Giro d’Italia is not just a race – it is a story.

Introduction to the series:

Giro d’Italia is not just a race – it is a story. Every kilometre carries a shadow of the past, the smell of lavender, the taste of dust and a longing for something that cannot be named. In a series of four columns – written from the perspective of an observer who sees more than the general classification – we follow the peloton through Albania, the Apennines, Veneto and the Dolomites. We stop not at the results, but at parola chiave – Italian words that, like keys, unlock the emotions of the stages: sacrificio, silenzio, memoria, fine.

It is a journey through landscapes and through one’s own memories – with eagles as a symbol of strength, longing and flight beyond time.

These are not reports. They are a road. They are Giro.

About the road column – The road column is a literary form that combines travel with reflection. It is not about the pace or the destination, but about what happens along the way – in the landscape, in the body, in the mind. It is a look not only through the train window or behind the handlebars of a bicycle, but through the filter of memories, meanings and emotions. This is a journey not so much geographical as existential. In this series, the Giro becomes a pretext for a story about loneliness, effort, memory and hope. Each stage is a fragment of a larger journey – not just the one on the map.

1. Giro d’Italia 2025. Towards the eagles
They started in Albania. Not from the big cities or from the marble cathedrals. They started where the asphalt still fights the ground, and the eagle has two heads and a red background. Albania is a place where history smells of dust, and national pride does not need stadiums or museums. That is where they set off. Towards the mountains, towards the winds that carry dust and memory.
We watched it as always – a little from a distance, a little with delight. The Giro is not just a race. It is a traveling epic, the backbone of the south, which every year tries to remind us that the road can also be a story. Where others see the general classification, we see a landscape. A hill, a tree, a shadow on a wall. A cyclist. And again a shadow.

There were those who hovered over the route like birds of prey. Franco Bitossi, known as the Falcon of Prato – his attacks were as unpredictable as a gust of foehn wind. Paolo Savoldelli – Il Falco di Bergamo – sped down the serpentines as if he had known all the turns of the world since birth. They didn’t ride – they flew. And maybe that’s why we remember them more than those who simply won.

The Albanian eagle with two heads reminded us of something familiar. That we too are eagles. United Eagles – enthusiasts scattered across English cities, spinning their kilometres between Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, with their souls left somewhere between Przemyśl and Cisna. We miss them. For the Bieszczady Mountains, for the mud from their home roads, for the voice of the editor in the black-and-white report. For Szurkowski, who was like a hero from a fairy tale. For the Peace Race, which had so much pathos that you wanted to believe that a bicycle could change the world.

And we spin. Because what else is left for us? Longing is also a form of movement. We ride in the rain and in the crosswind, with Garmin instead of a map and the hope that one day we will ride together – all of us – from Dukla to Albania, through passes that don’t ask for a passport.

Maybe this year no Pole will wear pink. Maybe. But who knows? Maybe somewhere, between one stage and another, another Eagle from Central Europe will appear. And for now – we keep going. Through our own Giro. On yellow roads, through fields and wind.

Everything has its beginning. Sometimes quiet, without fanfare, among cracked walls, by the seaside that remembers the Romans. In Durrës, where concrete has failed to cover history, they set off. In pink. With hope, adrenaline, anxiety. But the road is not a place for dreams. The road – especially the one that leads to Tirana through bends and heat – demands a price. Sacrificio – sacrifice. This word hovers over the peloton like a bird. Maybe even an eagle. In two-headed silence, it looks down on everyone who tries to escape fate today. Someone will sacrifice peace. Someone sleep. Someone health. Someone pride. Someone will pay with their body, another with their soul. Only those who really want it – who know that every great thing is born from pain – will stay.

The city is still asleep, but they are already warming up. The cyclist and time. Two things that don’t like each other. Time requires silence. Accuracy. Precisione – precision. Every turn is a limit. Every climb – a leveling. It’s not about power. It’s not about courage. It’s about details. Millimetres. All you can hear is breathing and the click of the throttle. Individual riding is a conversation with a shadow. With your own reflection in the windows of Tirana. This is the moment when you can’t hide – neither behind a teammate nor behind fatigue. This is loneliness in its purest form. Raw. Geometric. And beautiful. Maybe today Roglic’s bike will find the shortest route through the bends. And then, in the evening, someone will order a byrek and ayran. He will eat it on the curb, tired, quiet, but calm – because today he won against time. Even if not at the finish line.

There are some roads that never end. Even if they return to the starting point. A loop from Vlorë through the mountains, through descents, through emptiness and the sound of the sea. But it is not the route that is most important. What counts is resistenza – endurance. Today the fastest does not win. Today the winner is the one who does not fade. Who does not soften when the sun burns from above and the asphalt from below. The Llogara Pass is not a place. It is a threshold. Beyond which a person ceases to be just muscles and begins to be something more. The cyclists do not talk. They look ahead. They are silent. Because resistenza is not noise. It is not gestures. It is a silent war that you wage with yourself.

From the top you can see the coast – the Ionian Sea in the colour of deep olive, shrimp fried with garlic in a restaurant on Via Joniane, cold white wine. The air is filled with the scent of herbs – wild thyme, rosemary, maybe lavender, although here it blooms more raw, stronger. But up here, nobody thinks about food. Here, all you think about is not getting off your bike. To last. Because the Giro is not fun. The Giro is permanence in the fire.