In the land of Dante, I felt the inferno

First, the ride

I‘m a fair weather rider (a princess), I‘ll admit it. So I check weather forecasts religiously and usually base my departure times on weather windows. It looked like it‘d be a pleasant 24° (75F for you non-metric heathens) around 9am when I wanted to roll out, with the temp rising to about 28 over the course of my ride. Lovely. And then potential thunderstorms in the afternoon. No worries, coffee breaks are great ways to wait out bad weather.

In theory, quite nice. Except that when I went out for my coffee and chocolate croissant in the morning at 8.30, it was already 26°. By 9.30, when I rolled out, it was warm enough that I could feel the asphalt starting to soften under my feet. Anyway, can‘t go back in time, so off I go. Arrivederci Milano!

By the time I got out of Milan and the burbs, it was over 30° and still climbing. Clearly not going to be a day for performance, so I tried to distract myself with the sights, which in the surroundings of Milan (pianura Padana) is not so easy. Flat as a pancake and full of rice and corn fields (side note: southern Italians call northerners „polentoni“ because they eat so much polenta, which is made with corn meal. Next time you visit northern Italy, try it out. The insult or the polenta). Anyway. Being Italy, it’s also dotted with Midieval castles, like this one:

(caption: neat)

I was routed onto a lot of smaller gravel roads, just off of main thoroughfares, which is more scenic, but slightly more taxing. And a little dusty. I go through water faster than anti-vaxxers go through gold-medal mental acrobatics routines.

So I cruise, zig-zagging my way on side roads, enjoying whatever shade I encounter, and finding it totally believable when I look down and my bike computer says it‘s 35° (95F) out. Ouch. Only 75km to go!

Relief in sight

Eventually, I get far enough north that I enter the lake district. It‘s not called that, but it‘s where the lakes are, so I‘m using it. I hit Lago Maggiore around 1pm, after 80 or so km, where I proceed to by my ferry ticket and then empty the down of its cold drinks. For whatever twisted reason, I wasn‘t in the mood for a gelato. Dumb. Sacrilegious even.

The clouds in the distance, while once something I wanted to avoid, had now become a vision akin to seeing an oasis in the desert. I couldn‘t get there soon enough. Thankfully, there was a nice breeze on the ferry over, and, mental bonus, my route planner had calculated the ferry‘s kms as riding kms, meaning my „km to goal“ number dropped without a single pedal stroke. Brilliant.

The relief of the clouds dangled like a carrot in front of me for the remaining 40km, though thankfully I also had the more dramatic scenery to entertain me. I love mountains. And mountain valleys. The steeper and narrower the better, which is right in Italy‘s wheelhouse.

(Note: this is not a narrow valley, but still a sight that makes my heart skip a beat)

A not exaggerated description of how good it felt when it finally rained

With about 5km left, I finally felt the first drops a rain. It was like the scene in Shawshank Redemption when Andy, after crawling to freedom from false imprisonment through hundreds of meters of literal shit, exits the sewer and looks to the sky, and with arms open wide, let‘s the torrential rain cleanse him of his ordeal down to the soul. I‘ve never been falsely imprisoned, but it’s obvious our experiences are comparable, so I get how he was feeling.

And then 5km later, I arrived, only to discover that my „room“ is bigger than my apartment in Berlin. And the hostess made me a fresh coffee. Maybe the day wasn‘t so tough after all…