Welcome back Springtime

Which better opportunity to greet the incoming Spring than a happy little pedalling motion up to Fragneto l’ Abate (a couple of weeks behind my preset schedule) where I’ ll get directly from manufacturers another honey jar [wood honeydew], something very special I discovered and first tasted in the middle of last winter by a fair event named [critical consumer goods local market], at the inner court of Piazza Guerrazzi [Guerrazzi Square] in Benevento. I must really strain to hold back from compliments and stay on a neutral standpoint, because this speciality from Apicoltura Nicoletta Valenti has backranked in my memory every honey previously tried.

I set out from Mellusi neighbourhood at an hour already busy, in a fresh sunny day-start made to be roamed. The morning grows wonderful indeed by the time I push my way towards central Samnium, leaving Benevento downsouth behind. Early Springtime is being exhibited strictly according to the rules, first of them the neatness in the air, so perfect as if issuing from a laboratory procedure. A scarse quiet traffic adds to pleasantness while causing pollution to vanish, here, on this path that leads further inside, way up ahead of my destination, to the core of the ancient pre-roman nation.

Thanks maybe to the agreeableness of these surroundings, Fragneto Monforte is reached in a time that seems incredibly short in spite of a prodding slope; Fragneto l’Abate comes gently little more eastwards, with my sapid piercing a crystalclear atmosphere, what often is here around to be found, especially when the heat of high summer is still long to come.

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Instead of turning back on my track I suddenly make up my mind for a circular, little less than fifty kms tour, so I’ ll follow the road to Pesco Sannita and then up a little bit again to Pietrelcina, from where I’ ll be bikerolling to the maintown, downhill along a panoramic favourite domestic route of mine. The air is even neater now; the light, filtered through compact widespread clouds, even more pervasive; the temperature not just yet chilling. This morning too, I’m pedalling in an ideal climate on the eve of a forecast sudden sharp cold, that is a situation typical of winter-spring transitions, in perfect equilibrium between the two seasons as precisely today.

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A descent pleasant today as always before, this one connecting Pietrelcina to the outskirts of Benevento in less than ten kms, enriched by a landscape that is being polished by meteorological developments of absolute superior quality: the first appearing of this 2008 Spring is definitely growing into a feast here in the Samnites’ land, in the first half of its starting date; in finding myself elsewhere today, I’ d have had something to regret.

I’ m past San Chirico and Pezzapiana peripherals by now, rolling inside Rione Ferrovia [Railway Quarter], and yet the hour is still antemeridian ! Would you bet that my present cycling, closing now in on fifty kms, is one of the (many) ideal rides to get in touch with the territory around Benevento when keeping and getting fit at zero cost and negligible waste of time moreover, even for those who can afford only minimal fun owing to their extreme rate of engagement ...?... Not my case, since my official time flows chronic in its intermittence, so much so that this morning I’ m ahed of my own schedule far enough to divert my root away from my uptown finish, namely delaying it to the northern outskirts again, as out away as Mura della Caccia [Hunt Walls] and Rotonda dei Pentri [Pentri’ s Roundabout], and then further beyond to the Pista Ciclopedonale [Walking-Cycling Path] issuing from there. Where I restart riding with an odd changing pace, the breeze intensifying all around at broken intervals, unmistakably confirming the new climatic change announced by meteorologists.

Making some very dry lows of the past into mere bad memories, for the moment at least, Calore [Heat] river shows a reassuring discharge. Like yesterday, walking in the evening along Lungosabato [Sabato (Saturday) River Waterside] Don Emilio Matarazzo, here too, now, I can hear sort of a gentle roar, almost musical; it’ s coming from the waters close by downhill, that by resonantly crossing a number of minor rocky drops give the encouraging imperious impression of life continuity through the most aesthetically dynamic phase of its fundamental element. A ring of my phone presents me with one chance in a hundred to insert the forlorn sweetness of my wife’ s voice in this magnificent frame. She’ s ringing up from Pacevecchia [Old Peace], one of the southern hillsides, from my present standpoint at the municipal antipodes in any sense: planimetric, altimetric and even historical, in that I’ m answering from an area once theatre of titanic armed events (Romans?... Suevians?...) to her call reaching me from another remote place within the same city limits where a solemn suffered reconciliation (between opposite town factions at year-long war) marked forever the toponomy.

Given that the time is running lazier than my riding, another diversion is soon another decision: I trespass Ponte Vanvitelli [Vanvitelli Bridge] (some motor vehicle might mar my breath... a sweeping wind stubbornly stands off its exhaust...), slide past the river high over the opposite shore and get inside Via Torre della Catena [Chaintower Street] _ admirable fair driving today from motorists’ side !_, from there rightward into Viale dell’ Università [University Avenue] _where a blasting wind shows its full strength blowing hectic waves through the blouse of a crossing young men before sharpening my exercise_ and then I ride along river waters once again, for a long piece, on a taxiwaylike horizontal perfection, down to the other tip of Lungosabato Bacchelli [Bacchelli (Sabato)Riverside], meanwhile compact growing cloud masses break progressively the sun shining. Here is it Via Piano Morra [Morra Plane Street]: it ends in a crossroads where rightwards Rampa San Barbato [Saint Barbato Incline] starts, 180 meters for a gradient bordering prohibition, the upper half of which could pitiless expose any poor physical fitness in any possible cycling passer-by. As in other previous occasions I don’ t resist the test and go in for it: I clear the climb grandly without pain, nor have I to withstand any choky polluted intake, for exhaust fumes aren’t crossing my way, for the increasing breath of atmosphere keeps sweeping everything, for this Springtime debut is in the end becoming a real celebration, hereabout and this morning at least; so it is! since the afternoon, the evening and the night are destined to fall progressively deeper back into winter. One more crossroads; shall I keep uphill longer to the right or shorter to the left? Via delle Puglie [Apulias Street] or Via del Sole [Sun Street] ? It’ s still sunny... I’ ll choose consequently and turn to the left 150 degrees. The right bend short ahead under the Villa Comunale [Municipal Gardens] is miracolously clear of parked cars, therefore I rush my way up, millimeter-close to the wall found for once free on my right side, this time full blast indeed, slowing down through Piazza IV Novembre [IVth November Square] to enter thereafter my childhome Viale degli Atlantici [Atlantic (Aviators’) Avenue]. All my manoeuvres run smooth, thanks also to the fair attentive help I’ m receiving today by the motorists’ entirety: are Springtime just arrived and Easter incumbent turning everybody better, or probably is the civic level of these citizens simply establishing itself, in some respects, higher positioned in comparison with certain bad habits elsewhere lamented ? That’ s legitimate hope; that’ s pleasant testimony, until observable.

When I lock my bike in, it’s almost a half past one. People and cars dwindle, shops are closing, the morning is gone once and for all. Inward streets near Viale Mellusi [Mellusi Avenue] are being gone across by sudden hard-pressing air flows, as I, a pedestrian now, can neatly ascertain; a still dry air that is sensibly bending to the cold. Springtime arrival celebration is over for the moment, I suppose. I fear, or rather I do know, that to start it anew from this very interruption point we are all going to stand by for a few days. TOM