Italy: home in preparation for my return

Several years ago my friend from Iceland passed on her URL to her blogsite and I fell in love with the idea of starting my own. Now, six years later I have finally created my own blog. :)

We have had the greatest weather this last week. It reminds me that Bermeo, Urdaibai and Euskadi are actually beautiful. (Although Euskadi is having some tough competition with Toscana right now!)

Italy is my personal heaven right now.

I returned from my Giro d'Italia trip last week. Specialized's Mike Sinyard had me organize another Giro trip for himself and several dealers from the US. It was a great group. I hired Jo Planckaert for this trip as well. He is wonderful and makes my job so much more fun (and easier). I also had Josué, my massage therapist from Calpe, come as a mechanic/masseur/driver/guide.

We began the trip in a small hilltop town, Soriano nel Cimino, which is outside of Viterbro and about 90kms north of Roma (although it takes about 2.5hrs to drive between Viterbro and Roma because of the horrible traffic). The hotel sat up at the very top of the hill and had a great view but the 20% grade in the final kilometer made the last bit of my training rides a bit tough!!


This is what my view from the hotel room was like.

The first Giro stage the group did was between Viterbro and Marina di Grosseto.


Marina di Grosseto

From Marina di Grosseto we rode to Pistoia, which is just 10min west of Firenze. We stayed at the same hotel in that area the rest of the week.


Pistoia


The women in red is Paola Pezzo--the Olymic gold medalist mountain biker. She is a legend!!!

A couple other photos of the group:




Right now I am finishing up the last details for my Toscana trip with the group from Hong Kong which begins on the 11th of June. It will be a big group of 18 (15 from Hong Kong and 3 from the US). I know all but two of them so it should be another enjoyable week. Jo and his friend Tim are both flying down from Belgium to help me. Tim came with Jo on the Roubaix event we did for Specialize in April. I am sure that they will work out well with the group. It is great working with the same people over and over. So often our staff changes every trip, which is a lot of work and preparation.

I am going to arrive in Italy several days earlier to take care of a few last minute details and maybe spend a day at a spa! I deserve it right? Besides I am not driving the Honda this time--I am driving the big truck, which means it will be a long and painful trip. I will need a good massage and thermal treatment after that.

I have so many projects on hold right now. Moving into the new office, my garden, my Italian....

Although it is tempting to just stay in Italy, coming back will be different this time. I have a bit of a break before I have to begin planning our next tour.

Until then... capuccinos and sweet air will fill my thoughts.

Nik