Today was a long, flat, beautiful ride. The kind that any normal tourist might enjoy doing as a way to see Italy. There was one section that was essentially a bike path, with rows of tall cornfields hovering to the right of us, and a river running by on the left. At the breaks in the corn, you could see the vineyards covering the hillside beyond. At some point, we took a wrong turn and ended up on a kind of highway that bikes weren’t allowed on. The police came by and pulled us over pretty fast. Surely they could have given us a ticket, but instead they explained how to get to the proper road, and even helped us heave our bikes over the guard rail into a field where we could pedal down to it. Even the police were nice to us. Serious, but nice. “It is because it is not safe for you.” One of the cops–with his tight pants, cap, and aviator sunglasses–was totally Top Gun. I loved him.

It was still 70 kilometers, though, and it was hot. We pulled over to a gas station an bought gatorade. We had gotten lost and found ourselves on a main road again. We knew we were going in the right direction but the road seemed wrong. The woman who worked there re-directed us. (Ask! Always ask!) One of Gabriel’s sayings.The night before we had been talking at dinner about descents down the mountain. He was saying “You have to lean down and push your crotch back on the seat.” Except he pronounced it “croach.” The longer we are in Europe the more he loses his English. For some reason the word croach got me going and I couldn’t stop laughing.

We rode through dozens of old villages before we got to our town and our surprisingly super-fancy hotel with bathrobes and everything. We took showers and watched BBC news. We walked out into the square around 4:00 to get some gelato and the sun was still strong. It was a little after that that I suddenly felt tingly all over and almost passed out in the Piazza. We went back to our hotel and I lied down on a couch in one of the little salons–very air conditioned–and had a little cry. “This was really hard this year. Next year, I want to do a flat ride, something easier. I don’t want it to be this hard.” Gabriel, stroking my hair. “You’ve ridden the highest peaks in Europe, my love, there is nothing harder.” Of course I know that’s not true. We could always find some harder mountain, somewhere in the world. But neither of us wants to.

We went upstairs and he helped me run my head under cold water for a while, until I cooled down. When we went out again for dinner, the sun had finally retreated. Tomorrow we go to Lecco, on Lake Cuomo. We met a man at dinner, a mountain-bike guy who was from there, and he said: “Take the train, don’t ride. The road there is really bad.” Also, the forecast is for rain, believe it or not. The distance there is 81 kilometers but flat all the way. We could ride there, of course, but we might not.