Monday May 29, 2023
Lazy days are good. We sleep in and then have a nice breakfast on our balcony. Today we are going on a bike ride around the island. We go around the block to the room where they keep the bikes. We pick two and get ready to go. They used to dry the fish outside in the fresh lake air. There is a display right as we hit the lakefront street. I get a nice cheesy tourist picture by the drying racks of fish. Why cheesy, well because it is not real fish drying but wooden fish on the racks. They look like the real thing in the photos though. We hop on our bikes and start our ride around the island. We take Matteo’s advice and go clockwise toward Sensole. It is a nice flat ride along the lakefront.
At Sensole, this changes as we encounter our first real hill. We use our bicycle muscles that do not get much use and plow on up the hill. I surprise myself by making all the way without stopping, in the lowest gear possible, of course. At the top, it flattens out slightly and there is a small park with a view so we take a short break. A little further on we come to the small village of Siviano. These place names are not really towns or villages in my opinion. They are more like a small enclaves of houses, maybe a restaurant or two, a small store perhaps, and that is all. Where we are staying is probably the only place on the island that could qualify as a small town or village. In Siviano, we notice a church slightly above us and decide to check it out. We turn and proceed up a small alleyway road. We come to a steep staircase supported by two stone walls leading up to the church. There is no way we are carrying or dragging our bikes up there so Carol waits below, while I go to see if the church is open and what is inside. The church is open and I go inside. I learn that it is the Church of Santi Faustino and Giovanni, dedicated to the holy martyrs of Brescia, and was completed in 1754. It is very nice inside, not amazing, but very nice. What I find amazing is that it is fairly large for this small island. We know there is a decent size church where we are staying, there is the one on the hill we climbed t yesterday, and this one. There are a few others we may not see as well. For the amount of people that probably lived here, it is quite a lot of religious structures. Maybe their amount of sinners per capita was large. I go back down the steps, watch the bikes while Carol takes her turn.
After our short break, we re ready to ride like the wind again. We ride more like a small breezes as there is still a slight upward grade for about another half mile. Then we hit a flat stretch and a downhill section. Just as we hit the downhill, it starts to rain fairly hard. We find a spot on the side of the road under some trees and put on our rain jackets. We get about halfway down and spot a bench under a nice tree canopy and stop there as it looks like it may stop raining soon. We have a little snack, take a picture or two and sit. Five minutes later, the rain slows and then stops. The rain jackets come off and go back into our packs. Now we do ride like the wind, fully downhill to the outskirts of another small berg, called Carzano. There is a little beach just before town, more like a lawn and dock by the lake, with a little bar. It is a bit too cloudy to try the lake water today so we just check out the surroundings and might return tomorrow to take a dip.
The last stretch back is all along the lakefront and is mostly flat. We make it back to our town unscathed from our ride. Before bringing the bikes back to their room, we check out the local bakery and get a croissant and slice of Spongada, Spongada is a local type of sweet bread with a fruit filling. We will have it later for dessert. We return to our apartment and spend some time doing travel chores since the rain has found its way back again. That works out Ok for us as we had planned to eat in and have some of the items we bought Saturday in the Loveremarket. Our Dinner spread on the covered balcony includes salami, prosciutto, parmiaganno Reggiano cheese, grilled eggplant, and peppers. A bottle of white to wash it down. While sitting, I notice the wonderful electric wiring system of Italy. I think of my nephew, Joe, who is an electrician and snap a picture to send him, and ask is this to code? Wires hanging outside buildings from the 1700s in a twisted, somewhat unprotected mess, that somehow just work but leant seem like it should. I find it very interesting. We try the Spongada and it is very good, not to die for good, as Carol would say, but very good.
Later on, it stops raining and we go for an evening passiegetta to work off the Spongada and hopefully more. It is a beautiful evening. Yesterday was Sunday and the island was hopping with people, mostly Italians here for the weekend. Today, it is a quiet and peaceful walk along the lake with only a few locals out and about. We sit and watch a rowing team of four glide past us. They each have an oar, two on one side of the boat and two on the other. The other interesting thing is that they are rowing standing up. They disappear around the bend of the island and later we see them coming back the other way. We also watch a guy with a net and a bucket walking along the waterfront wall and stopping, dipping his net, talking o himself, well probably the empty net, and trying it again. We are not sure what he is trying to get and after he goes by, we walk along the wall looking down in the water. We figure it out when we see a crawdad crawling on the bottom among the rocks. At another bench, we watch a pair of loons getting in some last minute fishing. A nice relaxing end to a nice relaxing day. Getting into the slow life.
Expenses Croissant and Spongada 2.70E Casadina Apartment 90E Walked 3.2 Miles Biked 5.0 Miles
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