Nothern Italy (Lakes District to Venice) (you guessed it - photos to come!)

June 6 - 18

We took a train to Pavia, a town just south of Milan. The winds were so strong that we saw a tree fall over onto a car - it was quite scary riding around! The trip to Milan was easy as we cycled along another canal (without the head wind this time!). There were people fishing everywhere.

We ended up spending an extra night in Milan so we could do some sightseeing. We met some great people at the hostel - Adreanne, Elodie & Alex - and the man at the hostel was very helpful and friendly, helping us to sort out our phone a bit.

Cycling though the Lakes District was not quite as easy as we had expected, but we got to where we were planning to each day. At one stage, we literally ended up riding through a cow paddock, then had to climb up a big embankment & climb a fence, with the tandem, to get onto the cycleway! We also did some hills with 14% incline (those who cycle a bit will understand this is really tough).

We visited towns such as Sesto Calende, Varese, Como, Breggio, & Lecco, all of which are located right on the edges of the most beautiful lakes. We met some great people along the way, and had a lovely night out for pizza in Bergamo with Marcia (from NZ), and 3 Finnish guys who were travelling by car - it was lots of fun and nice to go out for a meal for a change.

We spent two days in Verona and did a bit of sightseeing. We visited Juliette´s (from Romeo & Juliette) balcony (it´s supposed to be good luck to touch her breast, so I did!!). The hostel we stayed in was the same one my mum stayed in 18 years ago when she did some backpacking through Europe. Again, met lots of nice people, and were lucky enough to be invited to visit another German family - Frank and his 10 year old son, Bruno, had ridden through the Alps from Munich to Verona (Bruno on his own bike). One downside in Verona, was that there was a robbery in the hostel on our last night. Mum actually saw the guy, but didn´t think that there was anything suspicious going on - he took money from a couple of girls.

A few more days of cycling through the Italian countryside and we made our way to Mira, a small town just west of Venice. The hostel was in the middle of nowhere (& the lady who ran it spoke no English at all, so that created some interesting "conversations"), but it was very peaceful, and we met some great people from Portugal there (another invitation to visit!!). We ended up travelling into Venice with them, and took a gondola ride along the canals, which was interesting, but very expensive. I learned some new card games and tricks from Adao & Tiago.

After 9 train trips through France & Italy with no problem as far as the tandem was concerned, our final trip out of Italy to Austria was a nightmare. Mum ended up getting a fine for not having a ticket for the bike, & the conductor saying he would have to go to the police if mum didn´t hand over her passport!! Got it sorted after much discussion & drama. The next train, mum had to beg & plead for the conductor to allow the tandem on. Then the final one, the conductor refused to let the train depart with the tandem on, until a woman came to explain we simply needed to put it in the last carriage rather than the front one (no problem, easily fixed, but with unnecessary drama from the conductor).

Trip to border of Italy/Austria was beautiful. We met many cyclists who gave us lots of advice, & one Austrian guy invited us to cycle from Bremmer to Innsbruck instead of taking the train. We were pleased we accepted, as it was 35km (pretty much all downhill), with some fantastic views.