From Florence to Rome!

Our rest day in Florence was magnificent. I managed to see the Statue of David! Though I was suprised by the number of people who had never heard of it! Everyone knew The Thinker (which I believe is in Paris?), but as far as David was concerned, I was alone in my enthusiasm to pay him a visit! Maybe it's an Australian thing.. :)

We also had a tour of the Florentine Palace with its amazing array of frescos! One thing that strikes you when viewing all these wonderful paintings (and this struck me again when viewing the Vatican Museum in Rome) is the way Christianity, violence and suffering are always portrayed together. There are several frescos of Holy men killing the 'barbarian', the 'Other'. I thought it quite relevent when you look at Israel and Palestine. The extremists on both sides both use religion as a weapon. Humanity made a grave mistake when they gave religions of peace the sword.


We only had three more days of riding after Florence, but unfortunately the van had not quite had enough of me! After about 24km of riding toward Sienna, I got a punture - my fourth in five days! I needed to replace my outer tyre, not just the inner tube, but no one had a spare tyre that matched my dimensions. And as there was no suitable spare bike for me to ride, I was a van girl again!But this time, I was in the back van! Hussein, who's Yemeni(by birth)/Britishby accent), was driving as he was struggling with a bad knee injury. It had to have been my funnest van experience! Without the responsibility of navigation that the front van has, the people in the back van can largely just enjoy the ride! Though, that's not entirely true, it's what we did anyway! The ride was moving through Tuscany, and so there were several times when Hussein and I would just stop at a particularly good viewpoint for a while and catch up to the ride later. Those speedy catch-ups were amazing after spending so long only going at bike-riding pace!

One beautiful experience that day was at our morning break. We stopped in a square where (I'm not sure why) people were very supportive! Even more supportive than Italians normally were! Most Italians cheered us on, not necessarily because they knew who we were, but because they seem to just like cheering people on! But in this square, people actually knew about Palestine and Israel and felt deeply about it. I'm not sure why this was. The memorable moment occured when I was eating a snack and talking with other cyclists, when an Italian woman took hold of my shoulder. I turned to face her and she began by asking me questions in Italian. I only had a very small idea of what she was saying (as I have learned Spanish for a few years), and so I just told her what I told basically every Italian I met: Fecamo Londra Gerusaleme con le biciclete per pace. She nodded and said something like 'I know that, I know' and then went on further in Italian. I looked at her apoligetically and said 'no comprendo, no hablo italiano, solo ingles'. It was Spanish, but since the languages are so similer I figured she'd understand, and she did. She said to me in hesitant words: 'My english is not good, but what you are doing is so good. It is so good. It makes me so happy..' At this point she began to cry. I was at a loss, so I just reached out and held her shoulder. She took my arm with her hand and embraced me, telling me softly: 'thank you, thank you, thank you.' With that, she left.

Due to the language barrier, I do not know what her story was, I do not know why she felt so strongly about what we were doing. But I do know that this was one of my most beautiful moments on the Peace Cycle.


That evening, I got a hold of a new back tyre, making my bike ready for the next day. This meant that I was fianlly finished with the van! For the last two days, I only cycled. But it was tough. Our last day, my last day as a Peace Cyclist, was especially tough: 148.7km with hill after hill after hill. I was tail rider, which meant I had to stay at the back and try and make sure the ride stayed together. This was very hard as the hills got bigger and the riders got more and more tired. For most of the day I was so far away from the front of the ride that we no longer had radio contact with each other (we are meant to keep in contact via walkie talkie). Due to the length of the day and the number of stops (we met the Mayor of a small town and visited a bike shop), it meant we had another late entry into a busy city. But this was even later than the Florence entry, and there was no beautiful sunset descent. By the time we got on the main road into Rome, it was dark and the rode was highway style: busy and dangerous. The fact that we all made it to the hostel that day was akin to a miracle. Everyone was so weary, and the passing cars and trucks so fast. At the back I had a frightening view of the dangers the cyclists were under. When I saw a cyclist pull off the road I thought they had been hit by a car!! But it was only a gear chain issue which was quickly fixed, though it meant that for a few minutes we were seperated from the main group.

When we pulled off the road and into the parking lot of the youth hostel, I almost ainted in relief. I became aware of just how wired up and tense my whole body was. But we had done it! Cyclists hugged each other in joy of making it! Hallelujah!

And so, our initiation into Rome was a dark highway of roaring trafic and several dangerous pot holes! But we were there - the final European city of the Peace Cycle.