The rain started around 10 pm on Friday night and didn’t stop for 24 hours--a nice, gentle, steady drenching. We spent most of the damp and chilly Saturday inside Rover until around 2 pm, when we put on our waterproof shoes, raincoats, ponchos, gloves and pink (!) Giro hats, took up our umbrellas and headed out to that day’s Giro d’Italia’s bike route, about a mile downhill. We got there just in time to watch the sponsor parade of decorated cars speed past--without tossing out any merchandise, the pikers--and then we found a wet curb under a tree to sit on for an hour to wait for the riders.
A couple of hundred people had gathered just outside the little hill town (Casina) and spread out along the road lined with parked cars. The road takes a pretty sharp curve right at the turnoff to the town, so we crossed it to get to the inside of the curve so no one would go flying off the road into us as they went around that corner.
The riders came up the long, steep hill, looking throughly miserable in the cold and wet, accompanied by the many motorcycles, helicopters and support vehicles. They were strung out over quite a distance, but it was all over within ten minutes.
Then the second event began: The Departure. It consisted of people running back to their cars, determined to be the first on the road, pulling out at the same time, nosing their cars onto the crowded street, heading in all directions, pushing pedestrians out of the way, honking their horns, creating an instant traffic jam . . . and taking it all very seriously. It was as enjoyable as the race (and lasted longer). Those of us on foot just kept walking around the cars, through the rain and up the long hill. We had considered driving Rover out to the route because of the rain, but we were glad we hadn’t, and the rain wasn’t much of a problem until we had to find a place to hang our wet stuff when we returned.
(PS. The first of 2010's "Things We Have Learned" is now on the menu.)