Although minus the patron and the henny, Me and the Sunkels did a fairly bang up job last night...and after some really long days and nights in the bike shop it was due time to blow off a little steam! And when you blow off steam in Italy, you ride with some friends to a local castle and sip wine and listen to jazz - apparently.
The place is called Torre di Oriolo, and its pretty awesome, atop a steep hill maybe a half hour bike ride from the Farm made even more adventurous by dark starry skies and a couple of shots of scotch on board, and a pannier full of beer bottles we intended to sneak in.
We ride our weak and out of shape asses up the incredibly steep hill, push bikes up the last few meters to the site to meet up with Monica and the left over wedding entourage and by the time we find them only the hearty are willing to stay and continue the festivities another evening. COME ON! Right?! We are in the tower of an old castle man!! Who wouldn't want to stay and tear it up a little? We agree to chauffeur one Angeli Kirk back to the farm by way of the rear rack on my bike, a feat that seemed less and less safe as we finished more beers.
The band was pretty rad, giving off the vibe that James described best as "being inside an arcade" and ripping through some originals, and a kick ass Walter Wanderley cover or two on the Hammond Organ... NICE!
The scene was cool too, with a bunch of picnic tables outside, a small food vendor, and killer cheap wines served outside and inside the castle tower. We of course brought our own beers and aside from being informed by the nice young lady at the wine bar that we could not take the giant beer bottle in due to the glass bottle and the rock brick nature of an ancient castle we were ready to get down. I expected to be thrown out when she smiled and handed us plastic glasses, and offered to store the remaining bottle in the refrigerator. Yeah Italy, coming through with the coolness we needed. Angeli was actually pulling plastic cups out of her purse when this all went down and I realized that I was in the company of genius. Beer-filled little colour-coded Tupperware cups in hand and up the stairs we go to talk about life, and love, and constellations (still not sure if it was the big or little dipper) and spitting off bridges, from the cozy balcony of a medieval castle tower. Pretty cool.
We cruized down from the tower to get more beers, Shelly showed off some amazing dance moves she learned on her recent trip to Ethiopia (all of which are above the waist and avoided my camera like vampires!), we sampled the first bottle of Stout we made a couple weeks back (fizzy, light bodied, and biter = gross), and hiss at the cougars who were prowling around the venue in stretchy shimmer glitter pants. It was good times, good drinks, and great people watching. I even caught this little gem on camera for all the world to see...
James and Shelly sampled the locale fare (french fried tatters), everyone peed in the bushes and we saddled up the bikes to head home. A couple beverages, a late evening, bad lighting and no maps and we only made one false u-turn, and with the assistance of my passenger putting feet down like Barney Rubble I don't even think I took my feet off the pedals. No injuries, home safe, means a couple more beers to celebrate small victories.
All in all a great time blowing off some steam and planning the next couple weeks off at the Farm, that's right folks, TIME OFF! The peeps here have been super cool about helping us figure out what to do and giving us a big time break from work. It helps that of the 300 plus bikes here, only about 20 are left after tomorrow, and they are only going to be rented by couples on vacation that fit a particular height profile...
.
We seriously only have GIANT and TINY bikes left in the house. And that means mountain bike rides, trips to the beach, long rides along old roman roads, trains to cities, and the kind of adventures I signed up for back in March. With Mrs Sunkel here it should be regular three amigo nonsense.
Expect more goodness on the blogityblog
S
No comments:
Post a Comment