Our stay in Greece finished with a grand finale of monuments — Mycenae, the settlement that preceeded ancient Greece, was impressive with its enormous tombs where they buried their dead, that seemed on scale with the pyramids being constructed during the same time in Egypt.

And then ancient Korinthos, another large excavated site dotted with enormous columns. Most of the Greek buildings were destroyed by earthquakes and rebuilt by the Romans. I couldn’t stop looking at some of the Roman mosaic tile work, with their intricate patterns. And dozens of headless Roman statues (the heads to be seen in a London museum).

Our biking in Geece ended in modern Corinth as we boarded a bus to Patra which would get us to our Italian-bound ferry. We had climbed more than 10,000 meters in Greece (30,000 feet), in 840km over 10 days of cycling. Despite the constant hard, steep climbs, we always looked forward to getting on the bikes each morning to explore what was beyond the next corner.

The ferry dropped us off in Bari, Italy where the land was flat as a pancake, as Paul Sherwin would say. This is the last ferry of our trip and we finally began pedaling toward Portugal. Once out of Bari, we rode on secondary roads mainly used by tractors and agricultural vehicles. Closer to the sea it was orange groves and grape vines, turning into golden wheat fields and rolling hills as we continued east. We stayed in Altamura for the night and continued on in increasing heat:
37C (upper-90s F). Our mood was greatly determined by how hot and thirsty we were. After riding out in the sun for awhile, with water bottles full of hot soupy water, we would be silently panting along. But if we came across a roadside fountain — the kind built of stone where water pours out of a spigot continuously into a basin and drains off underground — the mood would quickly change to elation and talking and laughter. This happened repeatedly on this old forgotton road — the one used by travelers of decades past — with the fountains spaced out in the nothingness about every 10kms. Heat and drenched in sweat, to the coolness of the water. There was even a countryside church, Nostra Signora dell’ Acqua Fredda, Our Lady of Cold Water, and the water was frigid.

We also used the old high school physics department trick of wetting a sock and putting it around a water bottle. Rather than turning to miso soup in 15 minutes in the sun, the evaporation of the drying sock keeps the water cool.

While we’re still climbing a lot in Italy, the Italians actually move some dirt to even out the grade, where the Greeks would put the pavement on whatever bumps and inclines were already there. The Italian roads seem to follow more of a contour around valleys rather than go straight up and down them. The exception was a 12% grade for several kilometers outside Potenza that we had to walk. We can barely sustain a 10% grade for very long with loaded touring bikes, and lowerer gearing on our bikes would put us at the speed we would walk them anyway. But the Italian landscape that we’ve seen has hills shaped more like large bowls that offer nice straight descents rather than the Pelop conical hills that you climb up and around and then brake all the way down on loose gravel and twisty turns, losing any momentum before the next climb.

In Potenza, after the 90km moody roller coaster ride, we found a hotel. A British journalist from The Evening Standard who was there covering the Cosa Nostra’s Capo della Mafia trial taking place in Potenza, and staying at our hotel, asked us why tourists would come to Potenza. I replied that Potenza was simply between where we were coming from and where we’re going — it’s not that scenic of a town despite the nice rural surroundings.

We have also begun seeing more recreational cyclists in the area out enjoying themselves, wearing Banesto and Mapei jersies riding Pinarello or other Italian frames. All greet us enthusiastically with Buon Giornos and Ciaos. I haven’t yet seen any cyclist — touring or local — wearing a helmet. They certainly do make your head hot and I can see why the pros used to take them off on climbs, but we continue to follow our better sense.

In Potenza, about half way across the width of southern Italy, we needed to catch the train the rest of the way to Naples because we fell a day or two behind schedule, and one reason we are coming to Naples is the wedding reception of our friends Steve and Loredana on Saturday, a long-planned event that helped shape our itinerary. It will be great to be among friends after our first month on the road.