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It is already spring (on a few afternoons) in Leuven

After a month in California, where February felt like May/June in Belgium, it was a bit shocking to come back to Leuven. Luckily, the temperature started rising recently, there was a lot of sunshine, and not much rain, so actually there is no reason to complain. I already managed to go for a ride in shorts (with arm and leg warmers and a wind vest, but still) last week!

Unluckily the mornings are still very cold, so the early weekend rides still require winter outfits, and it only gets warm for a few hours on the afternoon, but you can feel that spring is coming! Last Sunday we went for a long walk with Clio to the forest, and on the way home we passed by the Arenbergkasteel to take some pictures of the field of snowdrops. They were really beautiful.

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Canyon Ultimate CF SL 9.0 Di2

I got my new road bike, a Canyon Ultimate CF SL 9.0 Di2. I promised myself more than a year ago, that if I get the FWO postdoctoral fellowship, then I will spend my first actual tax return on a new road bike. Since all requisites were met, and I even turned 30 in the meantime, I ordered the bike as soon as I got my tax money. Originally I wanted to go for a slightly different model (from the same Canyon series), but I enjoyed the electronic shifting on my rental bike last month so much (more about that in the next post), that I went for this one at the end. I assembled the bike yesterday, and even managed to take some pictures before it started raining (see below), but the actual first ride is yet to happen… It definitely looks awesome, and based on my experience with Canyon bikes, I am quite sure it also rides great.

This bike replaces my exactly 5 year old Canyon Roadlite 7.0, which retires (at least under my ownership) with an odometer position of 31753 km. Thanks to the low Canyon prices (compared to other brands), even a Garmin Vector S power meter did fit in my budget, so the dream of having power-data is also coming true. The bike is officially 7 kg, and with the Vector pedals, Garmin speed sensor, bottle holders, my Garmin Edge 800 and its front mount I measured it to be still below 8 kg. It’s outfitted with a full Shimano Ultegra Di2 group (electronic shifting, internal battery placement, 52/36 – 11/28 gearing), Mavic Ksyrium Elite S WTS wheels (I actually had these a few years back, until a bad crash…), Canyon’s own seat post and stem (very pretty cockpit), and a Fizik Antares saddle (I had the same on my old bike already since 2011, so I really like that saddle). Hopefully I can start riding it very soon!

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An afternoon in Pisa

Since we had so much time in Florence, we decided that one day we would hop on the train after lunch and visit a nearby city. Clio would have preferred Sienna, I was more leaning towards Pisa (:D), and at the end the weather forecast seemed to be better towards that direction, so we went for the latter. I am sure Sienna would have been also very nice, but I really liked Pisa. There was so much more to it than the leaning tower.

First of all, it was really nice that the Piazza del Duomo was green and spacious. Then the Cathedral itself was surprisingly much nicer from the inside than the one in Florence. The Baptistery here on the other hand was really not so interesting from the inside. In contrast, slightly hidden behind the famous buildings you could get into the Camposanto Monumentale, which only showed its beauty after passing through the entrance. The hallways and the symmetric architecture places this clearly on top of my Pisa sightseeing list. Highly recommended!

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Florence

So, let’s get back to our late summer holidays… After our scenic days in Rome, we took the train to Florence. It was a very nice high-speed ride, just a bit more than one and a half hours, and our (really cool) Airbnb apartment was waiting for us only 10 minutes from the station itself. We arrived on the late afternoon of the 12th of September, and since we only left on the 17th, we had four full days to discover the city and its surroundings.

Florence was much calmer than Rome. There were still a lot of tourists, but while in the capital we were in (almost) constant danger of being ran over by a car or a Vespa, the safety and tranquility of pedestrian streets was a very welcome change here. We had great Italian food (pizza for me, pasta for Clio) and ice cream every day, and we could take the sightseeing much easier since the city is much smaller. This way we had also quite some time to play Catan. Since the city is basically an open air exhibition itself, we did not go inside any actual museum (e.g., the Uffizi Gallery or the Palazzo Pitti), except for the Museo Galileo, which we both really enjoyed. We even saw the original lens from the telescope of Galilei.

Of course there were things we really could not skip, so we went inside the Duomo and the Baptistery, and the latter was really amazing. The mosaic ceiling is simply mind blowing, definitely my favourite sight of the city. Then on second place I have the view from the hills over the Arno towards the Duomo, for which we climbed up even twice, the second time especially for me to be able to take a picture in the blue hour too. I think it was worth it.

Some other memories from the city: the market, all the streets dominated by the view of the dome, and all the palazzos with their characteristic facades and roofs. Ah, and the fancy, old-school, brass doorbells :) We had a really great time there! On one of the four days we took the train to Pisa, but that I will leave for a separate post…

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Rome – churches, squares, and ruins everywhere

On the following two days, we ventured onto the other side of the Tiber. On Wednesday we did the northern half, while on Thursday we visited the oldest part of the city. Wednesday started a bit cloudy on the Piazza Venezia, we even had a few drops of rain around the Piazza Navona, but by the time we arrived to the Piazza del Popolo it was already too hot to stay in the Sun. The highlights of the day were the totally crowded Pantheon, the awesome but instanteniously melting ice cream we had at Giolitti, the Ara Pacis Augustae (the ‘Altar of Augustan Peace’, the only thing in Rome I had never heard of before our visit), and the small streets near the Trevi fountain (which was under massive scaffolding, so that we did not see at all).

For the following day, we had a guided tour for the Colosseum and the Forum Romanum booked well in advance, in order to avoid the queues. After a rainy morning spent playing Catan at our apartment, we took off. It turned out that besides us there was only one more couple in our group for the tour, which was a bit of a surprise, but then in the next few hours I got the impression that there are almost as many tour guides in this region as tourists… In any case, the Colosseum was very impressive, especially all the different tunnels and passageways through the structure. Then walking around the Forum really gave us the feeling of walking around in ancient times – with very little imagination necessary. I wish we could have seen the Forum around Augustus (not the month). Before taking the tram home, we still had a quick look at the Forum of Trajan and Augustus, bathing in the orange rays of the sunset. For dinner, we went to the same local pizzeria as on the first evening.

The next day we took the train to Florence, but that is something for the next post…

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