Firenze - Massa (90 miles)

So I do decide to leave Firenze and what happens? I get lost for two hours in Pistoia, my backpack breaks and a trail of bizarre objects drops behind me (sock, stopwatch, highlighter pen) and then finally my gear cable snaps and I am stuck. I knew it. I felt that something was going to go wrong today and it did. My luck ran out.

Lucky Man

I have long learned not get too concerned with good and bad or right or wrong. This is an adventure – these things happen. When I realise my bag had broken I went back, picked up the stuff that had fallen out (minus the stopwatch which is lost forever) and carried on riding. When I get lost in the town of Pistoia I asked an old man on a bike where to go, nodded as he gestured indecipherably then followed his finger pointing back to the main road. When my cable snapped twenty miles out of Lucca, I rode along in top gear as long as I could, then in the next town I found a bike shop. The two old village locals running the shop not only fixed it on the spot, but gave my bike a free service, discussed the machine's problems like ageing double act and refused any offer of payment.

Things didn’t go as I thought they would but I when reached the historic town of Lucca I had a better bike, a greater knowledge of the Italian road system and a renewed belief in the decency of human beings. The cynicism of Rome was left on well trodden highways and because I had lost a few items in the way I even had room in my bag for extra food. Things change, but change always makes things more interesting. It is when nothing changes at all that you have a problem.

NB: I do miss the stopwatch but would you like to know why I took it off? I didn’t want to break up my suntan. There are many lessons to be learnt here.

Creationism

So now I am sat on a beach on the Mediterranean Sea, with a beer and the last ebbs of the evening sun and life is wonderful. I am lucky, I know. Florence to this through 90 miles of cycling. There is little to compare. Embrace it, that is all I want to do. Simple pleasure.

As the sun sinks over the perfect blue waves and the snowy peaks of the Apennines light the land like beacons, I think again about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

The greatest work of a man.

Harmonious

Divine

Beauty

Then I look again at the sky and the sea and the mountains.

Divine

Beauty

All around

It is like looking up at the same thing – two different worlds but both sharing the same divine beauty. I think about how Michelangelo created his, years of toil and craft and genius. Is this the same? A thousand sunset happening right now all over the world, all as beautiful as man's greatest work. Did someone design this in the same way?

I think about myself, how I am also a small part of this creation.. What a humbling feeling. I am the sea, I am the sun, I am the rocks, I am the sand, I am the dog running over the rocks. I am part of a bellisimo world. I am lucky.