Website contents:
- Home
- GoingTheExtraMile: About us
- Events, races and expeditions
- Publications
- Reading list
- Charity fundraising
- Your say - Blog!
- Merchandise
- Contact us
Events, races and Expeditions navigation:
Website contents:
Events, races and Expeditions navigation:
Next morning, after a huge buffet breakfast, we set out heading north alongside the lake in the early morning light. Wispy clouds hung in the pastel blue sky reflecting the pink light of dawn. The lake was like a mirror. We passed through lakeside towns and swung bac to the east through a wood, whilst we munched on fruit smuggled out of breakfast. An undulating road led us to Lake Lugano and briefly back into Italy. Quiet lakeside roads gave us an easy morning - the misty air bleached out colour. Quaint churches clung to rockfaces on the opposite side of the lakes.
We approached Lake Como at lunchtime and after battling the moped riders around the city, we settled on a small kebab cafe on the shore of the lake for lunch. Rain hammered on a shop-front canopy over our heads as we ate tasty kebabs, stuffed with fresh meat and salad. We ventured out into the rain after lunch along a road that climbed and descended the cliffs and we seemed to get nowhere fast. The road led us out to a pointy headland, visible from early in the afternoon but never seeming any closer. By the time we rolled into Belagio, the tourist town on the headland, the clouds had parted and the heat of the sun was making the roads steam as it burnt off the rain. We stopped of for a quick ice cream before rounding the headland and heading towards Lecco. The clouds began to roll us once more and the scenery looked spectactular as dark shadowy clouds approached along from the far end of the lake. We sped though a long tunnel and burst out of the far end into a thunder storm and torrential rain. Lecco was opposite us snuggled into the surrounding dome topped mountains and looking the way I imagine South American cities. Having covered 80 miles and unwilling to battle the rain any further, we peeled off into a posh looking hotel in the stylish town of Lecco, with time on our hands. Sat outside a bar in town under a mostly effective umbrella, we drank beer and ate pizza whilst the rain hammered the cobbled square and rivers of water gushed alongside the roads.
Two wet days followed. Now on the flat land in the North of Italy we skirted Milan and rode past fruity smelling vineyards. Prostitutes hiding from the rain under bridges whistled and jiggled their wares, truck drivers thundered their approval with their airhorns. We spent hours hopelessly lost looking for a road that turned out not to exist - the result being that we clocked 107miles into Dezenzano, Andy's first centuary! We celebrated with a beer in a great restaurant in a harbourside courtyard. We fought traffic through Verona and passed a huge castle with a deep moat. After bouncing along a decaying road more suitable to mountain bikers, we arrived in the castled town of Monselice. A large and spectacular castle sat atop a hill on an otherwise flat plain. We rolled into town over cobbled streets and I couldn't help but think that we had stumbled on a rare treat. Following directions to the hostel, we walked along an ancient narrow alleyway and into the hostel which was part of the castle and oozing character. Great timber beams held up a wavy white-washed roof. Having un-packed quickly we set out to explore and, built into the castle walls, we stumbled across a great medieval themed bar with huge portraits of past lords and ladies, swords and a huge suit of armour. We sipped great german beer whilst we took in the ambience. Following another pizza (or sweaty kit was actually starting to smell like cheese now!) we headed back to the hostel to check out the route for our final 50 miles into Venice the following day.
Fantastic riding conditions greeted us the next morning - a clear blue sky and a gentle tailwind. We coasted along at an easy 25mph and ate up ground on quiet country roads. Pleasant villages were linked by pictureque canals. As we approached Mestre, the city on the coast opposite the island of venice, the scenery deteriorated to industrial wasteland and again we were the subject of much whistling from the watching prostitutes.
Having muddled our way through Mestre, we ended up on the long bridge taking traffic into Venice. We savoured the salty air of the lagoon and cruised along feeling none of the 550 miles we had covered in the last 6 days. We raced into Venice and into a melee of swarming tourists, narrow streets and bridges... not the ideal place to be lugging around a fully laden bike! Venice is not a cheap place. Before the trip we had scoured the internet looking for, if not a reasonably priced hotel then something that wouldn't involve explanations to the bank manager. We had found one on the other side of the island and booked it without a passing thought for getting to it. Nearly 2 hours of pushing the bikes between sweaty bodies dampened our high spirits and left us irritable and frustrated. After circling the same streets many times, the customers of local restaurants began to recognise us and tried to help, but nobody had heard of out hotel. Eventually, we tracked down the address that we had been given. We stood in a dark alley behind a shut up and rotting storage building. I have never been surer that we had been fleeced and it was with growing frustration that we wandered around the streets of Venice. Eventually, randomly, we stumbled on a narrow doorway at least half a mile from the address we had been given labelled Laguna Residenza. At last! We rang the doorbell. Nothing. We rang the phone number. Nothing. Desperate, we tried the owner of the shop next door. After a lot of incomprehensible shouting and arm waving, we gave up. Out last hope was an ice cream stall at the end of the street. Desperate we attempted to explain what had happened. Immediately, he grinned and having spoken to his mate the hotel owner, let us in with his key. Exhausted, we headed out for more pizza and beer to celebrate arriving in Venice!
When I arrived in Barcelona two years earlier, after enjoying fantasic simple pleasures on the road for a week, the cramped, money driven atmosphere of a city grated on us. Venice was a very pictureque city but everything cost, and normally cost a great deal. We took in the sights, enjoyed a clebratory meal by the Grand Canal and had more fantastic ice cream. Perhaps because the hotels are so expensive, many tourists stay in Mestre and get the train over to Venice during the day. This meant that Venice by night had a completely different atmosphere - calm, cool and atmospheric and I warmed to the city.
The next afternoon, we rolled the bikes back onto the bridge to the mainland and set off to the airport, wishing, as always after these trips, that we could set off to the next place on the map and keep going.
What a fantastic trip!
