A Perfect Day

CHAPTER 20

We love bicycles.  We love wine.  We really love when you can combine the two.  And the land of Napier happens to be the perfect place to do just that.  A fertile plane stretching out between the inland mountains and the North Island’s East Coast, it is the ideal location for growing grapes, and produces some of New Zealand’s best wines.  It also happens to be flat, and for that it holds a special place in my heart.  As much as I love biking, on any type of topography, I think when combining it with wine, it is best done somewhere level.  Wine touring is supposed to be a relaxed, leisure activity- no one wants to be all sweaty and panting for air after a hard climb up to some hill-top vineyard.  And so it was with Napier- a perfect day of wine and bicycles.

The other thing that Napier is famous for, besides its grapes, is the supposed profusion of art deco architecture lining its streets.  We are not really into art deco, and normally would not go out of our way to try and see it, but being that Napier has been titled the Art Deco Capital of the World, it seemed deserving of our attentions. We took a long morning walking around the town, and though it is a charming little city, with a nice boardwalk and palm lined pedestrian mall, I would hesitate to call it the capital of anything, let alone the capital of a substantial and influential period of modern design- I swear that you could count on two hands the number of buildings that stood out as impressively art deco-ish, but maybe that is just my architectural ineptness shining through.