He was seventeen years old, Pieter Corneliszoon Hooft, a Dutch student from Amsterdam, when he said he would take a trip, left home, crossed France and Italy, stayed – among other places – in Genoa, Venice, Rome, Naples, Pozzuoli and Florence, returned after three years, it was the end of the sixteenth century and the dawn of the seventeenth, wrote a brief account in a diary, but prudently hid it.

Who were his travel companions, whom P.C. Hooft mentions only by name? What kind of person was his host in Venice, where he stayed for so long? And, most importantly, who could the unknown Isabelle be, who sent him a letter while he was traveling from Venice to Rome? Retracing and following the stages of Hooft's journey, as Ine Legerstee did in 1978-1979, became almost a mission: to search for the true Isabelle. This resulted in a book, "Tussen de regels van de Reis-Heuschens", between the lines of the travel memoir (the translation is mine, so take it with a grain of salt), 300 pages that I.J.L. Legerstee wrote in 2024 for the Hilversum Verloren publishing house.

Let's be clear: the book is in Dutch and the journey was not made – obviously – by bicycle. But Ine, a Dutch woman from Arnhem, a visual arts teacher, scholar of Italian language and literature at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Venetian since 1980 (and works here as a licensed guide), is a cycle tourist. And that alone authorizes her to appear in Tuttobiciweb. Some time ago, at a meeting organized at the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni in Venice, captivated by the adventurous African "Strade nere" (Ediciclo), Ine wished to ideally unite P.C. Hooft with Ali Neffati and Abdel-Kader Zaaf, with Biniam Girmay and Nelson Mandela, but also with Ottavio Bottecchia and Gino Bartali, with Fortunato Baliani and Andrea Palini.

P.C. Hooft, an exponent of the Renaissance and Humanism of the Netherlands, would become a poet, historian and playwright. Much of his curiosity and courage, much of his wanderlust and talent would be inherited – to name one – by Mathieu van der Poel. Too bold a connection? Perhaps so.