A day at Terralba....

Light is filtering through the shutters, and from the honey-colored rays I can tell that it is going to be another gorgeous day. Does it never rain here? Slipping on my flip-flops I thwack-thwack across the room to the bathroom. Wafts of caffelatte are coming from downstairs, so I hurry.

As always, breakfast consists of what Mom used to let us kids have only on Sundays. Europeans consider chocolate a breakfast food, and as they say, "when in Rome." Only briefly thinking about my Bran Flakes at home, I wolf down several croissants, some cookies dipped in my coffee, and yogurt whose label contains only that word. No non-fat, no extra-calcium, no soy-milk-with-bacteria-added. Just yogurt.

Outside the farm hotel Eliza shows up with the van to take me and my fellow rowing friends down to our morning workout, and so I grab my bag and head out. The lake is only ten minutes away, but the views are fantastic, and the air is so clear today that we can see all the way to the Mediterranean coast. I think tomorrow we're going swimming there after lunch.

On the water our coach Enzo is as tough as he is gentle and sensitive on land. He expects me to get in and row, waste little time on the dock, and keep every single thought on my rowing technique. He keeps reminding me about me hands ... they don't get away fast enough for him, and after seeing the piece he pulled with us yesterday, I've finally realized what he means. Hundreds of strokes go by, I'm sweating with the concentration, and then suddenly WHOOSH - and the boat is gliding from one stroke into the next with no pause, no skidding of the oars. I'm perfectly balanced, and the run of the boat seems to go forever. From three hundred yards away I hear the megaphone boom "SI SI SI!!! BRAVISSIMO! A FEW MORE KILOMETRI LIKE THAT!!!" And suddenly I have no fatigue, just energy.

We've all had our briefing, our showers, and we're heading to lunch. Today our coach's mom is making us lunch, here at the lake, and we are watching eagerly as huge bowls of cold summer risotto, Tuscan bread soup, and platters of little crostini pass from the car into the little kitchen. Afterwards she is going to teach us how to make some of the amazing dishes we've been eating since we've been here.

A bit tomato-spattered and full of ancient peasant cooking lore, the van takes us back to the hotel for a bit of a nap. We have a couple of hours until 7 o'clock, when a local archaeology expert is taking us for an evening walk around the hills, where Etruscan tombs are hidden amongst cypresses and ivy-wrapped forests. Accustomed to my high-school textbooks depicting Roman ruins, I am not prepared for these all-but-invisible openings in the sandy banks of the hills. Inside patient hands have smoothed an arched ceiling, and nooks for oil lamps and burial urns. Coming out of the eternal stillness, the warm evening sun seems a sharp contrast.

Before returning to bed we share a light dinner with our coaches; after today's abundant lunch nobody is ravenously hungry, and the simple pasta dish and fresh salad with nothing more than the local olive oil are perfect. While we linger over the last glass of Orvieto wine, we discuss our goals for the next morning's training.

And finally, after we have been brought back to our rooms, I am able to close my shutters fast, and slip my legs under the fresh white sheets that dried in the Tuscan sun.