To
Begin
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Here! On the sunny side of the street (On the side of the street that's sunny)
I eloped, as hoped. Thus far a somewhat tribulated travaille but overall thumbs are UP. The sun has come out today instead of tomorrow.
I set off with Werner Herzog's voice clean in my ears as I rattled toward the Black Mountains. A chilly wind blew. My hairs stood on end. What would befall me around the bend?
Frost, of which I have no pictures. And snow like none would believe, yes, south of France snow, tickling my ears, and my tent. My camera is playing silly buggers and my phone is lying in a ditch somewhere near Aix-en-Provence, unreachable except by the gods. Therefore, pictures of my first 10 days are lacking.
However, know that they are etched indelibly in my mind's eye, and there they will remain until bouged. Happiness flaps its wings and we sing along.
So I found myself cycling among snowdrifts. First it was in the distance, the prospect of cold. Then it was on the tops of the hills around me. Then it was beneath me, flanking me, crunching by the side of the road. French. Dench.
'Stand still and let him go on his way [...] towards certain death.'
The so-called Black Mountains broke away to reveal a shining splendour, a bright green hilly visage. And then Montpellier, the rascal-city: accommodating, pedestrianised, becrêped and cockle-warming oh yes.
My heart goes to Mima, lovely Mima who hosted me there with only a couple of hours' notice and a lurgy and not knowing really who I was and still served me Moroccan tea and dates and hot soup and all with a smile.
Montpellier became Lunel became Vauvert became Salon became the dreaded charming Aix, location of The Event, though I really must say it is a dear little city with great falafels, and Pierre, and that bloke in the park who wanted to take me to Marseille (thanks but no thanks).
Frejus, too, can come again, is brill, is top. Fields, beaches, meditative positivity, sunshine. Then suddenly I was in Cannes, Antibes, Nice/Nizza, Monaco, Ventimiglia and Sanremo all within a day. A beautiful day by the sea.
In Ventimiglia I came across a man on a motorbike when looking for a campsite. We were both directed to Sanremo to find spots there and there I discovered him to be one of life's good people. A helicopter engineer and motorcycling adventurist, generous and kind-hearted, a lung of pleasant air. All the very best to you, Dom! Alles Gute, drive safe.
We talked about how the weather had been great, pretty great, pretty and pretty consistently kind to us, and that Italy was sure to present the same face as France, one of blue-eyed congeniality, serene and maybe almost a bit bashful. Can weather be bashful? Is that more or less weird than describing someone as a lung of pleasant air?
Anyway, it got cloudy, windy and rainy. And hilly, and windy and chilly and shwifty. Less groovy. I took a short train away from the coast and was
WELCOMED
WITH
LOVING
ARMS, balmy arms, by womblike motherly folds of Bologna's embrace (via Modena, also terrific).
They say a picture paints a thousand words but only if it's a good picture and my snapper doesn't do it any snapping justice so instead I resort to rhetoric and say that Bologna is, so far in my experience of it, just simply wonderful. The centre stretches traffic-free with broad arms, broad span; the burnt orange spell of it all, grand squares and portici, majestic and understated somehow and just humming, brimming, simmering; there is pizza and gelato and there are pastry shops on the corners, cold beer in fridges and sweet little bars; the towers loom like friendly guards in their red brick places and cobbled courtyards are dotted so as to always be right where you want them to be; kids play safely, romance sizzles in the air like the smell of hot funghi, there is fruit everywhere, plenty if bicycles, people to look at, the sun is shining AND
I'm being put up by Claudia alongside her fabulous unit of a family who walk, talk and thrive with their heads held high and eat deliciously and laugh well. Best ice cream possibly ever, pistachio, chocolate & rum, bocia. Gelatoh my. Next I traipse southward, toward Firenze, Montefalco, Roma, Napoli, Vesuvio, many good places!
P and L to the family, all about, where you are, twist and shout, raise the bar. Love. Ciao.
