After yesterday’s incredible hike through the Berner Oberland, we were convinced to stick around and do some more hiking today. Unfortunately, we’d been told by more than one person to expect lots of rain in the morning, so we had gone to bed simply hoping for the best because the peaks here simply aren’t visible […]
Overnight we’d had plenty more rain, so I was a bit tentative when I crawled out of the tent at 6:30 this morning. I poked my head out of the tent and saw nothing but clear blue skies. Excitedly, we got out of bed and began packing up our stuff for our hike. Enjoying another […]
A surprisingly chilly night in Zermatt meant that I was able to break out my orange jacket for the first time since our free camp in the field of stinging nettle clear back in Tuscany. As we milled about the campground last night, everybody was dressed in full winter gear – long pants and big, […]
Today we had a new adventure to conquer- to find the Europcar location in Lecco. For some reason the rental car locations over here tend to move often, be difficult to find, and sometimes be poorly marked, so we weren’t exactly sure how tracking down our rental car reservation was going to work out. We […]
As seems to be our fate as of late, we woke up last night to rain. The rain continued to pour well into the morning, once again thwarting our plan to leave early and be off of the road before the heavy, damp Italian heat set in. Luckily we had some good books to listen […]
We were up bright and early again today for another 85 kilometer day of cycling, this time mostly downhill to the top of Lake Como. We had only two kilometers of uphill riding and a grocery stop to complete before we summitted Aprica Pass and headed down the other side. Ben: As we rode through […]
Ater a heavy but short bout of rain last night (with just enough lighting to make me a tiny bit nervous, but didn’t even wake Ben up) we woke up to clear blue skies and an already warm temperature. It was going to be one hot day. Our goal for the day was a big […]
Last night we found another accordion! As we were heading back to our tent from the internet point in the hotel, we spotted him – a not so lively yet live accordion player under the hotel restaurant’s outdoor seating. While he wasn’t too energetic, the rest of the 60+ crowd was (we always seem to […]
After a really cold night, we got up and started getting camp packed up. As I opened the panniers for breakfast, I realized we were running pretty low on food, so we ate the last of some cookies and bread and hit the road. Like yesterday, we were bundled pretty warm just to be able […]
It has really hit hard how little time we have left on our cycle tour. We fly home in 13 days; while we realize that for a typical European vacation this may be the entire length of the trip, when put in perspective of the 3 months that we will have spent our time is […]
Our night camped at the airfield passed without incident and we got a well deserved quiet night of rest. The promised rain never even showed up and we had the good fortune of packing up mostly dry belongings this morning as we headed out of camp. Unfortunately, shoes don’t dry that fast, so our cycling […]
After dinner last night we spent the evening sitting on the well manicured grass that made up the beach of the small, pretty lake at our campground. A stiff and consistent wind blew across the lake, which I have learned is nature’s way of saying “get ready, the rain is coming”. Looking out on the […]