Training Log Archive: Charlie

Event: "O" in the Pines A meet
 

Beautiful ride from the wonderful il Vigneto through the magnificent vineyards of La Planeta, the biggest winery in this part of Sicily. Varied landscape today. Vineyards and olive trees very well maintained and loaded with fruit. This was a difficult ride, with several climbs, particularly into Santa Margherita di Bellice, where the old town was destroyed by an earthquake around 1968, and the town was rebuilt next to it. Fascinating to see the ruins unrestored, undeveloped on a hill next to the old town. Then a sharp downhill and a long uphill to Sambuca in Sicilia, sister city to Winter Haven FL, as it says on the sign entering town. We stopped for lunch in a park in the center. Two kinds of Sicilian pizza, sandwiches and the tasty local melon. Down and then up again to Giuliana. At that point we thought the climbs were over, but we had another harder climb awaiting. Giant panoramas of ancient volcanoes, farmland, olives. We climbed again past the 5th century church of Santa Maria nel Bosco, then finally a descent into Contessa Entellina and our rather remote B&B and our host Paolo, interesting guy, the house built to his own design, and many projects to personalize it. His olive trees are loaded. At the coast they are harvesting, but here it is a different climate and he will harvest next month. He also has a number of persimmon trees (cachi, they are called here). I never really understood the point of persimmons, as the ones I seem to have encountered are hard and tart. These are luscious, incredibly sweet and red orange. Wonderful. The steepest hill of the ride was Paolo's driveway, a good test.

C • Back vs Hills 2

Paolo is quite an enterprising and interesting fellow. He is from Treviso in the North, but came here often on vacation, and was able to buy three small plots that were each not larg enough to build on. He designed the guest house and had it built 15 years ago, and now grows olives, walnuts, persimmons, plums, citrus, capers, and many other things. He does a lot of stonework around he house, and also a lot of scavenging of unusual rounded rocks of some unknown archaeological history. He is a wonderful cook. We had an antipasto of local cheese and local dry salami, his own sun dried tomatoes and his own cured olives. Then a first plate of a kind of penne with a tomato sauce with white and green asparagus, transcendently delicious, and a second plate of local pork sausage wrapped in fennel leaves and thin slices of veal, with lightly sautéed potatoes and a wonderful salad from his garden, of course with local white and red wine from unlabeled bottles. Marvelous. Finished with a light cake, filled with his own jam.

C • Meal 3