Lessons from cycling round Tuscany with my camera
This April, we cycled round Tuscany. We took on the somewhat nerve-wracking process of packing our bikes into some enormous (and hard to manoeuvre!) bike boxes, flew them over to Italy, and cycled round some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen. Alongside trying to justify “just one more pair of pants”, I also decided I’d put up with the added weight of taking my camera along. When Sophie first suggested we take on this adventure, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. I’m not the most relaxed when it comes to planning and logistics, and normally have to spend a significant amount of time thinking of every worst case scenario I possibly can and preparing for all eventualities.
This time, Sophie took on pretty much all of that planning and I tried very hard to just let the trip happen without worrying too much about what the hotels were like, what the security options for the bikes were, what the route was, how many spare tyres was too many, were the restaurants going to have enough tiramisu etc. In the run up to this trip I really felt like I’d fallen out of love with photography. There was a lot of change going on in our lives in general, we’d been pretty busy and I’d had no real opportunity to get out with my camera. Taking it along on this trip was 100% the right decision, and I feel like the whole trip taught me a lot.
Lesson 1 - The Unknown is Good For You
As previously mentioned, I can be quite an anxious traveller. If it were up to me we would probably arrive at the airport 8 hours early - in fact let’s just make it the day before the flight just in case. On paper, this whole adventure required a huge amount of planning; how do we get the bike boxes to the airport, what is the best route to cycle round Tuscany, are we missing any amazing places on our planned route, is it too hilly, what clothes can we realistically pack, are there enough places to stop, where do we stay, can we keep the bikes at our accommodation, how many fridge magnets can I bring home?
Normally I would have wanted to have planned everything out before this trip, but Sophie took on this mammoth task and did an absolutely incredible job. She spent weeks planning our route and sorting our accommodation, booking taxis and checking where we could store our bikes each day. I deliberately didn’t look up very much about where we were going, I knew that would contribute to worrying we were missing out on some places or whether our route was too long or too hilly. I wanted to practice “going-with-the-flow” as it’s not something I’m remotely good at, particularly when it comes to cycling; I’ve always got a route planned out on my bike GPS, even when we’re just cycling locally and I know exactly where I’m going.
Letting go of trying to control every single tiny thing that might go wrong was such a great learning experience for me and I really feel like it’s changed my approach to future adventures. Not that Sophie will have to plan out everything all by herself from now on, but that not worrying so much is easier than I thought, and I genuinely believe I had a better time by letting go. There is no real winner when you panic about all the things that might happen, but there is a winner when you learn to just ride what happens and take it all as it comes.
To quote Rainer Maria Rilke:
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final”
Lesson 2 - Falling Off Is Okay
I fell off. I fell off the bike, and I also fell off photography. What a lovely tandem (metaphorically, not bicycle-ly). This trip also taught me that falling off is okay. I had lost any sort of interest in taking my camera out before this trip, even when I had the time I just didn’t want to. I didn’t really feel inspired by anything and I was worried that it was just becoming another one of those hobbies that I’ve given up after 6 months or so of completely believing they were going to be in my life forever (looking at you piano, scuba diving, surfing, guitar, astronomy, DJing, acrylic painting, yoga, rugby…). I almost didn’t take the camera with me; not only was it going to be added weight on the bike but it also didn’t actually fit in my bike bags and I had to carry it by wearing it 90% of the time. But I’m so glad I took it. Not only because it forced me to stop and enjoy the scenery more whilst taking a few snaps, but it also made me rediscover how much fun photography is when you’re relaxed and you’re just doing it for yourself and your own enjoyment.
As we were on our way out of Radda in Chianti, I foolishly decided to try to descend a very steep gravel road instead of just slowly walking down. My front wheel slipped out from under me on the descent and I crashed hard onto the gravel, with most of my weight (full of pasta), and also a very heavily loaded bike (full of spare pants) landing on my elbow. I got some fairly gnarly cuts all down the right side of my body and we had to use some velcro straps and some gauze to get us through the next 15km to the nearest town before being able to properly patch things up. Despite an initial outburst of expletives during the actual fall before an intense meeting with the floor, I was very surprised to find myself not too troubled by the whole event. Not only did the amount of blood pouring down my arms and legs make me look incredibly hardcore (and allowed me to justify an extra ice cream for the day), in the exact spot I’d crashed I could hear a Golden Oriole calling from the woodlands next to us. The sound was so magical and mesmerising that I was completely transfixed listening to it rather than concentrating on the feeling of Sophie valiantly trying to pick pieces of gravel out of my arm. Yes I’ve scratched my camera, and yes I’m now covered in blood and yes it hurts but did you hear that? Incredible.
Sometimes bad things happen, but what you choose to focus on* can make all the difference. (*Life and photography again for you)
Lesson 3 - The Tough Bits Are Sometimes The Best Bits
Sophie’s route planning for this trip was amazing. The towns we saw, the countryside, the stops we made, the places we stayed, all of it was absolutely wonderful. The one thing that Sophie had against her, was that not all of Italy’s roads are quite as thoroughly mapped out as we’re used to here in the UK. When I’m planning a route in the UK, I know with 99% certainty what that route is going to be like, and most of the time you can Street View your way through and check. Beautiful rural Tuscany had fewer opportunities for us to check those sorts of things. As such, we had some unexpected but very exciting river crossings, quite a lot of field trekking, and even an accidental section through private land that had recently had all its trees felled where we had to carry our loaded bikes on our shoulders for about 3km.
Normally I would have been panicking about how much grass is getting stuck in my derailleur or whether I’m going to slip and twist an ankle in the river or get shouted at by an angry landowner. But none of those things seemed to bother me as much as I’d thought they would this time. These moments were actually the moments of the trip that we laughed about the most or reminisced about at dinner each evening. They are some of the best memories I have from the whole experience. What a shame it would have been to stick to the well-trodden and tarmac-ed path and miss out on so much. Instead, by choosing the slightly questionable-looking detours, we experienced so much more. Yes some of the routes were hard and I had to push my bike up hills you wouldn’t even take a mountain bike on, but it made the days so much more fun and more of an exciting adventure. It also made tiramisu feel that much more well deserved.
Conclusions
Cycling round Tuscany didn’t just teach me how incredibly beautiful that part of the world is, I knew that already. It taught me that adventures can be so enjoyable when you let everything just happen and you learn to roll with the punches. It taught me that falling off is okay and you can always get back on again. And it taught me that the best stories, memories and laughs can often come from the toughest parts of an experience.
There isn’t a single thing I would have changed about the trip. I genuinely mean it when I say it was probably one of my favourite adventures I’ve ever been on. I learnt a lot, I took some pictures, I ate tiramisu. What more could I have possibly asked for.
