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The bus trip from Oulu to Tromsø for the Tromsø International Film Festival will be organised also for year 2012!

The bus leaves from Oulu Central Bus Station at 2:00 AM in the night between Wed the 18th and Thu the 19th January 2012, and it will be back on Sun 22nd.

You can find more information on the web page of the trip and you can discuss about it on its Facebook page.

Join the trip for a wonderful experience in the darkness of the far north!

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Yesterday I forgot to use suntan cream and my arms will happily remember that for some days on. The temperature went down a bit, say below 30, so I had to get to the hottest area around here in order to compensate.

Yesterday I cycled in the so-called Crete Senesi, a region also known as the Accano desert, which tells everything. It's in the area south from Siena and it's completely different from the green hills of Chianti, which is from Siena to the north. Crete Senesi is yellow and white in this time (creta means clay, and the soil is largely made of it), and a few trees at the horizon. I also manage to get an off-road track I couldn't find even in Google Maps (that's the reason a part of the track below is wrong). However, the route took me to Monteroni d'Alba and from there up up and up hill (and off road) towards San Martino in Grania, with no trees and as a matter of fact, nobody around. Which is good as there were no cards, but at a certain point I felt really there's nobody anywhere. Fortunately I managed to get back to a main road, and I reached the village of Asciano.

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Different country, same bicycle. This year I moved a bit further to the south and decided to cycle in Tuscany.

Yesterday I cycled 70 km from Florence towards the Chianti area, and I realised that around here the problem is not the distance, but the altitude. From Florence to Monteriggioni there are three hills and the third one (the one of Castellina in Chianti), is more than 500 m. Having a bike with more than 20 kg of stuff on it, I had to walk for some time. And with around 35 degrees, it wasn't the best cycling of all time. But when you're done, you definitely feel happy!

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No, I haven't started a new cycling tour in the land of Chianti wine. But yes, I couldn't stop myself from borrowing a bike during my stay in Tuscany and hang around Florence. As a matter of fact, coming back to the places where I grew up, I just figured out that 15 years ago, when I had the chance to do it, I would have never imagined to get by bicycle from Pistoia to Florence and back in one day (70 km all together). Well, now it sounds like a normal cycling day, nothing too extreme.

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Caro Manfredi, cara Michela,

nel portarvi le mie felicitazioni per il vostro matrimonio, vorrei innanzitutto ringraziarvi per avermi dato la possibilità di partecipare per la prima volta nella mia vita ad un matrimonio laico in Italia. Fino ad adesso ero rimasto stupito dalla scelta di molti amici atei che al momento del matrimonio sono arrivati al triste compromesso di sposarsi con rito religioso per una questione di "cerimonia", o ancor di più "per non scontentare i parenti". Il matrimonio è una scelta che si decide e si compie in due; il resto, anche la cerimonia, è un mero contorno, di cui si può sempre fare a meno.

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Go to the Tour de Finlande 2010 main page

No, there's no mistake in the title. This stage of my Tour de Finlande has been exactly the Tour the Helsinki, which is a community ride of 140 km around the Helsinki metropolitan area. I knew about the race already the last year, but I was too late to participate, as I read about it the day it took place. So this year I had already enrolled in May, just to be sure I could make it. And it has been really unforgettable, so I'll try to be as detailed as possible about this day.

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The history of Ruotsinpyhtää, literally Pyhtää of Sweden, traces back to 1743 when the Kingdom of Sweden – having back then the sovereignty all over Finland – lost the Russo-Swedish War, and had to cede to Russia the part of south-eastern Finland up to the river Kymijoki. This meant that the town of Pyhtää was divided in two, and Ruotsinpyhtää got its name being the part of the town that remained in Finland, that is, under the Swedish crown. Nowadays the places have still different names, and Ruotsinpyhtää is famous for its old ironworks, typical factories especially here in the south. The museum was open until the end of August, so I missed for a couple of days. Have to get back here in the proper summer.

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As I did for the mosquitoes, I won't comment anymore on the hardness of a punched air mattress. Can't do anything about it in the middle of the forest. Can't even put it in the water to find the hole, as that's one of the few things I try hard to keep dry. Funnily enough, the last night was dry, but as soon as I got out of the tent this morning to get to the toilet – that is, I walked to the tree about five metres from the tent – the first drops of rain arrived. And again I got stuck waiting for it to stop.

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Big changes in just a few days. First of all it seems the hot weather has gone for good. I just took back the long johns that I used in Lapland, as the temperature went down to 14-15 degrees the last week. One month ago it was 35, so the different is not that small.

So, the last time I blogged something I was in Turku. From there I quickly went by train back to Helsinki as time was running out. Basically I had to be in Espoo for the Espoo Ciné film festival, which ended the day before yesterday. During this time I didn't drop cycling, as living in Helsinki I did my 20-25 km per day going back and forth between the capital and Espoo.

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Watch the full roadmap of the tour

And with today's leg I reached 4000 km. I admit I really can't explain the feeling, it is a bit like living in a different dimension. Just to make things clear: the amount of km is really a lot, but this is not an extreme sport, nor a competition. You just need time and not necessarily a pre-training, the muscles will come little by little, you can decide how many km you want to do in a day, and the speed you want to keep. In any case I'm still impressed, as I had never done anything like this before.

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