Gentle reader - this post will not be of normal length, for which I apologize in advance. writing on an iPad is not ideal for someone trained to type with ten fingers. It does make me appreciate the two-finger typists among you!
Traveling from San Diego to Pallanza (on the shore of Lago Maggiore) was as non-eventful as any 4-city 22-hr journey can be. I even arrived at Kennedy fewer than five gates away from my departure - that only happens when one is NOT pressed for time. My heart did skip a few....dozen...beats as I waited a RATHER long time for my bike to arrive in Milan. But it did. I met a few of my fellow cyclists waiting for the bus to Lago Maggiore - self-identification was pretty easy with our obvious bike cases. The schlep part of the day began upon arrival at the hotel. Needing to hoist a large rolling duffel plus a fairly heavy backpack into a typical European elevator sized for the Mayor of Munchkin Land and his pet Shih Tzu was not unexpected. The garage for the bikes (and cases), however, was about 1/4 mile away...up a steep cobblestone hill. Seriously? Yep.
Assembling the bikes on the grass in the warm sun was a nice intro. After completing our chores, a group of us inhaled pizza on the piazza (come on, it has a NICE ring) and went off for a wee warm up peddle.
Did I happen to mention the Australians? There's no such thing as a wee warm up peddle! We went along the shore of the lake at a rapid clip, stopping once for a coffee and once to turn around....when we hit Swizerland! On the way back I made the mistake of following a couple of the Aussie boys who wanted to "just go up this hill for a few turns to check it out." 5 km and who knows HOW much ascent later we reached a top. Welcome to Italy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment