Category Archives: Europe 2020

A room with a view in Siena, Italy, a few days ago. Tuscany has a special light that makes late afternoons like this an ongoing daily show.

All roads lead to Rome… Now I know where the old saying comes from. In the ancient Fori Imperiale, next to the Temple of Saturn, sits the Milliarium Aureum, or Golden Milestone, where the stone road makes a sharp turn on the photo above. Not the whole monument, which is long gone, but a fragment...

This is truly a place to be visited in the south part of Tuscany, near Grosseto. The town is perched atop a volcanic tufa ridge, giving it a unique character, and is also known as Little Jerusalem (Piccola Gerusalemme), for its centuries-long Jewish community. Because of its location on Tuscany’s southern tip, one hour away...

I got dusty today on the ‘strade bianche di Toscana’, Tuscany’s white roads, near Siena. The ride from Volterra to here yesterday made the list of my top rides ever, a unique combination of stunning places and perfectly designed curves along the way. I couldn’t have imagined that the route today would be even better,...

Light and shadows in Tuscany, on a backroad road near Volterra. As I arrived near this beautiful mountaintop walled old city, a long stretch of smooth curves was almost hypnotizing: the afternoon sunlight had to share the road with heavy shadows from the tall trees covering both sides of the way. It felt like I...

Making new friends along the way: this big fellow was going about his day when I crossed his path, and I stopped for a little chat and a couple of photos. He was a good sport and didn’t mind my presence for a little while, and seemed rather curious about my bike. The ‘Italian White...

My still-unnamed Hertz Ride BMW R1200GS at the famous ‘Passo dello Stelvio’, on a route that crossed four countries on the same day. In the Alps, you cross countries easier than you cross counties in the US. The Stelvio is another ‘cult’ road around here, so this iconic mountain pass on Italy and Switzerland’s border...