Took a stroll along the lake to Malcesine this morning. Louby suggested an early morning walk before i 'started faffing about'. By the time I'd finished faffing about, our 7am start became a 9am start. It was a nice walk thought. Or as nice as a 14km round trip in flip flops can be.
Stopped for very nice coffee and croissants in Malcesine. We split one custard and one almond croissant. I couldn't choose between them - they were both delicious. We were joined by a little bird, obvious no stranger to eating crumbs from the hands of tourists.
Louby tried on a pretty little frock, but it wasn't really a Louby frock so she left it.
Walked back to the campsite, after struggling to find a bus stop or even see a damn bus. Turns out they run once an hour and we had missed our opportunity.
This made for a late start. By the time we'd packed up and stopped in Riva for one final icecream (Loobs was far more adventurous than me - i stuck with tried and trusted amareno), we finally hit the road about 2pm.
Retraced a previous route west, back over the tonale pass through edolo and aprica. The west side of the tonale pass is so good that it ended with Louby stating the obvious "you really enjoyed that road!". Yes i did.
Edolo looks lovely, but we didn't stop. We did however stop between edolo and aprica for a pretty horrific toasted panini. Ham, brie and oregano sounded perfect but it was cold and gristly and three times the price of the one we enjoyed yesterday. The coffee was good though.
We were joined by a Belgian couple. Nice enough, but we didn't have time to spare and he could talk for England. Or Belgium, i guess.
He has an apartment here so knows the roads and spent far too long pointing at our map trying to recommend a pass that I hadn't ridden yet. He failed.
He had a lot of things to say, one or two of which were actually interesting.
First, lots of events across europe are being cancelled or postponed due to the atrocious weather. A lot of italians are staying at home which is why the campsites are so empty.
Secondly, due to a massive increase in the number of bikes and bike accidents, police are clamping down on speeding in the dolomites. That explains the recent appearance of speed cameras in pretty much every town.
We finally managed to escape our very pleasant but very talkative Belgian friends and hoofed it over to lake Como. The usual campsite was deserted. In fact half of it was closed off.
We saw about three other couples the whole time we were there, but at least we had the run of the facilities.
Loobs knocked up a very tasty spetzl tea using some choice leftovers and we polished off a couple of bottles of red. The one we brought with us had been carefully packed next to the exhaust all day, in the left hand pannier, so was the perfect temperature. The one i picked up from the bar was too cold, but i got if for a fiver along with a huge bag of crisps so can't really complain.
We had a short walk by the lake, with glasses of wine obviously, to the marina and sat looking at boats and bothering some swans. The cygnets would come to eat out of your hand, then peck it when they realised you didn't have anything for them, then the parents would get all feisty. It was entertaining for a while but we didn't want any broken arms so we stopped playing and called it a day.
152 miles
Stopped for very nice coffee and croissants in Malcesine. We split one custard and one almond croissant. I couldn't choose between them - they were both delicious. We were joined by a little bird, obvious no stranger to eating crumbs from the hands of tourists.
Louby tried on a pretty little frock, but it wasn't really a Louby frock so she left it.
Walked back to the campsite, after struggling to find a bus stop or even see a damn bus. Turns out they run once an hour and we had missed our opportunity.
This made for a late start. By the time we'd packed up and stopped in Riva for one final icecream (Loobs was far more adventurous than me - i stuck with tried and trusted amareno), we finally hit the road about 2pm.
Retraced a previous route west, back over the tonale pass through edolo and aprica. The west side of the tonale pass is so good that it ended with Louby stating the obvious "you really enjoyed that road!". Yes i did.
Edolo looks lovely, but we didn't stop. We did however stop between edolo and aprica for a pretty horrific toasted panini. Ham, brie and oregano sounded perfect but it was cold and gristly and three times the price of the one we enjoyed yesterday. The coffee was good though.
We were joined by a Belgian couple. Nice enough, but we didn't have time to spare and he could talk for England. Or Belgium, i guess.
He has an apartment here so knows the roads and spent far too long pointing at our map trying to recommend a pass that I hadn't ridden yet. He failed.
He had a lot of things to say, one or two of which were actually interesting.
First, lots of events across europe are being cancelled or postponed due to the atrocious weather. A lot of italians are staying at home which is why the campsites are so empty.
Secondly, due to a massive increase in the number of bikes and bike accidents, police are clamping down on speeding in the dolomites. That explains the recent appearance of speed cameras in pretty much every town.
We finally managed to escape our very pleasant but very talkative Belgian friends and hoofed it over to lake Como. The usual campsite was deserted. In fact half of it was closed off.
We saw about three other couples the whole time we were there, but at least we had the run of the facilities.
Loobs knocked up a very tasty spetzl tea using some choice leftovers and we polished off a couple of bottles of red. The one we brought with us had been carefully packed next to the exhaust all day, in the left hand pannier, so was the perfect temperature. The one i picked up from the bar was too cold, but i got if for a fiver along with a huge bag of crisps so can't really complain.
We had a short walk by the lake, with glasses of wine obviously, to the marina and sat looking at boats and bothering some swans. The cygnets would come to eat out of your hand, then peck it when they realised you didn't have anything for them, then the parents would get all feisty. It was entertaining for a while but we didn't want any broken arms so we stopped playing and called it a day.
152 miles
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