All aboard the Appenine Express to Ancona.

Nick kindly dropped me off on the main road at Favro and after just a few initial wobbles I made my way through Umbria with the sun beating down on me. 

During my downtime I had made some trip adjustments. Rather than loop back north to Venice, Trieste and enter the Balkans through Slovenia I had decided to head east and take the ferry to Split from Ancona. 

It meant sacrificing the dubious sweaty charms of high summer gondolier-ing and the doubtless beauty of lake Bled but c'est la vie.

The roads were straight and true with occasional climbs to break the monotony and before too long I found myself at the feet of Assisi with a hard but beautiful climb in front of me. 

The pink stone of Assisi mined from the hill it nestles on lends the city a fairy tale quality quite in keeping with the Saintly legends which permeate it.

Rome in a day

Now here was an exciting moment. Having set off from Hadrian's wall months before I was finally at the beating heart of the Roman Empire.

La Dolce Vita

Staying with Nick and Simona was like stepping into a Rossellini film. I really can't thank them enough for their seemingly inexhaustible hospitality even in the face of a distant relative turning up almost unannounced on their door step and proceeding to borrow money and eat (& drink) them out of house and home.

It's always a little nerve-wracking meeting family for the first time especially when you will be staying with them; what if you don't get on? Simona would later confide over a cigarette that she had shared this concern. Would that this distant relation who was cycling across Europe be a bit straight-laced (no drinking no smoking etc) and had been rather relieved to see a roll-up peeking out from behind my ear as I stepped of the train. Fortunately despite my manifest faults as a house guest we got on famously.

Simona's professional cooking skills and infectious good nature. Nick's wisdom and amazing tales from his time as a freelance photographer in far flung war zones. It all combined a breathtaking Umbrian backdrop to feel utterly intoxicating.

The view across the rolling Umbrian hills from the Patio

Furious flight

Setting off at 11:00 after a hugely frustrating morning I resolved not to allow my momentary misfortune to divert me. Yes I had been robbed but I would be damned if I'd let that stop me visiting Pisa and Lucca and Sienna and Florence and damn all those who tried to stop me.

Half an hours furious peddling and I was in Pisa looking at the tourists looking at the Leaning Tower too angry to appreciate it and after a 3 minute cigarette I was back off onto the hot highway heading for Lucca where I planned to walk the walls and eat my lunch.

Anger it turns out is a marvelous motivator and the kilometers fell away easily.

Lucca, unlike Pisa, provided a much needed tonic to my diabolical mood and despite the crowds of tourists walking along the wide and breezy city walls,  just made for perambulating, soothed my bitterness.

I found a nicely shaded bench from which to eat a slightly stale end of bread and some distinctly dubious cheese from the bottom of my pannier.

Bandit

Imagine the scene if you will:
A 28 year old man in his underpants is running down a dark beech before dawn shouting garbled phrases from a smattering of European languages.

"Mi passporto por favore!"
"Perdu mon sack!"
"Achtung Dieb!"

Suffice to say it was not a great way to start the day.

Where cycists dare

I was having fun negotiating the Ligurian hills on the coast road east from Genoa on my way to Pisa.

Hard hills in baking heat rewarded by invigorating swims in the sea were the order of the days.

Still, I excitedly anticipated being out of the sun and on level ground so with rear light flashing safely I waited in a long line of traffic for the lights to change so we could enter a tunnel.

Green. Go go go.

I immediately regret this decision.

Lombardy, Piedmonte, and Po

**Warning may contain multiple rhetorical questions read at your own risk(of annoyance)**

04:00.

Even in the pre-dawn gloom Maggiore looked inviting. Awake and feeling good despite the hour I decided to take a dip, enjoying the privacy of the early morning.

Lounging on the concrete dockside Towl-less with a cup of tea and a cigarette I watched a dragonfly mired in some gravel having just sloughed off its skin.

For an hour I watched as this imposing insect exhausted itself crawling. Where was it trying to reach? Why didn't it simply stop, wait to dry, and then fly? The dragonfly was seemingly making his life so much more difficult than it needed to be.

Might a (not so)alien observer find my own journey equally incomprehensible?