I am sat in a cafe on the main square of Asolo in Northern Italy watching
the world go by as I write this. I have a pot of tea with lemon in front
of me, the weather is glorious and I am wearing my Toronto dress (summer
dress bought in Toronto last year) . Asolo is a medieval hill top town in
the foot hills of the Dolomites, surrounded by vineyards. This morning we
had a cycle into the surrounding countryside which is beautiful, and
populated by old Venetian summer villas. We have arrived here to an Indian
summer, the temperatures are still in the upper 20s every day and we are
therefore learning to adjust our daily routine to avoid the midday heat and
live more like the locals. We are getting up earlier (well 8ish anyway!)
and taking a long lunch, this is also partly forced on us by opening hours
as most things shut around 12 and don't reopen till at least 3pm. The heat
has been quite a shock to the system. In the mountains of Slovenia although
we were still getting some good days, autumn was definitely on its way and
we had packed our summer clothes into the bottom of the cupboards, now the
jumpers have been packed away and shorts rediscovered.
On our way here we stopped at Aqueila which has the most amazing Basilica.
The floor is entirely covered in mosaics from the 3rd century, some showing
benefactors of the building, others depicting animals and fish and one
large area showing the story of Jona and the whale. It was fantastic and we
spent ages looking at them. (picture)
My lasting impression of Asolo will be the sound of the bikes free wheeling
down the hill past the cafe and into the square. It seems to be a popular
cycling region,as its the first hilly area for a long way across the plains
to the coast. They take their cycling very seriously here, and we have seen
lots of teams out training all lycra clad
with matching bikes and gear. They all have really expensive looking road
bikes but generally seem to take it quite gently, and although we saw lots
going the opposite way to us this morning no one overtook us. I do have a
certain amount of bike envy though it has to be said.
Tomorrow we move south towards Verona and hopefully away from the mosquitos
which are quite bad here, due to all the drained marshland. I am wearing
repellant like perfume!
No comments:
Post a Comment