The most dreaded day of every bike trip .... logistics day at the end.
I've mentioned before that each day on one of these trips presents it's own challenges and that for all intents and purposes, we are homeless. As such we have to go about finding a roof over our heads and food for our belly anew every day. By no means am I comparing our situation to a truly homeless person. At best our situation just gives us a fraction of insight and empathy for what they actually go through. However even for us with considerable resources at our disposal, doing this day in and day out takes time and there is not always a guarantee of success.
The one day that we feel most exposed is this day ... the wrap up where we have to get things organised to ship our bikes.
We started the process a week or so ago by finding a few bike shops in Lecce and sending off emails regarding getting boxes. We did not get any real 'warm-and-fuzzy' responses, they were all along the lines of, " yeah, maybe, drop by when you get here and there might be something"
We started today with the easy stuff. A quick chat with the lovely front desk staff at our hotel, and a van shuttle to the Brindisi airport for Wednesday morning was soon in place. Check!
Next up, the dreaded bike boxes. We jumped on our (unloaded!) bikes and set off to the closest, and biggest, local bike shop, one that we had emailed earlier. Our encounter there was more or less an in-person recap of our earlier e-mail exchanges, aided by Google translate .... "We've got one box (a largely destroyed mess) ... If we build another bike then we'll have another one. Come back later and see ... (left unsaid ... 'or not')"
Less than helpful. Okay, only our first try, stay calm.
We had seen an e-bike store fairly close to our hotel when we rode in yesterday ... let's give that a shot. About 15 minutes later we pull up in front of Greenmoving and strike up a conversation with Mauro.
We explained, again with liberal use of Google Translate ... and our hands and arms...that we needed two bike boxes so we could put our bikes on the plane with us. We had just completed a two month 3000 km trip and were flying home in two days.
Mauro was quite impressed with our accomplishment, and was willing to do what he could to help us. Unfortunately though, he did not have any bike boxes. He did have a friend though who made bike boxes and bags, and he was immediately on his phone sending texts and pictures to his friend to see if he could make us something.
What he was showing us was not what was needed, and we were trying to get across that we just needed a cardboard box, not a bike bag. While Mauro was working on an e-mail to his friend, Kirsten saw a small cardboard box on a shelf, picked it up and motioned that we needed something like this.
Lightbulb moment.
Mauro ..."oh, a carton" ... Us ..."yes, a carton, how silly of us to call it box" ... Mauro " I have many of these downstairs .. come and see"
So we came, and we saw. They were perfect.
We then had to spend 10 minutes convincing Mauro that we could indeed pack our own bikes and that although we were very grateful for his offer have him pack and store our bikes, and arrange a van transfer to the airport for our bikes ... we just needed the 'cartons'.
Thirty minutes later, we are back at the hotel with the boxes ... or sorry, cartons, and they are perfect.
Best thing about e-bikes is they come in bigger boxes. Alitalia allows bike boxes up to 300 cm in total dimensions (l+w+h) and these babies are exactly 300 cm, What this means is I only have to take off the pedals and the handlebars ... the wheels and seat stay on! This will be the easiest packing job ever for the Toutes.
OK, everything has fallen neatly in place before noon. With that we set off for the classic tourist trail around the main Chiesa's, aka Church's in Lecce.
I know I've banged on about this at length, but it is soooo good to be here in November. Not everything is open, but all of the main tourist sites are, as are the restaurants frequented by locals. What is not here are any other appreciable number of tourists. The streets and squares are almost empty. We were often the only people in the main churches and the weather was perfect fall ... sun and high teen temps!
I'll let the pics's tell the story ... although I've had to break up the church pics with a few 'street scenes' as we made our way from one place to another. Otherwise you will literally overdose on 'over-the-top' baroque art(ifice) ... don't get me started on organized religions’ cunning taxation of the masses for millennia. How else do you get the resources to build this stuff.
And this stuff is not subtle ... it's like eating a great big bowl of sugar coated cereal washed down by coffee spiked with Red Bull for breakfast. You have to take it in small doses!
So, a tour of Lecce's big 4 awaits ... Chiesa di San Matteo, Cattedrale Santa Maria Assunta, Basilica di Santa Croce and a final (over)dose of Chiesa di Santa Chiara.
Song of the Day, If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. This is a rare repeat. We used this as song of the day in Lyon on our Rhone ride last year (in our blog in the other place .. it will get moved over here eventually). The sentiment of the song is basically we are not vampires and we won't live forever. So savour what you have and share it with others.
Mauro the saviour ... Thank you so much with your help ... cartons in hand, we have one major hurdle behind us!
cut to the street scene ... an artist putting some final touches on a papier mache ... wait for it ... biblical piece, across the street from Santa Matteo
We really like just wandering the streets and poking our heads into open doors and passage ways ... a few hundred years of transport technology in one small archway
It was moving day for someone. We couldn't figure out if these were waiting to be packed and moved along or if they were 'student free issue' on the street. One way or the other, the horse wasn't going to fit on K's bike.
Next stop, the main Duomo and Cattedrale Santa maria Assunta. This shot was taken at about 1:30 pm on a Tuesday. I could have taken the same shot 3, 7 or 10 minutes later (if Kirsten would have agreed to stay in one spot for that long!) There was nobody else here!
There were some very good stained glass windows. Didn't find any info on them (nor have we bothered to research) but they look to be more modern than the bulk of the works in the cathedral
We saw a lot of this throughout Lecce today ... professional photography crews taking videos and stills of many of the main sites. Now you know how and when all the tourist brochures get those shots that don't have hoards of people in them ... come in November
This captures it all, a pro photographer, a tourist in behind, three locals ... and a lady in the back handing out dog biscuit samples (they were good)
The final stop, Chiesa di Santa Chiara. Compared to all the other places, fairly subdued on the outside. But then you step inside. This was completely OTT
... ah, finally back to something we can understand ... a very good dinner and bottle of Primativo from just north of here, at La Cucina di Mama Elvira. One more night in Lecce and then we fly off!
