Today is Saturday and one of Italy's most celebrated holidays, Liberation Day, marking Italy's liberation on April 25, 1945 by Allied troops in World War II. It honors all those who died in the war, especially the partisans who served in the Italian Resistance. As we check out, our hotel keeper makes a comment to the effect that Italy now has to be liberated from other foreign powers. Does he mean German tourists, illegal immigrants from Africa, economic powers and globalization? Not wanting to get into a political discussion, we let the subject drop.
On our route today we don't see any of the parades and brass bands typical for the Festa della Liberazione, but as on all holidays and Sundays, too, the cyclists are out. It's a beautiful sunny day, not too warm, and a continual stream of lean, muscular Italian men - but almost no women - in their colorful tight fitting jerseys pass by in pairs, groups of three, five or more. Their fast rhythmic cadence is contagious, inspiring. We shift down, increase the rpm's, feel powerful. Of course we are in a different category, actually no category at all, but I have the feeling we are part of the crowd on bikes. Our Italian colleagues wave encouragingly and shout ciao, buongiorno and sometimes allez, allez. I start phantasizing about a light road bike and no panniers, that would be 20 kg (44 US pounds) less already, and how that would make me sooo much faster. Or maybe knock off 20 years and ... But let's be realistic, I'm not going to keep up with any of those guys. However, at the end of the day our average speed was a few kilometers better than usual.
We cross the Arno from Signa and then cycle through some small towns
After passing through Empoli we are treated to some small roads with no traffic. Not all small roads are this peaceful. Often what looks like a small road on the map is what you expect, a small road, but with no shoulder. What you don't expect, it has heavy traffic.
Our route follows the Arno, sometimes on the left bank, sometimes the right bank, and some portions of the route have heavy traffic, particularly as we get closer to Pisa, no trucks though due to the holiday.
We have now crossed back to the other side of the Arno, here riding through Castelfranco
One reason we decide to ride to Pisa instead of Lucca today are these pretty hills which we would have had to cross if we wanted to avoid very busy roads
We roll into Pisa around 4:30 and start the search for a hotel. We get a shock at our first inquiry: tutto completo, booked out, and the young man at the reception expects that all of Pisa will be booked out since it's a major holiday! The next address we try is also full but the concierge sends us to Hotel Cecile, and lo and behold, they have a room for us. It's a simple hotel, i.e. affordable, and they have a garage for our bikes. We're on the third floor, no lift, and it wouldn't have been fun carrying the bikes up. The location is perfect, just a five-minute walk to the Piazza dei Miracoli where the Baptistery, Cathedral, Camposanto and Leaning Tower are waiting for us.
