italy; the Amalfi coast hosts stunning views: sheer cliffs, trees draped over the road, gorgeous blue water.

After a lunch looking out over the sea, late afternoon had us climbing some more at a very steep grade. As we finally crested the hill, we were treated to new scenery ahead: gorgeous marble-streaked mountains rolling into lush cropland plains below, reminiscent of Alberta.

Heather: We are so fortunate to be here!
​Joel: I agree. And I’m so glad you feel fortunate after climbing up that hill!
​
The well-earned downhill was well enjoyed as we made our way down from the winding coast to the narrow plain between the mountains and the sea.

We spent the night in a campground near Carrara, then continued the next morning through towns on the plain between mountains and coast under an overcast sky before heading inland towards Lucca. We’ve been incredibly fortunate in terms of weather so far and had been trying to outrun the rain, but it finally caught us as we stopped for lunch and we rode the final hour into Lucca under a steady drizzle. The rain lasted just long enough for us to check into our B&B, then was kind enough to stop just before we headed iout to see the old city. 

Lucca was a fiercely independent medieval republic which competed with Genoa, Pisa, and Florence for trade and regional dominance. As part of their strategy, they built massive walls which are largely intact today since they were not bombed during World War II. No longer needed for defence, the walls now contain gardens and a 4 km cycling and walking path that circumnavigates the entire old city. We rode our bikes along the top of the wall marvelling at the single-mindedness of the citizens which was required to complete the walls over several generations. The next day we headed in early to climb up the tall tower in town to enjoy the panoramic vista and the trees growing at the top of the tower.

Then we headed further through Tuscany. The scenery is indeed as gorgeous as everyone says, with the rolling hills covered with vineyards and olive groves, interspersed with a few picturesque towns and houses. As dusk set we found a small campsite just off the secondary highway, which was great in every respect except for all the thorns. (It worked well for us anyway, we just got somewhat stabbed as we set up camp.) The next morning headed to Florence to meet parents, but got somewhat delayed when we realized that one of the sides of my front rack had cracked. We cobbled it back together with a hose clamp and figured it could probably limp along to the end of the trip.

We got the Firenze Card, which gives you access to 72 museums in Florence for 72 hours. This also turns out to be access to 72 washrooms in the city, so we did a very speedy run-through of the museum of the work done on the cathedral and Duomo.

Our parents left early the next morning, and we brought my racks to a welder a couple blocks away. He did a speedy repair on my front rack and the rear rack which had cracked on our way into Italy, and we continued on to the Pitti Palace (the palace the Medicis moved into when their old palace was too narrow). We gawked at the beauty and the wealth displayed there, and saw the changing tastes across generations: table tops done entirely in inlaid stone, walls practically collaged with paintings, ceilings entirely frescoed, jewels, velvet walls, intricate furniture, and tapestries. After saturating on that, we lost ourselves in the vast gardens and napped in the sun, near larger-than-life statues and enormous obelisks.

Before coming here, we hadn’t appreciated how deeply the Medicis had shaped Florence and the Western world. Many iconic works of Renaissance art: funded by the Medicis. Florence’s scientific academy founded by Galileo, which predates the Royal Academy in London: funded by the Medicis. The iconic Duomo of the cathedral: funded by the Medicis. They were truly tyrants with taste, and they shaped the world to their liking.

We ran through the Galileo museum and saw many tools he invented in his pursuit of knowledge (funded by the Medicis): telescopes for space, tools to measure the effects of gravity, one tool for military and civilian cartography calculations, and  preliminary devices to measure temperature.

After seeing all the gorgeous stone work in the Medici palace and chapel, we knew we had to visit the museum of stone art (pietre dure) (initially funded by the Medicis). This Florentine art form makes “painting for eternity” using stone inlay, and the results are truly mesmerizing. It was incredible to see the degree of detail at which they worked, as well as the paintings reproduced in stone, and the tools they used to create it all. We also visited a shop and saw a master at work on a stone painting.

Our last two galleries in Florence were the Bargello, which houses sculptures, weapons, and more paintings, and the Palazzo Vecchio. The Palazzo Vecchio was the palace deemed too narrow by the Medicis, but it does have a modest number (compared to the Pitti Palace) of extraordinarily frescoed rooms.

Next, we ride through Tuscany (so hilly! So picturesque!), and then onwards towards Rome!

Foods of note

• Braai: many meats grilled over charcoal. We learned the many rules for the boat that they had been teaching a new crew member, like how you must always have a dop (drink) in hand, and how you must always keep your shammy moist.
• Gatta Ci Cova: our parents went to Lucca a few days before we did, and recommended this place to us based on its quirky decor (one table had swings for seats) and delicious food. We ordered and delighted in the smoked eggplant ravioli, with the entire dish served under a glass dome filled with smoke; bacon-wrapped rabbit stuffed with apple; beef with strawberries and ginger; tender tuna.
• Trattoria Sabatino: Authentic and cheap, with a variety of delicious home-cooked food.
• Pear and gorgonzola ravioli
• Aperol spritz is the drink of choice in Italy, and many bars have an offer where you order a spritz and eat a buffet appetizers dinner.
• Gelato: apricot, dark chocolate, pistachio, cinnamon, Chianti, strawberry-ginger, red orange, cones fresh from the oven.

[Editor's note: an earlier version claimed we went through the Amalfi coast. Sadly, we have not yet mastered instantaneous transportation, and instead we went through the Gulf of Poets. The Amalfi coast will have to be for another visit!]

Because this is Italy and their castles predate their* discovery of North America, they have castles you can rent. Our two families spent the week at Mereta Castle in Leivi, a 15th century castle that had been used for defensive purposes (arrow slits in the building) as well as being the main castle for the Bagna family of Turin. It’s a gorgeous stone building filled with interesting treasures, from family heirlooms to things the current owner’s father picked up during his time as a naval officer. 

​* Genoa lays claim to being the birthplace of Christopher Columbus, and the naval museum we visited there describes their evidence (apparently there are several other places which also lay claim to being his birthplace)

Really, the only downside to the castle was the fact that it was very high up: 8 km and 200 m of altitude gain from our train stop in Chiavari. We rode hard and almost managed to beat the car ride of family arriving on the next train, and arrived to find that the castle was even more interesting than we had hoped. We walked in to see a suit of armour in the entrance hallway, and every room held more interesting things: more dining room tables, more glassware, more beautiful wardrobes. The place has a wood-fired pizza oven and an antique wine press in the downstairs kitchen!

That evening we went out to dinner at a local place where instead of offering a menu, they give you an eleven-course meal: six appetizers, two fish dishes, two meat dishes, and a dessert. For us, the dessert was a surprise honeymoon cake arranged by the parents! We finished off the meal with limoncello and returned to sleep it off in the castle.

Chiavari and the castle are close to the UNESCO world heritage site of the Cinque Terre, or Five Lands, which are five villages on the coast of the eastern Italian Riviera. They’re famous for ekeing out their survival on impossibly steep hills by fishing and terraforming the hills for cultivating olives and grapes. One sign said that the length of the walls created to terrace the olives and grapes was equivalent to the length of the Great Wall of China! The five villages are connected by picturesque walking trails which range from “hilly” to “should have brought my rock climbing shoes”, all in all a good time.

​Monday was the best weather forecasted for the entire week, so that’s when we headed to the Cinque Terre. It turns out we were joined by what felt like the entire rest of Italy, as the Tuesday holiday (The 25 of April, or the day the Italians overthrew the Fascists at the end of WWII) meant that Monday was also a  holiday, and the second town of Vernazza was just packed with people. We had lunch there and started hiking to get away from the press of people, and the crowds did indeed thin out once we started climbing. We had a gorgeous walk to the third town of Corniglia, where we got more gelato and wandered the city with fewer crowds. Unfortunately, the trails to the fourth and fifth towns were closed due to trail damage (whether from the floods of 2011 or the hordes of walkers, we aren’t sure) so we headed home after dinner in Corniglia.

The next afternoon everyone but me hiked through hills near the castle. I’m told that the views were somewhat compromised by the low clouds that they were walking through, but every now and again there was a break in the clouds and they could see all the way down to the coast.

That evening Joel and I prepared dinner, and the Armstrongs introduced the Slonetskys to the most delicious of foods: artichokes. We also showcased things we had learned from earlier in the trip and made salmon a la Gustaf and tian a la Magali.

Wednesday was fully rainy, so Joel and I spent the day at the castle catching up on things like laundry and a blog post, while others went to explore Chiavari. Joel tried his hand with the pizza oven and we ended the day with another delicious home-cooked meal (Minestrone made by our host) and played games late into the night. The next day was spent exploring the weekly market, port, and gelaterias of Rapallo, and a small group of us continued to the beautiful town of Portofino to explore its fine harbour and castle. (We skipped the designer shops.) 

Friday was our last day together, and my birthday, so we fit in as much as possible: we went by train to the other three Cinque Terre towns of Riomaggiore, Manarola, and Monterosso al Mare (and ate as much gelato as possible), then we headed back to Genoa where I was surprised by a birthday wine tasting (and more gelato) and dinner at Le Rune, an exceptional place that opened last year to rave reviews, but is still somehow reasonably priced. If you’re in Genoa, you should go there.

After dinner we said goodbye to Luke and headed back to the castle. The next morning the rest of us parted ways, but we will meet up again with our parents in Florence in just a few days’ time, just long enough for us to cycle there… onwards!

Foods of note:

• The eleven-course meal in Leivi: some favourites were the appetizers of meats and cheese, as well as the mushroom and parmesan salad. Many of us even enjoyed foods we normally pass on (shrimp for me, olives and mushrooms for some of the brothers).
• Limoncello enjoyed by all!
• Pizza made by Joel and Anne.
• Gelato: Cinque Terre honey, Cinque Terre lemon, fig and ricotta, apricot, pear, gelato served inside a brioche…
• Minestrone soup made by our host Angelica.
• Dinner at La Rune: the best octopus we’ve had yet (even the most avid seafood disliker of our group went back for a second taste!), eggplant ravioli, tiny beef ravioli, asparagus tart, the best steak Matt has ever eaten, delicate fennel and truffle steak tartar, and tender tuna.

We left Nice midday and travelled east along more wonderful French cycling infrastructure, past beaches, tunnels, towns, and craggy rock outcroppings. We rode into Monaco on streets which had been reinforced with fences for the upcoming Grand Prix, and ate a picnic lunch in the harbour, surrounded by yachts and public art. No gambling for us though; we rode right out of town and stopped in Menton for a final glace (gelato) on the harbour, then continued into Italy. The landscape changed almost immediately: the hills were less rocky and more green with terraced agriculture, more houses dotted the entire landscape instead of being concentrated around the harbour towns like in France, and even the plant life alongside the road felt wilder. We spent our afternoon riding and checked into a campground near San Remo for the night, where I dredged up the Italian I had learned in high school and felt my brain heat up as it accessed words and pronunciations that I hadn't used in years. We got everything set up with the desk and pegged our tent in between cobblestones and went to dinner at the campground's restaurant with our expectations firmly in check. But then we discovered that the campground's restaurant was set up to appeal to Italians: we were surprised and delighted by fine table linens and a very delicious multiple-course menu, though we've clearly got a lot of learning to do in order to eat like the Italians; even after the full day of cycling we couldn't imagine ourselves each eating a pasta course and then a meat-and-fries/pizza course! We ended with limoncello, which has become a new favourite of ours.

At this point, we had three days and 130 kilometres to go before we were due in Genoa, so we figured we had some time for adventure. I found a vineyard that was a little inland of our route but it was well-rated, so we rode 40 kilometres along the coast and another 20 kilometres inland to Ranzo. Despite heading towards the snow-capped mountains inland, there wasn't as much climbing to get there as our GPS had led us to believe (fear) and we arrived at the utterly beautiful aMaccia winery and olive orchard by mid afternoon.

Carlotta, who runs aMaccia, and her partner Fulvio received us very warmly and we tried several of their wines as well as a surprising amount of food freshly prepared by la nonna (the grandmother). (Sadly, last year's harvest of olives was so small that they had no more olive oil available for tasting.) We learned how Carlotta, Fulvio and only two others tend to the 1000 olive trees and enough grapevines to make 22,000 bottles of wine a year, plus hosting agritourism guests during tourist season — that's a lot of work! We were so taken with the place that we asked if they did agritourism for tents too, for a night or two. They offered us a space in the olive grove further uphill and we jumped at the opportunity! We then sweated our way up (100 metres vertical gain over less than a kilometre) to our olive paradise.                                                   

We spent the next day relaxing and exploring around the grove, and finally had our first chance to read in the hammock which we've been carrying all this way. For dinner we followed Carlotta's recommendation and went down to the local osteria (homestyle restaurant) and the two of us ate a four-course meal for one, all incredibly delicious! After that we biked back up to the olive grove and collapsed, exhausted and so very sated.

The next morning we set out early, as we now had to cover 110 kilometres to Genoa that day. Taking a rest day proved to be definitely the right (and reasonable!) decision as we made good time along the coast, passing rock climbers and spectacular scenery. Despite the crosswind the whole way that occasionally felt like a headwind, we made into Genoa ahead of schedule and met our parents.

When we first started planning this cycling honeymoon, most people thought it sounded completely unbelievable. Our parents did too, and they also thought it sounded wonderful — and wouldn't it be even more wonderful if both families joined for a week, so we could all travel together and get to know each other better? (Sunday dinners together are impractical when the two families are spread out across three provinces and six cities.) Joel and I thought about it and agreed, and we figured we could get the most family members out (David and Jonathon, we miss you!) for this one-week stretch around the Genoa–Cinque Terre area.

We met all four parents in Genoa's old city, and shared a delicious seafood dinner together before Joel and I made our way back to our Airbnb after a brief detour when both our GPS and Google Maps got thoroughly confused by Genoa's tiny, winding, similarly-named streets. We were very happy to have left most of our bags at our parents' B&B when we found our hosts' building had the tiniest elevator we had seen yet — it's amazing what can be retrofitted into an older building — and we met our lovely hosts and slept well.

We spent the next day touring Genoa with parents, through palazzi (palaces) and churches (including one with an unexploded English bomb from WWII) as well as the maritime museum. Joel was particularly interested to learn there about Genoa's long and storied involvement in ship development and building (everything from galleys to container ships), and maritime trade from the pre-Columbus era right through to the present day. My brother Ian joined us for a pizza dinner, where the seven of us shared six pizzas and enjoyed many delicious flavours.

Food of note:

• Gelato! Chocolate with dark cherry, ginger, coffee with ginseng, darkest chocolate, vegan pistachio, and many more…
• Seafood lunch at a casual place where we were the only English-speaking people there.
• A four-course meal for one (shared between two people) at the osteria: an antipasti plate full of local specialties, ravioli with artichokes, tender beef and mushrooms, and an ice cream and meringue dessert.
• Seafood dinner with barely-seared tuna with papaya, delicate whitefish with butternut squash, and a mixed seafood ravioli with artichokes and vegetables on top.
• Genoese pesto. And focaccia. And delicious together too…
• Espresso (country-wide price is 1€) and limoncello, as many days as the opportunities arise.

The ride into Marseille shouldn't have felt long as it was only 30 km, but it's been a long time since we've seen urban sprawl, and the constant checking for directions and errant cars made it feel much longer. Marseille is the second-largest city in France and we'd heard it's got a reputation for being rough around the edges, some of which we saw as we came in through the suburbs through plenty of traffic and broken beer bottles in the streets. We had also been warned about Marseille on that day in particular, as there was a large political meeting — 50,000 people expected — at the rally for the "Bernie Sanders of France" in the old city. (France's elections happen on April 23; if none of the 12 candidates win a majority, then there is a second round between the top two candidates on May 7. We are leaving France on April 18, which means we'll be watching all of this from afar). We dropped our bags at our Airbnb before heading out on suddenly-lighter bikes. We rode by the gathered crowd and saw their energy but generally steered clear as we headed to the old market district of Marseille, Le Panier.

The next day we saw a bit more of Marseille and then headed out and up. The combination of an easier grade of hill and better conditioning made the 200+ m climb feel much easier than the 166 m climb into France had been! At one point we passed through an area that had had a wild-fire last year, the blackened trees were still there along with a carpet of yellow flowers! As we were taking pictures we met people foraging for wild asparagus and salad greens, and continued marvelling at the splendour of the Calanques as we continued upward: tall hills, deep gulleys, ancient gravel, and scrub and rosemary growing wild.

We camped in a quiet spot that night and continued on through Cassis, then up and on towards our lunch plans. We changed out of our T-shirts and skintight shorts into more presentable clothes 100 m down the road from our well-reviewed restaurant, and had a wonderful meal with staff who admirably covered their surprise as we rolled up and asked where to park our bikes. After lunch we changed back and continued along the picturesque coast. Our brief stop at a beach perfectly coincided with the one cloudy period of the day, and we admitted defeat and headed out (now back in the late afternoon sunshine) towards and through Toulon. We didn't stop to see the city, but can certainly speak favourably of the extensive continuous cycling paths right from its westmost suburbs through the city to the eastmost suburb towns. I really admire and appreciate the investment in cycling infrastructure in this part of southern France! After camping out again that night, we came across a mid-week farmer's market the next morning and had more sunshine and a picnic on the beach. We continued onwards to more climbing (and Google Maps' first epic fail — our promised path led us to dirt trails on private property and angry men yelling at us to get off their property) but our GPS eventually found us an alternate route and climbed ever upwards into a national forest and its wineries.

The second winery we stopped at had wonderful wine and was stunningly beautiful. We decided to take a chance and ask if they had space on the property to put up a very small tent… and were very fortunate as it turns out that the owner of the Domaine Sainte Marie vineyard is an ardent cyclist, and was happy to have us stay.  This was particularly fortuitous as he was hosting a birthday party for his father that night and we happened to also meet his brother who owns a hotel in Cannes and offered us a 'friends and family' rate if we could make it that far the next day, motivation! We spent a wonderful night there serenaded by sheep, frogs, and birds, and started pushing the next day to make the 90 km to Cannes.

As our host had promised, we were cycling through an incredibly beautiful stretch of landscape: national forest, the sandy beaches of St Tropez, craggy coastline of red rocks against blue sky and azure water. It was gorgeous enough to make all the ups and downs of the coast all worth it!

We arrived in Cannes in time for dinner, and caught a glimpse of the filming of Cannes Ninja Warrior as we wandered through the restaurants, designer shops, high-end hotels and luxury yachts that make up the main stretch of Cannes. The Hotel de Provence was our favourite part of Cannes and we had a wonderful stay.

The ride to Nice was almost entirely beachfront cycleway, with a bonus headwind. Getting into Nice was a bit of a challenge as construction had overtaken the two major roads parallel to the beaches, as well as the beach itself and the cycle paths — everything must be ready before high season! We visited the Matisse museum and wandered the area (much easier to do with unladen bikes) and met Cedric and Estelle that evening. They had brought the fixings for Swiss fondue, which we enjoyed very much. 

The next day we all wandered through Vieille Nice, through the winding roads, up the hill to the park, an back down to the beach. Dinner was amazing, and we finished the night with a friendly (competitive) game of Settlers of Catan. The next morning was more Nice-wandering, and Estelle and I ventured into the chilly sea while the men sunned themselves at a safe distance. Cedric and Estelle headed back to Switzerland, Joel and I visited the Chagall museum and had a dinner of delicious Niçoise street food. ​

After the 190 km in two days ride, we made it to Montpellier and stayed for the weekend with Adam, a friend of Joel's from Queens, and his fiancée Magali. They have a lovely place in a really interesting area of town right near city hall, surrounded by new condos that all look distinctive and interesting. They are wonderful hosts and do a great tour of the town — monuments, churches, fountains, and all sorts of interesting, winding streets full of people just out and about. We also visited the hillside town of Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert, which still has a very old monastery that avoided getting sacked and destroyed in the various religious wars. Joel was delighted to learn that he has seen some of the stonework from this monastery and church in The Cloisters in New York, as many ornamental pieces had been pillaged/repurposed for construction in nearby villages and farther away over the years, only to be recollected later.

Adam and Magali taught us how to select wine in France (look for the medallion sticker that indicates the wine has won an award), when to buy bread (the day of, and make sure it's been baked fresh on the premises), and Magali made a delicious dinner of roast chicken and tian (gratin). A great visit with fantastic hosts, thanks again!

We also got to see our dance instructor friend Jered for coffee before we left on Monday. That afternoon we did a 30 km ride out to Aigues-Mortes, a medieval walled city in the salt marsh. We camped outside the city walls and were serenaded throughout the night by ducks in mating season, which was far quieter than if we had been a little further along and surrounded by the frogs!

The Camargue is a national park famous for its salt flats, white horses, black bulls, and pink flamingos. I was very excited to see the flamingos — they're such elegant, vibrant, improbable birds, and many thousands of them live in the Camargue during the summer. As we were there during their migration season we didn't see as many as we might have at other times of year, though there were enough in Montpellier a few weeks earlier to cause issues at the airport. We cycled along the south edge of the Camargue, which is for bicycles and pedestrians only, and stopped periodically to watch the flamingos display, mate, and feed, all in significant wind.

The region does bullfights, but the goal is dancing, not death: the matador has to pluck rosettes and other favours from beneath the bull's horns. We came across a herd of bulls on the other side of a fence, and I coaxed them closer to us with some mooing (thanks Greg, the lesson on moose calls seems to have come in handy!). It was fascinating to watch them run as a herd, and to see the interactions between herd members.

We spent a very windy night camped out just outside the park, and continued the next morning directly into the wind and up to Arles. The city was a major port during Roman times, and has the artifacts to show for it! We thought we had been awed by how old the church and monastery at Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert were, and how we don't have anything like that in Canada, but the Roman-era arena in Arles is twice as old as the church at Guillhem-le-Désert. It has been restored and is still used for bullfights and concerts. It was somewhat incongruous to see  seat numbers spray-painted onto Roman stone, but it makes me bizarrely happy to see it still in full use. 

After a whirlwind tour through Arles (history museum, arena, subterranean Roman forum, ancient baths, and a flamingo photography exhibit), we headed out to camp in a light rain, wind, and a field of yellow and purple wildflowers partway to Aix-en-Provence.

The morning ride into Aix was glorious: wine country, paved roads, lunch on the gorgeous Provençal countryside. We dropped off our bikes in a little Airbnb in the heart of the old quarter and soaked in the pedestrian boulevards, winding cobblestone roads, mossy fountains, and art galleries that make up the vibrant city life. The next day we visited the morning market, selling all sorts of fresh produce, meat, cheese, and lavender. There was even a separate flower market, which looked gorgeous but impractical for cyclists. We visited the Granet museum, which was my first exposure to Cézanne. I was underwhelmed by the pieces on exhibit, but I blame the curator at the time — he vowed that as long as he was in charge, the museum would never display a Cézanne. I was far more impressed by their statues room, which featured Greek and Roman statuary as well as works from the 17th and 18th centuries. 

Case in point: Joel finally figured out how to use the GPS the day before we left (very handy!). We didn't bring my old and sad bike helmet, trusting that we'd find a better one in Barcelona (and we did). We shipped what we hoped would be the perfect 'kickstand' to Pittsburgh a week before we took off, trusting we'd figure out how to get it to Toronto before we left (it arrived an hour before we headed to the airport — thank you Emily, Matt and Ian, it works wonderfully for us). And we've been trusting heavily in our bikes and our GPS to help us out when some of the roads Google suggests for cycling look like they are more suited to mountain bikes than to fully-laden touring bikes.

Our "Thanks, Google…" roads have been gravel, mud, sand, and several stream and river crossings without bridges, including one where we had to carry over instead of ride/wade through.

​We spent one night at a specialty hotel whose rooms are all private bubble-rooms with clear plastic domes over the beds so you can stargaze — very romantic! ​While I did laundry, Joel made an amazing dinner on the camping stoves (salmon and Brussels sprouts poached in cava, served on butter rice).

Much of the ride out from Barcelona had been flat. That started changing as we got closer to France and the Pyrenees, and the little coastal villages were separated by mountains in between. Worse yet, the last town in Spain is at sea level, and the border is 166 m above sea level.

(We're also carrying 128 lbs of bike and gear for Joel, and 96 lbs of bike and gear for me. He gets more weight because he's been training on his 20 km round trip daily commute, versus my 4 km round trip. He also carries the food, so his pack weight varies depending on how hungry we are each day.) 

Once we cycled past the graffiti'd checkpoint offices at the border (permanently closed and not needed in the EU), we were into France proper. We quickly found a group of seniors who had walked up the French side of the hill, and we immediately started talking. It was such a relief to be able to communicate effectively, and we talked nonstop! They were very taken with us and the idea of our trip, and our bikes — the men were all trying to pick up Joel's bike, and they were telling us to enjoy our youth while we could (though one woman told us about the yearly 800 km bike trip she does with a friend in Germany, which sounds fantastic). 

After lunch at the top, we rode down to Cerbère at sea level, filled up with water, then immediately (agonizingly) climbed our way back out of town. The highway had a more gradual climb than the one in Spain, so we continued along until we found a perfect spot on the coast to wild camp. We had dinner, watched a wild pig gallop on by, and then started looking ahead to the route to Montpellier. We had three days to cover 210 km, and the forecast was calling for rain the entire third day. So we did the only sensible thing: we decided to try to ride it all in two days.

We woke up to a glorious sunrise, and then continued down the hill to Banyuls-sur-Mer to fill up with water and ride back up another hill. After starting the morning with snow-capped Pyrenees in the background, the landscape soon transitioned to miles and miles of beaches and accompanying parking, and landscape and architecture that felt more like Florida. We spent some time at the beach, and spent the bulk of our day cycling alongside many more kilometres of deserted beaches (the carousels were just coming out as the Easter holidays start soon), and then on to the inland salt marshes. 

After another impossibly beautiful sunrise, we broke camp and were once again off on the canal path out of the estuaries and back to the beach towns alternating with vineyards. They were all setting up for holidays — go karts, trampolines, campgrounds, golf, all eerily quiet but soon to be bustling. Our road took us inland and then back along the coast, with a very strong east wind the entire way. Our last stretch before dinner was a 12 km dedicated bike way along luxurious sandy beaches between Agde and Sète. We had a seafood dinner in Sète and since dark had fallen, we hopped on a train for the last few kilometres to Montpellier, and arrived before the rain started.

The city itself is just gorgeous. The old city is majestic, the parks are verdant and well-used, and the public art and monuments are fascinating. And so much of the city (the parts we were in, at least) had a great pedestrian-friendly and people-friendly vibe. A lot of that feels like it comes from the five-storey walkups lining every boulevard, with many tiny balconies looking out over the streets. Everywhere we went we saw people out and enjoying the public spaces. It felt very different than the shape and space of public life in Toronto.

Food of note:

• The many different flavours of tapas. Gustaf found us a great place and we ate until we could eat no more.
• Seafood prepared in a way that I actually like! Octopus, squid, anchovies, cod and potato millefeuilles, tuna tataki, cod cooked in vermouth by Gustaf, seafood mix at tapas. This has definitely expanded the variety of things we look forward to eating on this trip.
• An amazing artichoke velouté, which might be the most delicious thing I have ever eaten.
• A variety of red vermouth, which is Barcelona’s drink of choice.

​Onwards to Rome!