The writing is still on the wall. Le weekend, 4th giugno 2011

The writing is still on the wall. Le weekend, 4th giugno 2011

When you move to a new country you can learn the language in books, tv, conversations, but for me the place to really improve in a language is not in books, but when the language becomes something, when you feel the language. When I now say "Madonna" or "Madonnina" (Tuscan dialect version) I really feel it, the word is mnemonic, it has gone beyond the usual tapes that you listen to when visiting a country, but exists in your heart and soul and head.

On Saturday myself and a colleague took a spin up Mount Amiata, the closest mountain to us and only about 50km away from us.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Amiata

It is 1750m high (compared to Ben Nevis at 1344m and Snowdon at 1085m), has some ok skiing in the winter and is in a stunningly beautiful area, notably Montalcino where the best wine, or the wine with the best reputation in the area is made.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montalcino

The ascent was harsh, but the roads were beautiful and the weather was a scorching 31C. We sought shelter under the trees, naturally on the wrong side of the road, and also from the huge numbers of motorbikes that were screaming up and down. The climb took us to the third and highest rifugio (ski base) where we enjoyed a light lunch before coming down again, boringly on the same roads.

http://connect.garmin.com/activity/90398073

Coming down was great fun. For about 4 hours we were aware of a big summer storm and could see lightning in the distance, but only ever caught the edge of this. We were able to hit 39.6 mph on the way down which isn't too bad, although I can do much better near where I live, and the roads were a little moist. The roads were steaming as the rain was hitting the very hot tarmac. Also the smells were fun as Mount Amiata is a very volcanic area and there are many "terme" or hot water thermal spas so there is a good smell of sulphur in the air.

On the way down I started to feel my back wheel slipping out and realised that I must have popped a tyre through some of the worse roads and it was going down. I stopped to change it but had a complete shocker - my spare inner tube I managed to snap the valve off whilst pumping it up with my rubbish pump, and we then tried one of the cannisters with goo but it didn't hold and so we had to spend some time going slowly (I had a nice slide out at one point, thought I was a gonner but just managed to hold on to it). Thankfully after a bit of walking we found a cycle shop and changed the inner tube and tyre. It's my fault, I had a nice Michelin tyre on that was old and had splits in it. Beautiful tyre but they don't last so long. Now I have a non-folding tyre on and although it will be more robust and last longer, it just does not feel the same as the nice tyre. Oh the yin and yang of cycling life, oh the bilancio!

We had a little light rain down the bottom and experienced a strange phenomenon where the rain from above was cold, but the rain that was splashing off the road was warm.

So, back to the writing being on the wall, there were a couple of nice phrases that I saw. The first was written on the road and left over from an ascent by the Giro D'Italia this year and the phrase was "Enzo Vola" - or "Fly Enzo" - what a beautiful phrase for when you are needing that extra bit of zoom up the hill. The second was graffiti on a road-side building "Romani a nanna" - "Romans go to sleep" and reminded me of "Romanes eunt domus" from Monty Python. This area south of Siena is where the Romans escape to from the city and the locals are I guess justifiably upset by them coming in and taking over. The other was an advert for a shopping centre/mall and the sign said "Ozi & Negozi" talking about one of the shopping centres in Siena, "Negozi" being shops, and "Ozi" being freetime. All these phrases have a nice "feel" to them and really help to plug the gaps in language for someone like me who is not very good or very natural at picking up languages.

So, the writing is on the walls, can sometimes be good!