It’s become an unintentional tradition now for me to write about the first bike ride from wherever our new home is, so I feel I should continue on the same theme here in Rome. After living in Paris, where it was really difficult to escape the urban sprawl, unless you had at least a couple of spare hours and plenty of patience, I wasn’t particularly optimistic it would be any better here in Rome. So after being here a week I decided to give my trainers a rest and explore on two wheels.
We live not far from Villa Borghese Park, a vast, green expanse in the north-east of the city on the Pinciana Hill just outside the Aurelian walls. This English-style parkland was developed in 1606 by Cardinal Scipione Borghese who wished to convert his vineyard in to the city’s largest gardens. This 80 hectare park is dotted with lakes, fountains, statues and temples, offering relief from the mele of the city. Villa Borghese itself is now an art gallery…a treasure trove crammed full of pieces by the likes of Bernini, Caravaggio, Canova, Raphael, Rubens and many more and it is often a more tranquil setting than some of the better known museums in the city centre.
It’s here where my bike ride begins; early on a Saturday morning I wind my way through the park with only a handful of runners and dog walkers for company. A short distance the other side I soon arrive at the River Tiber where I cross and pick up a cycle lane. Paris was full of cycle lanes! The city council had invested millions in the cycling infrastructure of the city centre, making it much easier and safer to get around the city by bike. Here though, that’s not the case. Cycle lanes in the city centre are non existent, so I didn’t have high hopes for this one. However, how pleasantly surprised I was! This 10 mile stretch of (mostly) smooth, traffic free, tarmac was a cycling super highway that followed the river north out of the city. It’s shared with pedestrians, of which there were a few runners but it was mainly being used by cyclists. Visibility ahead is good enough to put the pedal down and put some effort in without being a risk to any other users. What a dream!
It comes to an end near a place called Prima Porta where I got slightly lost in a spaghetti junction of roads but before long I was on a climb out of the town where the buildings soon became less frequent, the numbers of cars reduced, car horns were replaced with bird song and rolling hills loomed in to sight. I was in the countryside! I must have looked slightly mad as, despite the increasing gradient, I couldn’t stop smiling.
What followed was a blissful hour of undulating hills; winding up through olive groves and whizzing down through pretty hillside settlements. The cute towns of Sacrofano and Formello, nestled in to rocky valleys, offered a selection of potential coffee stops; a necessity of any bike ride! A flat run back in to town on the bike path and before I knew it I was home, with just shy of 50 miles in my legs. My smile said it all! I’m sure to some people reading this it seems a bizarre thing to be so happy about but being a countryside girl city life can be a bit much and to not be able to ride my bike is an unappetizing prospect. After all I need to be able to burn off all the pizza, pasta and gelato!
I thought a move to Rome couldn’t get any better….but it just had!
Brand New Day 