just to keep ya hanging on.........we are now changing our route form the originally planned munich to prague we are now diverting to vienna and then down the danube to budapest first then getting the train up to prague so we wont be loosing much time and yet still gaining a few more countries.......
any thoughts?
ttfn
x
Monday, 28 May 2007
a change of the winds......
ok so we have had a little change of heart(and no its not inspired by women, why does everyone think that?).....no sorry dad im not coming home early to work for you instead we have decided.............ill tell you at the end.
ok i noticed i skipped quite a huge part out after rimini which is worth talking about so im gonna go back over it a little as its raining and not nice on our rest day so this is us resting on the internet where they didnt ask us for id and they have music downloaded from limewire on the computers......dodgy me thinks?
unfortunately we seem to leave places on the worst days and our timing isnt that good so our leaving for bologna on a sunday was no better.we had to travel 80 odd miles and it wasnt cool ill tell you that.we set out with me not having had any sleep due to shane from the night before so i wasnt feeling great already, id drunk about 2 litres of a nice mix of both coffee and water to get me going or so i hoped.we got about 2 thirds of the way along when we though we should stop again and call the hostel once more just to make sure that we still had room and that we were going to be a bit later than originally planned due to us leaving at about 11 o clock in the morning(very late for us).that went fine but about 20 seconds down the road suddenly out of nowhere my wheel had taken a turn for the worst again and buckled sideways.....give me strengh.....was one fo the many phrases flowing like the rivers of babylon throuhg my head an out my mouth (more mutley style to be frank) as i didnt have anything to fix it with we have to stop and dismantle my wheel so i could take the mudguard off and disconnect my back brake for the ramaining 30 odd miles into bologna.when we did eventually get there we then had to find the hostel we knew it wasnt in the centre but we had our bikes so it shouldnt have been a problem for us but the we ran into another problem the scale and accurasy of the maps in both of the hostel books that we had were put to the test and both failed miserably.....so after cycling down a country path finding farmer giles and extracting about as much information as a chastiy belt isnt annoying we headed back into town to find some guy on a big bike that shane was naturally attracted to(the motorbike not the bloke) and he said to follow him. i dont know what he was thinkning or how far we had come but shane the quicker of the two of us on the bike was being left for nothing and me struggling with sleep deprivation alcohol intake and a day of cycling on a half dead bike was well far behind and still had to keep going at about 20 miles and hour just to stay withing eye contact of shane!!!!eventually after refinding the petrol head biker he pointed to a road and said go that way so gratefully we did and slowed the pace right down that we might have been going faster if we were riding backwards.....the hostel was ok and we booked in and our ingenious plan started to fall into place.the next morning we took my bike to get fixed and then had to cycle back up to the hostel then get th bus back into the city so we could get the train that day to firenze obviously we would ahve normally cycled it but neither of us felt up to the 120km ride over the alpines again so we got the eurostar through the mountains amuch more pleasureable way of doing it.the hostel was beautiful to put it mildly it was a country villa with a fountain and gardens very very nice.florence as a whole was just nice, people say its beautiful and the most amazing city but we both found it just nice.and annoying the david couldnt be seen as the place that it is in is closed on mondays how stupid is that???the next leg was to get to the train station in the morning quite early so we could get back to bologna and get our bikes we had left at the hostel so we could get to verona.this proved to take a little longer than we had hoped for so we evetually left at about 12oclock.then began the trip to match all trips so far.we ended up cycling a total of 92.83 miles that day to get to verona and along the way we met a rather strange american guy.he resided in a bar in the middle of nowhere (well just outside cento) and had a full beaming american accent to go with his full annoying american pig-headedness.his name was tom and after translating to the bar maid for us he then told us a few anti-english jokes which we both politely congratulated him on and laughed at the right points......i could see shanes blood boiling in his veins already at this point......but then he told us about a bet he had with a taxi-cab owner in england, so we asked him where and he said well its called ACE cabs (ding ding alarm bells start to ring for us it does sound familiar....)and then he said yeah its in cromer!!!!we were like we live right next to cromer thats amazing!!!so next time anyone who is reading this happens to end up in a ACE cab ask if the guy owning it is called richard and has he paid the stupid american in italy over the football match bets.....thankyou.
anyways when we got about 40km from verona we started to look to the sky for some kind of help and inspiration and then realised that the sun was sarting to go down!!!!!eeek so we pedal a bit faster and then the sun just keeps accelerating down towards night time so we start to worry that we are going to be stuck on a major trunck road into verona and be in the dark cycling with no lights so it ended up us pedalling our little backsides off to get there.we hit verona at about half 8 and the street lights had just started to come on needless to say we were both completely shattered and needed some well earned sleep.the hostel was really ok there but they locked all the doors including the dorms at 12 at night every night and you werent allowed out again untill 7 the next morning when the unlocked them..... know its a youth hostel but we arent children we came to get away from constriction and confines is what i heard the wo annoying american guys next to us saying(they were annoying as the first night they sat with their other new found american friends strumming very annoying and untalented tunes on a guitar that i was tempted on more than one occasion to smash over his head or at least hide from him)we stayed the day in verona and its has to be the best city we have stayed in it was just so old and not overpopulated by tourists i mean there was alot of them but you walk down one off street and you seem to loose everyone and just be secluded in a realy feeling italian city with alot of character to it.after watching the football and eating in a restaurant and straight after followed by a kebab......we were hungry ok?....we stayed up and drank a bit with a south african/new zealand girl we had just met that morning and learned a bit about her strange shouting habits in her house and the guys living next door to her who thought the whole house was a bit weird......hello nicole......at least she was nice enough to wake us up in the morning by drawing on me.......not impressed it have to say but i had drawn a huge X on her back the day before so i suppose i deserved it.
moving on from the flatlands we headed to lake garda where we had tried to make it in time to meet shane's nan whilst she was on holiday.luckily for us we did make it in tiem and shane even managed to meet her off her day trip bus whilst going to get some food from the supermarket after we had washed our clothes(see grandma neednt worry about it we are washing them).we had a meal that night with them and then saw them again the next day for a walk and they had also taked their hotel manager into letting us use their pool for a bit......get in.....around lake garda we took a cable kart up to one of the mountains and walked around a bit and i also managed to get sunburnt whilst eating along wth the yodelling being played to us....not looking forward to that.......we met quite alot of other cyclist but when they were telling us about what they were doing they always seemed a bit shocked about what we were doing....it is nice to get one up on people who think they are being extreme......
anyways after shane has nearly killed his leg yesterday getting to trento we had to stay here for a day so he could rest it so sitting here typing is probably best for it i think?well im typing he is looking at the john lewis website..........need i say more.......
but yeah im off now
ttfn
x
ok i noticed i skipped quite a huge part out after rimini which is worth talking about so im gonna go back over it a little as its raining and not nice on our rest day so this is us resting on the internet where they didnt ask us for id and they have music downloaded from limewire on the computers......dodgy me thinks?
unfortunately we seem to leave places on the worst days and our timing isnt that good so our leaving for bologna on a sunday was no better.we had to travel 80 odd miles and it wasnt cool ill tell you that.we set out with me not having had any sleep due to shane from the night before so i wasnt feeling great already, id drunk about 2 litres of a nice mix of both coffee and water to get me going or so i hoped.we got about 2 thirds of the way along when we though we should stop again and call the hostel once more just to make sure that we still had room and that we were going to be a bit later than originally planned due to us leaving at about 11 o clock in the morning(very late for us).that went fine but about 20 seconds down the road suddenly out of nowhere my wheel had taken a turn for the worst again and buckled sideways.....give me strengh.....was one fo the many phrases flowing like the rivers of babylon throuhg my head an out my mouth (more mutley style to be frank) as i didnt have anything to fix it with we have to stop and dismantle my wheel so i could take the mudguard off and disconnect my back brake for the ramaining 30 odd miles into bologna.when we did eventually get there we then had to find the hostel we knew it wasnt in the centre but we had our bikes so it shouldnt have been a problem for us but the we ran into another problem the scale and accurasy of the maps in both of the hostel books that we had were put to the test and both failed miserably.....so after cycling down a country path finding farmer giles and extracting about as much information as a chastiy belt isnt annoying we headed back into town to find some guy on a big bike that shane was naturally attracted to(the motorbike not the bloke) and he said to follow him. i dont know what he was thinkning or how far we had come but shane the quicker of the two of us on the bike was being left for nothing and me struggling with sleep deprivation alcohol intake and a day of cycling on a half dead bike was well far behind and still had to keep going at about 20 miles and hour just to stay withing eye contact of shane!!!!eventually after refinding the petrol head biker he pointed to a road and said go that way so gratefully we did and slowed the pace right down that we might have been going faster if we were riding backwards.....the hostel was ok and we booked in and our ingenious plan started to fall into place.the next morning we took my bike to get fixed and then had to cycle back up to the hostel then get th bus back into the city so we could get the train that day to firenze obviously we would ahve normally cycled it but neither of us felt up to the 120km ride over the alpines again so we got the eurostar through the mountains amuch more pleasureable way of doing it.the hostel was beautiful to put it mildly it was a country villa with a fountain and gardens very very nice.florence as a whole was just nice, people say its beautiful and the most amazing city but we both found it just nice.and annoying the david couldnt be seen as the place that it is in is closed on mondays how stupid is that???the next leg was to get to the train station in the morning quite early so we could get back to bologna and get our bikes we had left at the hostel so we could get to verona.this proved to take a little longer than we had hoped for so we evetually left at about 12oclock.then began the trip to match all trips so far.we ended up cycling a total of 92.83 miles that day to get to verona and along the way we met a rather strange american guy.he resided in a bar in the middle of nowhere (well just outside cento) and had a full beaming american accent to go with his full annoying american pig-headedness.his name was tom and after translating to the bar maid for us he then told us a few anti-english jokes which we both politely congratulated him on and laughed at the right points......i could see shanes blood boiling in his veins already at this point......but then he told us about a bet he had with a taxi-cab owner in england, so we asked him where and he said well its called ACE cabs (ding ding alarm bells start to ring for us it does sound familiar....)and then he said yeah its in cromer!!!!we were like we live right next to cromer thats amazing!!!so next time anyone who is reading this happens to end up in a ACE cab ask if the guy owning it is called richard and has he paid the stupid american in italy over the football match bets.....thankyou.
anyways when we got about 40km from verona we started to look to the sky for some kind of help and inspiration and then realised that the sun was sarting to go down!!!!!eeek so we pedal a bit faster and then the sun just keeps accelerating down towards night time so we start to worry that we are going to be stuck on a major trunck road into verona and be in the dark cycling with no lights so it ended up us pedalling our little backsides off to get there.we hit verona at about half 8 and the street lights had just started to come on needless to say we were both completely shattered and needed some well earned sleep.the hostel was really ok there but they locked all the doors including the dorms at 12 at night every night and you werent allowed out again untill 7 the next morning when the unlocked them..... know its a youth hostel but we arent children we came to get away from constriction and confines is what i heard the wo annoying american guys next to us saying(they were annoying as the first night they sat with their other new found american friends strumming very annoying and untalented tunes on a guitar that i was tempted on more than one occasion to smash over his head or at least hide from him)we stayed the day in verona and its has to be the best city we have stayed in it was just so old and not overpopulated by tourists i mean there was alot of them but you walk down one off street and you seem to loose everyone and just be secluded in a realy feeling italian city with alot of character to it.after watching the football and eating in a restaurant and straight after followed by a kebab......we were hungry ok?....we stayed up and drank a bit with a south african/new zealand girl we had just met that morning and learned a bit about her strange shouting habits in her house and the guys living next door to her who thought the whole house was a bit weird......hello nicole......at least she was nice enough to wake us up in the morning by drawing on me.......not impressed it have to say but i had drawn a huge X on her back the day before so i suppose i deserved it.
moving on from the flatlands we headed to lake garda where we had tried to make it in time to meet shane's nan whilst she was on holiday.luckily for us we did make it in tiem and shane even managed to meet her off her day trip bus whilst going to get some food from the supermarket after we had washed our clothes(see grandma neednt worry about it we are washing them).we had a meal that night with them and then saw them again the next day for a walk and they had also taked their hotel manager into letting us use their pool for a bit......get in.....around lake garda we took a cable kart up to one of the mountains and walked around a bit and i also managed to get sunburnt whilst eating along wth the yodelling being played to us....not looking forward to that.......we met quite alot of other cyclist but when they were telling us about what they were doing they always seemed a bit shocked about what we were doing....it is nice to get one up on people who think they are being extreme......
anyways after shane has nearly killed his leg yesterday getting to trento we had to stay here for a day so he could rest it so sitting here typing is probably best for it i think?well im typing he is looking at the john lewis website..........need i say more.......
but yeah im off now
ttfn
x
Saturday, 26 May 2007
anything can happen in the next 2 minutes.....
ok so now we are in riva del garda, for those of you who dont know where it is look at the north of italy at the bigest lake and right at the top you might find us.
the trip from ancona has been a rather interesting one so i shall begin from there......
we left ancona and headed to a little place called rimini just along the coast from there well i say just along the coast but you know what me and shane are likle by now just along the coast equates to about 50-80 miles along....but enough about that......we got to rimini and evetually found the hostel after asking a few taxi drivers and getting a bit loast around the back streets in a very confusing one way system, once there things looked up however as the people has big smiles and all seemed clean and nice.....skip to morning......we awoke and got ready to get going bags on bikes, lycra on and all limbered up nicely when shane comes up with a great idea....im a bit tired do you want to stay another night???i look at him and my first reply was something which i would rather not put on here but after along of whining and questions i finally arrived at a decision....if the go-kart track we passed yesterday is open today we will stay if not then no.....so after consulting the rather ravishing red-head behind the counter shane came back out with a big grin and a phrase "get the bags off mate".....so after pratting about with the bikes for a while longere and returning to the same room as before but the othe side we changed again and got ready to head off to the track.the new plan was to hit the track then come back and hit the beach but as you have all figuredout by now nothing on our little trip is as easy as it sounds.....we got bak onto our bikes and headed out of town towards the track that we had seen on the way in, i thought he was joking when he said 5 miles out but no it was nearly at the main road and afer he airport, however when we got of the road and headed towards the track we had seen we realised something was missing.......cars.......at least ones our size........we had stumbled across a toy car racing track not a go-kart track as we had origianlly hoped for. a the thought of going back without and driving action we asked if there was another one about, the direction he gave us confused us somewat as we had come from there and no seen one along there.......but holding faith of local knowledge we went off in the direction given to us and sure enough after about 1km we found a huge go-kart track and massive signs on both sides of the road directing us to it....needless to say we werent impressed at our own lack of observational skills the previous day.after filling our need for adrenaline and two fairly evely matched races with pollen as a hazard and mcdonalds weighing us down in the second race we returned back to the hostel. on our return we went to head towards the beach untill shane realised what day it was and the huge event taking place that day.....fa cup final so of course the next logical step is to try to find a bar with sky tv watching the game instead of he beach after meeting dead ends all over the place we returned to the only bar watching football and shane pleeded with the man for some kind of repreive from his non football orientated state the man said ok yes but he had his own atch to watch so siting in a closed resaurant watching italian 1st division football and the fa cup we didnt buy aything and made friends with the restarant owner(shane had prevously been heard to say,"how come in a country like this they arent showing the final from the best league in the world" i sorry but this is italy they think if it isnt theres its not good and especially when it comes to football)when the game had come to its exciting if not unexpected conclusion we left the bar with a promise of return for his food later on that night but privately thinkning we migh go somewhere else instead......this is where the towel insidents began, i went upstairs and to the loo whilst shane couldnt hold it for two minutes to get back to the hostel so he arrived at the door as i was finishing and i heard him speaking, it being shane i obviousl thtough immediately that he was talking to himself about me having locked the door and no being there but when i had washed my hands i found him running down the stairs and a girl in a towell standing there in his wake(my immediate reaction was the shout shane in a manner he might come back here and see what i was seeing but obviously it didnt work as he continued on the way down) so of course then i urn to the random if not slightly embarressed girl in the corridor and ask whats going on, im told she somehow got locked out of her room the details of which were a bit hazy as to be honest i was finding it a little hard to concentrate wondering what shane had to do wit it and then she told me that he was saving her from going down in a towel and askin for a spare key.i made a joke o it asking to see if our key worked in her door and she gave a frightful reply and relieved sigh as i discovered it wouldnt turn..........oh the shame..........so after opening my door i asked the normaly quesions where you from what you doing and arent they some nicely shaped tan lines on your shoulders.........shane finally returned and afer helping her and closing our door behind him the elongated word that was uttered from his lips had never been so well placed.........."MATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"..........i did have to agree it was a very worth mate situation to be in at that time.again skipping ahead to a clothed......steph......and a few beers later we were about to go out for food when we came across a couple of girls sitting at the downstairs bar, insulting them by calling thm american isnt the best way to strike up a conversation but it seemed to work with amusement for us in it as well,(canadian). i had gone upstairs to get a jumper when shane said put your jeans on, i asked why and apparently we were going to be going out with the girls to some random bars of something they had been told about, so much for him being tired as a reason to stay there another night.......eventually after photos introductions and directions we made our way as a group of 6 to the restaurant that me and shane had spent a good hour in during the day without spendin any money so that we could eat.after much dilemma about the choice of wine and the splitting of the bill according to the quantities drunk of each drink(at one point i was waiting for then to get the tape measure out and examine the glass so they could see exatly how many cents the french girl should have to pay for the wine).we ended up at completely trendy quite loud and funny bar where drink after drink followed and loosing 2 members of our group before we eventually got to the stage of heading to the beach bar which ended up to be a 25 euro trip away.(the last remaining girl bar steph with us was named jenny) we headed to the bach bar clu thing and after getting confused about the bar ordering system having to pay at a completely different place to that wich you get your drinks at we then went off to dance.....and when i say dance we ended up on the tables with steph having dissapeared with a man mountain of a sleezy italian and jenny retaining her presence with us and the 3 of us boogying on down and getting told off for holding onto the mbrella for support on the not very well balanced tables.u think clubs in england are easy to loose people in at least they have boundaries, afer going to the toilet and returning to find both shane and jenny gone i had to run around the club like a maniac untill i first found and then re-lost shane and then found jenny and re found shane.steph had been completely absorbed by the italian so she said she would get home with him......so the 3 of us eventually got back after jenny found some people from the hostel who were driving back that way so gave us a free lift....result....on returning to the hostel shane headed straight up whilst i stayed for about 10 minutes to chat with jenny, however when i did return to the room i found it locked and the only sound was snoring (i later discovered tha shane had gone right off to sleep and someone else had locked the door from our room and had earplugs in so i was completely screwed) contemplating a night on my own on the stairs i when back down and found that jenny also come across the same problem with her friend from earlier in the night having gone back and locked the room so we headed upstairs to the roof after being told we werent allowed to sit in the bar area.watching the sunrise was a nice way the spend the mornin hours when the person falls asleep and your left to contemplate how you are going to survive the coming ride to bologna without any sleep at all.....i wasnt impressed with shanes lack of sympathy for me either and when he in turn locked himslef out of the room after having a shower the second towel insident was evident as he had to come down to the reception to get anoher key.the third was when we were eventually saying goodbye to our friends and jenny reappeared in a towel to see us off.the hostel of towels and lockouts .....interesting times.
we have surivived and after meeting shanes nan on holiday and racing against the sun to get to verona from bologna (biggest day 92 miles) we are all ok and ready to head off to the alps now.....
bike has been repaired a further 2 times so still not impressed with it but i will keep on going.....
food is waiting and ive been o here way too long so ttfn
x
the trip from ancona has been a rather interesting one so i shall begin from there......
we left ancona and headed to a little place called rimini just along the coast from there well i say just along the coast but you know what me and shane are likle by now just along the coast equates to about 50-80 miles along....but enough about that......we got to rimini and evetually found the hostel after asking a few taxi drivers and getting a bit loast around the back streets in a very confusing one way system, once there things looked up however as the people has big smiles and all seemed clean and nice.....skip to morning......we awoke and got ready to get going bags on bikes, lycra on and all limbered up nicely when shane comes up with a great idea....im a bit tired do you want to stay another night???i look at him and my first reply was something which i would rather not put on here but after along of whining and questions i finally arrived at a decision....if the go-kart track we passed yesterday is open today we will stay if not then no.....so after consulting the rather ravishing red-head behind the counter shane came back out with a big grin and a phrase "get the bags off mate".....so after pratting about with the bikes for a while longere and returning to the same room as before but the othe side we changed again and got ready to head off to the track.the new plan was to hit the track then come back and hit the beach but as you have all figuredout by now nothing on our little trip is as easy as it sounds.....we got bak onto our bikes and headed out of town towards the track that we had seen on the way in, i thought he was joking when he said 5 miles out but no it was nearly at the main road and afer he airport, however when we got of the road and headed towards the track we had seen we realised something was missing.......cars.......at least ones our size........we had stumbled across a toy car racing track not a go-kart track as we had origianlly hoped for. a the thought of going back without and driving action we asked if there was another one about, the direction he gave us confused us somewat as we had come from there and no seen one along there.......but holding faith of local knowledge we went off in the direction given to us and sure enough after about 1km we found a huge go-kart track and massive signs on both sides of the road directing us to it....needless to say we werent impressed at our own lack of observational skills the previous day.after filling our need for adrenaline and two fairly evely matched races with pollen as a hazard and mcdonalds weighing us down in the second race we returned back to the hostel. on our return we went to head towards the beach untill shane realised what day it was and the huge event taking place that day.....fa cup final so of course the next logical step is to try to find a bar with sky tv watching the game instead of he beach after meeting dead ends all over the place we returned to the only bar watching football and shane pleeded with the man for some kind of repreive from his non football orientated state the man said ok yes but he had his own atch to watch so siting in a closed resaurant watching italian 1st division football and the fa cup we didnt buy aything and made friends with the restarant owner(shane had prevously been heard to say,"how come in a country like this they arent showing the final from the best league in the world" i sorry but this is italy they think if it isnt theres its not good and especially when it comes to football)when the game had come to its exciting if not unexpected conclusion we left the bar with a promise of return for his food later on that night but privately thinkning we migh go somewhere else instead......this is where the towel insidents began, i went upstairs and to the loo whilst shane couldnt hold it for two minutes to get back to the hostel so he arrived at the door as i was finishing and i heard him speaking, it being shane i obviousl thtough immediately that he was talking to himself about me having locked the door and no being there but when i had washed my hands i found him running down the stairs and a girl in a towell standing there in his wake(my immediate reaction was the shout shane in a manner he might come back here and see what i was seeing but obviously it didnt work as he continued on the way down) so of course then i urn to the random if not slightly embarressed girl in the corridor and ask whats going on, im told she somehow got locked out of her room the details of which were a bit hazy as to be honest i was finding it a little hard to concentrate wondering what shane had to do wit it and then she told me that he was saving her from going down in a towel and askin for a spare key.i made a joke o it asking to see if our key worked in her door and she gave a frightful reply and relieved sigh as i discovered it wouldnt turn..........oh the shame..........so after opening my door i asked the normaly quesions where you from what you doing and arent they some nicely shaped tan lines on your shoulders.........shane finally returned and afer helping her and closing our door behind him the elongated word that was uttered from his lips had never been so well placed.........."MATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"..........i did have to agree it was a very worth mate situation to be in at that time.again skipping ahead to a clothed......steph......and a few beers later we were about to go out for food when we came across a couple of girls sitting at the downstairs bar, insulting them by calling thm american isnt the best way to strike up a conversation but it seemed to work with amusement for us in it as well,(canadian). i had gone upstairs to get a jumper when shane said put your jeans on, i asked why and apparently we were going to be going out with the girls to some random bars of something they had been told about, so much for him being tired as a reason to stay there another night.......eventually after photos introductions and directions we made our way as a group of 6 to the restaurant that me and shane had spent a good hour in during the day without spendin any money so that we could eat.after much dilemma about the choice of wine and the splitting of the bill according to the quantities drunk of each drink(at one point i was waiting for then to get the tape measure out and examine the glass so they could see exatly how many cents the french girl should have to pay for the wine).we ended up at completely trendy quite loud and funny bar where drink after drink followed and loosing 2 members of our group before we eventually got to the stage of heading to the beach bar which ended up to be a 25 euro trip away.(the last remaining girl bar steph with us was named jenny) we headed to the bach bar clu thing and after getting confused about the bar ordering system having to pay at a completely different place to that wich you get your drinks at we then went off to dance.....and when i say dance we ended up on the tables with steph having dissapeared with a man mountain of a sleezy italian and jenny retaining her presence with us and the 3 of us boogying on down and getting told off for holding onto the mbrella for support on the not very well balanced tables.u think clubs in england are easy to loose people in at least they have boundaries, afer going to the toilet and returning to find both shane and jenny gone i had to run around the club like a maniac untill i first found and then re-lost shane and then found jenny and re found shane.steph had been completely absorbed by the italian so she said she would get home with him......so the 3 of us eventually got back after jenny found some people from the hostel who were driving back that way so gave us a free lift....result....on returning to the hostel shane headed straight up whilst i stayed for about 10 minutes to chat with jenny, however when i did return to the room i found it locked and the only sound was snoring (i later discovered tha shane had gone right off to sleep and someone else had locked the door from our room and had earplugs in so i was completely screwed) contemplating a night on my own on the stairs i when back down and found that jenny also come across the same problem with her friend from earlier in the night having gone back and locked the room so we headed upstairs to the roof after being told we werent allowed to sit in the bar area.watching the sunrise was a nice way the spend the mornin hours when the person falls asleep and your left to contemplate how you are going to survive the coming ride to bologna without any sleep at all.....i wasnt impressed with shanes lack of sympathy for me either and when he in turn locked himslef out of the room after having a shower the second towel insident was evident as he had to come down to the reception to get anoher key.the third was when we were eventually saying goodbye to our friends and jenny reappeared in a towel to see us off.the hostel of towels and lockouts .....interesting times.
we have surivived and after meeting shanes nan on holiday and racing against the sun to get to verona from bologna (biggest day 92 miles) we are all ok and ready to head off to the alps now.....
bike has been repaired a further 2 times so still not impressed with it but i will keep on going.....
food is waiting and ive been o here way too long so ttfn
x
Thursday, 17 May 2007
coast to coast in 3 days....
ok after we left salerno with the very happy man in the hostel bidding us farewell after taking an exceedingly in depth interest as to the reason for our trip and why i chose shane to come with me...(we think he thought maybe the other reason two guys go off together...not nice)we headed into the hills....ok when i say hills i mean the big old mountain range in the middle of italy.the first day we got quite far with no real happenings except for having to fork out 45 euros for a hotel as there was nothing else for abslutely miles and shane did look as if he was about to die on me.the next day however i think deserves some note....alot of note...
welcome to the worst day of the trip:
morning ok nice hot weather we get going on the one road thatw e need to take us to our destination...foggia...that would mean that we crossed the whole of the mountain range in 2 days and something we could be very proud of.however the problems started at first with it being a sunday and no supermarkets or anything are open so relying on tabbachi and cafes to be open we plundered on to a town and after asking some locals we did actually manage to locate a supermarket but the directions which shane was given didnt seem to make note in his head as he continued straight passed it and only later said dont worry we'll find something.after not finding anything for quite a while we managed to find a small runthough town and get some much needed food although it was only crossaints and sweet stuff not exactly the lunch for cycling like we do in the blistering heat.ok now we left this place after i watered the solitary plant in the car park before i burst and headed on towards our destination we were making good time and generally going downhill being on the other side of the mountain range now that was untill we hit a diversion, i said as it was a sunday no one will be there so lets just go through the road works but shane insisted on going round and when i say round i mean up,and up,and up.this path ill call it went up for about 2 maybe 3 miles to some small littel godforsaken town which overlooked the road we should have been on.after this we had to then find a way back down from the hill to our road not as easy as it sounds.after consulting a few car drivers we evetually found our road.now my wheel hasnt been in very goo shape for a long time slightly buckled up and down and a little left and right but this road had so many potholes it made swiss cheese look like mozzerella!!!the first bad signal about my back wheel was when i discovered i had a puncture, after inspecting this we found it at the valve not a good place to find a whole.now this random kid on a bike which looked like he had stolen bits off other bikes and cars to make it pulled up and when we said we didnt speak italian in phrases which would surely state that themselves he still decided to stand there and watch us....spooky.not saying anything he just stood and watched as we dismatled my back end and fxed it, or so we thought.as not more than 1km down the road we started to go steeply downhill, you know when is going to be really steep when you see signs that dont allow lorries to go down them.14% was the nicest part i think and this is where the bad conditon of the road took over.my hands as red as the blood pulsing through them from holding the brakes so much my back wheel completely went and by the time i got to the bottom the phrase pear shaped resembled what my wheel looked like to me.completely and utterly F°°°°°D.this threw up the next dilemma where do we stay and how do we get my bike unridable at this point to a shop.luckily and this was the only bit of luck we had all day we stopped outside a train station, but the trains werent running that day and the next one was at 6:41 the next morning and after that at about 3:00 so we though the morning one will have to do.we did find a room which we put the bikes in and the lady opposite supplied us with directions to a bar and a choc-ice each so shane went off the get food and beer and i sat and read contemplating all the possibilities of things that had and could still go wrong with the day.eventually when he retrned frm the bar only #1km# away we ate and drank and sat and waited.when it got dark the bugs came out, when i say came out i mean the were in swarms resembling tuna fish movements in the sea.after closing the door we realised our room had a light which we externally controlled somewhere, after contemplating cutting the wires we gave up and tried to bed down for the night.again luck wasnt on our side as the bell that signals the trains and the hourly freight trains going by destroyed any chance of and sort of sleep we hoped for.we got up at 5 so as not to miss our train and were eagerly awaiting anything that could get us to foggia.up untill this point there hasnt been any enlgish speaking people to tell our tale to so sorry for ranting ok.we got to foggia and evetually found a bike shop thansk to tourist informations in norwich's finest helper.bike fixed 2 new inner tubes all for 20 euros im not complaining then after we got a half priced breakfast thanks to shane confusing the guy at the cafe with his poor attempt at english tourist italian we discovered today might not be so bad.since then our trip has gone without any major events to bore you with so i wont.however we are moving some at the moment and will be in bologna in about 2 days at this rate so things are looking up.
ttfn
x
oh btw we now passed 1500 miles and fianlly lubed our bikes today...
welcome to the worst day of the trip:
morning ok nice hot weather we get going on the one road thatw e need to take us to our destination...foggia...that would mean that we crossed the whole of the mountain range in 2 days and something we could be very proud of.however the problems started at first with it being a sunday and no supermarkets or anything are open so relying on tabbachi and cafes to be open we plundered on to a town and after asking some locals we did actually manage to locate a supermarket but the directions which shane was given didnt seem to make note in his head as he continued straight passed it and only later said dont worry we'll find something.after not finding anything for quite a while we managed to find a small runthough town and get some much needed food although it was only crossaints and sweet stuff not exactly the lunch for cycling like we do in the blistering heat.ok now we left this place after i watered the solitary plant in the car park before i burst and headed on towards our destination we were making good time and generally going downhill being on the other side of the mountain range now that was untill we hit a diversion, i said as it was a sunday no one will be there so lets just go through the road works but shane insisted on going round and when i say round i mean up,and up,and up.this path ill call it went up for about 2 maybe 3 miles to some small littel godforsaken town which overlooked the road we should have been on.after this we had to then find a way back down from the hill to our road not as easy as it sounds.after consulting a few car drivers we evetually found our road.now my wheel hasnt been in very goo shape for a long time slightly buckled up and down and a little left and right but this road had so many potholes it made swiss cheese look like mozzerella!!!the first bad signal about my back wheel was when i discovered i had a puncture, after inspecting this we found it at the valve not a good place to find a whole.now this random kid on a bike which looked like he had stolen bits off other bikes and cars to make it pulled up and when we said we didnt speak italian in phrases which would surely state that themselves he still decided to stand there and watch us....spooky.not saying anything he just stood and watched as we dismatled my back end and fxed it, or so we thought.as not more than 1km down the road we started to go steeply downhill, you know when is going to be really steep when you see signs that dont allow lorries to go down them.14% was the nicest part i think and this is where the bad conditon of the road took over.my hands as red as the blood pulsing through them from holding the brakes so much my back wheel completely went and by the time i got to the bottom the phrase pear shaped resembled what my wheel looked like to me.completely and utterly F°°°°°D.this threw up the next dilemma where do we stay and how do we get my bike unridable at this point to a shop.luckily and this was the only bit of luck we had all day we stopped outside a train station, but the trains werent running that day and the next one was at 6:41 the next morning and after that at about 3:00 so we though the morning one will have to do.we did find a room which we put the bikes in and the lady opposite supplied us with directions to a bar and a choc-ice each so shane went off the get food and beer and i sat and read contemplating all the possibilities of things that had and could still go wrong with the day.eventually when he retrned frm the bar only #1km# away we ate and drank and sat and waited.when it got dark the bugs came out, when i say came out i mean the were in swarms resembling tuna fish movements in the sea.after closing the door we realised our room had a light which we externally controlled somewhere, after contemplating cutting the wires we gave up and tried to bed down for the night.again luck wasnt on our side as the bell that signals the trains and the hourly freight trains going by destroyed any chance of and sort of sleep we hoped for.we got up at 5 so as not to miss our train and were eagerly awaiting anything that could get us to foggia.up untill this point there hasnt been any enlgish speaking people to tell our tale to so sorry for ranting ok.we got to foggia and evetually found a bike shop thansk to tourist informations in norwich's finest helper.bike fixed 2 new inner tubes all for 20 euros im not complaining then after we got a half priced breakfast thanks to shane confusing the guy at the cafe with his poor attempt at english tourist italian we discovered today might not be so bad.since then our trip has gone without any major events to bore you with so i wont.however we are moving some at the moment and will be in bologna in about 2 days at this rate so things are looking up.
ttfn
x
oh btw we now passed 1500 miles and fianlly lubed our bikes today...
Friday, 11 May 2007
how sore am i......
leaving rome wasnt exactly the nicest experience i have ever undertaken but after finding the cycle path and climbing over a fence or two with the bikes then cycling down an autoroute for a while we finally headed along the right track....albeit a rather odd one that consisted of a dual carriage way as long as the acle straight just with a couple of hills thrown into the mix.now what was really weird was this old guy from kiwi-land who was going in the same direction as us all the time but he seemed to be going just so slowly, he would tell us that he leaves at like 7 and that 10 (which is when we leave generally)is far too late for us to start but ever day that we were cycling towards napoli we overtook him at some pace and still with some distance to go however we always ended up at the same place as him now tell me if that isnt weird i dont know what is especially with the amount of campsites along the coast we were travelling along.....something suspicious i thinks....
but going back to rome now that is something to write about, i could tell you how beautiful all the arcitechture was and how amazing the sistine chapel was but first i think ill start with shanes inate abililty to get himself into some rather interesting situations well i did assist in this one but was funny all the same.now im not the first person to generalise about another person or like the whole idea of people being what you guess they are but when the hostel manager in rome says to you"ah you are english yes?you must play football???" my first response isnt to shout in outrage at him for being so narrowminded but instead i ask y?he goes on to explain that he has a small team and needs a goalkeeper at which point the light turns on in my head and i nominate shane for the idea...."yes yes goalkeeper"i say"but not me my friend......... the tall one he is a very good goalkeeper... amazing....yes yes he will play for you"so thanks to me and my overzealous attempt to get us some free accomodation shane returns from the toilet to find himself involved in a discussion about gloves to which end he has no idea that he has gotten himself into....of course im standing there laughing at him whilst he gets told to go and change because they leave soon....the ensuing match was like watching a cubscout trying to define the reason that he just wrentched his fellow cub to the floor and proceeded to repeat the new wrestling move that he learnt last night.......completely hopeless.....not just the players but OMG(sorry too many americans about) the final score 6:2 guess which team shane was on...yes you got it the loosing one and having also hurt his foot and groin he finished the match not exactly the flavour of the month with the manager so free nights out of the window we returned to the hostel to meet a ratherannoyed looking aussie girlwho appeared alot younger than she was but to her advantage i would say, whom after being highly stressed at check in joined us for some wine and ended up spending the whole duration of her rome trip with us....great laugh if not hypocratical in not practising what she preeches but it is always nice to know thateven the nicest looking peple have flaws...great fun
anyways if anyone ever has the really clever idea to attempt tp cycle through napoli i have and even better one...DONT!!!!!!! im not kidding the amount of times we nearly got hit ont he way to the hostel was incredible and the roads looked like something that gary had got mad at whilst trying to install and given up half way through......the way back though we discovered the train we wanted to catch(to avoid cycling through the harbour and just get the naighbouring pompeii) left in 40 minutes now 5 miles in any city in 40 minutes isnt exactly wat i would call easy but when your reduced to acting like a scooter and weaving in and out of cars as the only means to get them to notice that your alive its not the kind of palce you want to try it in.having made our epic race through the city the police man wasnt too happy to see us speeding through the train station so after telling us off i ever so politely asked him to tell us where to go but instead of the english a-typical response of to hell he even walked us to our train....however learning that it didnt leave for another half an hour i ws none too pleased that our sprinting abilities and life risk taking skills had even been brought to surface.
the last coupld of days have however made up for the torment of the earlier stages as we found a nice hostel in sorrento which although isnt yha was really good as well.it alll came to a head last night when between mine and shane socialising abilities we managed to get all the english speaking people bar two drunk and really annoying americans who went to and i quote "represent the hostel, and tear up the town"(who we later saw falling into thin air and not finidng it so comfortable or accomodating as the floor seemed to be) and acouple of australians who had a big day the next day, all the rest of us went to a karaoke bar and beeing prtty much the only ones in there the mike was ours to kill our favourite tunes along with dont look back in anger and i want it that way.after a long night of arduous singing we returned to the hostel with the 4 older english guys trying to hit on the 2 younger and may we collectively say attractive girls from australia although the guy werent informed, much to our delight and watchful amusment, of the fact that all the girls out that night had boyfriends.when they found out they still continued on but to no avail.sorry but when you know this and they dont it really is funny to watch them try so hard but get nowhere....back at the hostel at about 2 in the morning the bar nextdoor was still open so we stayed there for a while as one by one all went to bed except me and the australian girls and me being the only one still drinking at this point as the other english guys had returned and brought water and shane was just hungry i feel happy to be the last one standing.the two, by this stage rather drunk, aussie girls were half helped half pushed up the stairs to there room where i left them to try and figure out tactics to get into the room get their toothbrushes and be quiet at the same time(this being at 4 in the morning now) i decided i didnt want to know how it ended so i went to i say crawl but as i was on the top bunk hop into bed as quietly as possible.oh so much fun.
today we cycled the amafi coast which is no mean feat but when hungerover and really tired it was realy hard for me at least.oh well self inflicted injuries cant be blamed on anyone else except the barmen so thanks signoire sleezy italian man...
ttfn
oh off the the other side of italy now........oh the pain of the hills.......
but going back to rome now that is something to write about, i could tell you how beautiful all the arcitechture was and how amazing the sistine chapel was but first i think ill start with shanes inate abililty to get himself into some rather interesting situations well i did assist in this one but was funny all the same.now im not the first person to generalise about another person or like the whole idea of people being what you guess they are but when the hostel manager in rome says to you"ah you are english yes?you must play football???" my first response isnt to shout in outrage at him for being so narrowminded but instead i ask y?he goes on to explain that he has a small team and needs a goalkeeper at which point the light turns on in my head and i nominate shane for the idea...."yes yes goalkeeper"i say"but not me my friend......... the tall one he is a very good goalkeeper... amazing....yes yes he will play for you"so thanks to me and my overzealous attempt to get us some free accomodation shane returns from the toilet to find himself involved in a discussion about gloves to which end he has no idea that he has gotten himself into....of course im standing there laughing at him whilst he gets told to go and change because they leave soon....the ensuing match was like watching a cubscout trying to define the reason that he just wrentched his fellow cub to the floor and proceeded to repeat the new wrestling move that he learnt last night.......completely hopeless.....not just the players but OMG(sorry too many americans about) the final score 6:2 guess which team shane was on...yes you got it the loosing one and having also hurt his foot and groin he finished the match not exactly the flavour of the month with the manager so free nights out of the window we returned to the hostel to meet a ratherannoyed looking aussie girlwho appeared alot younger than she was but to her advantage i would say, whom after being highly stressed at check in joined us for some wine and ended up spending the whole duration of her rome trip with us....great laugh if not hypocratical in not practising what she preeches but it is always nice to know thateven the nicest looking peple have flaws...great fun
anyways if anyone ever has the really clever idea to attempt tp cycle through napoli i have and even better one...DONT!!!!!!! im not kidding the amount of times we nearly got hit ont he way to the hostel was incredible and the roads looked like something that gary had got mad at whilst trying to install and given up half way through......the way back though we discovered the train we wanted to catch(to avoid cycling through the harbour and just get the naighbouring pompeii) left in 40 minutes now 5 miles in any city in 40 minutes isnt exactly wat i would call easy but when your reduced to acting like a scooter and weaving in and out of cars as the only means to get them to notice that your alive its not the kind of palce you want to try it in.having made our epic race through the city the police man wasnt too happy to see us speeding through the train station so after telling us off i ever so politely asked him to tell us where to go but instead of the english a-typical response of to hell he even walked us to our train....however learning that it didnt leave for another half an hour i ws none too pleased that our sprinting abilities and life risk taking skills had even been brought to surface.
the last coupld of days have however made up for the torment of the earlier stages as we found a nice hostel in sorrento which although isnt yha was really good as well.it alll came to a head last night when between mine and shane socialising abilities we managed to get all the english speaking people bar two drunk and really annoying americans who went to and i quote "represent the hostel, and tear up the town"(who we later saw falling into thin air and not finidng it so comfortable or accomodating as the floor seemed to be) and acouple of australians who had a big day the next day, all the rest of us went to a karaoke bar and beeing prtty much the only ones in there the mike was ours to kill our favourite tunes along with dont look back in anger and i want it that way.after a long night of arduous singing we returned to the hostel with the 4 older english guys trying to hit on the 2 younger and may we collectively say attractive girls from australia although the guy werent informed, much to our delight and watchful amusment, of the fact that all the girls out that night had boyfriends.when they found out they still continued on but to no avail.sorry but when you know this and they dont it really is funny to watch them try so hard but get nowhere....back at the hostel at about 2 in the morning the bar nextdoor was still open so we stayed there for a while as one by one all went to bed except me and the australian girls and me being the only one still drinking at this point as the other english guys had returned and brought water and shane was just hungry i feel happy to be the last one standing.the two, by this stage rather drunk, aussie girls were half helped half pushed up the stairs to there room where i left them to try and figure out tactics to get into the room get their toothbrushes and be quiet at the same time(this being at 4 in the morning now) i decided i didnt want to know how it ended so i went to i say crawl but as i was on the top bunk hop into bed as quietly as possible.oh so much fun.
today we cycled the amafi coast which is no mean feat but when hungerover and really tired it was realy hard for me at least.oh well self inflicted injuries cant be blamed on anyone else except the barmen so thanks signoire sleezy italian man...
ttfn
oh off the the other side of italy now........oh the pain of the hills.......
Wednesday, 2 May 2007
long time no see......
ok we are in rome............i know that is a long time since i last got to look into here but ah well whate can you do in a country that likes to have anti terrorism laws on anything going???oh by the way back to english keyboards so i apologise whilst i get used to the old system again......first thing that comes to mind for me is the first hostel we stayed in in italy,ok we guessed to general rule f hostels would follow as they had done in france and all be on hills but when you come to a valley town and see the only hill is right in the middle you think to yourself you have to be kidding me right????but oh no there it is in shining recognition of everything that you dispise about people who decided where things should be like signoposts and hostels it sits not just as a hostel but a pink castle yes im not joking the hostel in finale ligure is a pink castle on top of the hill!!!!!!and not only was it a castle but we had a shrek moment carrying our luggage up to the taller room in the tower which is accessed by the roof so if it had of rained we would have got soaked of and speaking of rain im here in rome only after the biggest terrential downpour that the region has seen in like a year!!!!great and doing about 100 km on a day like this isnt that good.....anyways if you are a keen cyclist i recommend the path across the national park in the mountains just before la spezia in italy.hell of a way up but amazing scenery when you get there....
anyone thinking of going to genoa?????dont its horrible the whole place is like if you got birmingham feel and industrialness and put it in the same place as portsmouth as a port......not nice oh and shove a huge hill to put the hostel on top of and that is pretty much my impression of genoa...
livorno you should miss as wellanother port but if you are lucky you will find shanes customised mongoose cycling top along a road on the way in....it was hot and we didnt have them on and shanes was on the back of his bike and somehow it came off and i didnt see it even cycling behind him but i think it might have been when we were sprinting on our bikes to get to the speed camera that showed your current to see what we could get 37 not too bad for slightly uphill however since then we found another and managed 53 downhill so not bad either......
no major accidents to speak of but i have hit a car not very fun but we were going reaslly slowly so i didnt really hurt myself but was annoyed at the stupid driver pulling out so i ever so politely told him to go away and leave me alone.......no really i didnt swear at him......
freecamping for the first time was great experience our scouting skills didnt evade us and after using hand signals to an old lady she told us that we could stay at the bottom of her field so when we got there it was all seclyuded and a kind of a fire pit had been arranged so we made our own one from tree bark and small twigs no paper!!!!!went really well and after cutting my legs up to saw through a fallen tree with my penknife saw which i dont recommend you doing.....we stayedf warm and kept the bugs off.....however the rolling mist the dying firelight and the spooky noises made fr a very nervous sleep for the ones who dont go straight off like other people....ahem shane ahem.....
night after that was pretty cool as well it was raining and we stopped for lunch to find a rather larger cycling group there as well.after finidng out that one of them was in fact an irish guy we joined them for the meal.....lovely bunch of people who have taken a squat in a old disused factoryy and set up a free cycle repair centre in rome????odd you think so do we but whatever they invited us to a house for the night with promise of food and wine and after alot of umming and arghing we decided to go and see first but as there was no other accomodation avcaliable to us we went for it in the end....and when i say food and wine i mean the food was coming out of and space possible in a kitch the size of my bedroom with a table of 16 sitting down eating at over 50 liters of wine present and i dont mean bad wine this stuff was so tasty you would no believe howeven we only managed 15 litres but i think i had y fair share of the stuff for free im not complaining....the guy whos house it was is an editor of a book company which is quite sucessful but he is really obscure as his books are as well......all in all a fantastic night topped off with a guy and a guitar and a girl with an accordian and tamborine as well as everyone singing untill the early hours a night well worth the effort of pushing our bikes up hills for 2 hrs and im not kidding they were up up up....
if i think of anything else notable i will catch up again soon in the next few days but thats about it for now.....oh shanes foot is a bit better but still bad enough for him to be complaining about though......
ttfn
anyone thinking of going to genoa?????dont its horrible the whole place is like if you got birmingham feel and industrialness and put it in the same place as portsmouth as a port......not nice oh and shove a huge hill to put the hostel on top of and that is pretty much my impression of genoa...
livorno you should miss as wellanother port but if you are lucky you will find shanes customised mongoose cycling top along a road on the way in....it was hot and we didnt have them on and shanes was on the back of his bike and somehow it came off and i didnt see it even cycling behind him but i think it might have been when we were sprinting on our bikes to get to the speed camera that showed your current to see what we could get 37 not too bad for slightly uphill however since then we found another and managed 53 downhill so not bad either......
no major accidents to speak of but i have hit a car not very fun but we were going reaslly slowly so i didnt really hurt myself but was annoyed at the stupid driver pulling out so i ever so politely told him to go away and leave me alone.......no really i didnt swear at him......
freecamping for the first time was great experience our scouting skills didnt evade us and after using hand signals to an old lady she told us that we could stay at the bottom of her field so when we got there it was all seclyuded and a kind of a fire pit had been arranged so we made our own one from tree bark and small twigs no paper!!!!!went really well and after cutting my legs up to saw through a fallen tree with my penknife saw which i dont recommend you doing.....we stayedf warm and kept the bugs off.....however the rolling mist the dying firelight and the spooky noises made fr a very nervous sleep for the ones who dont go straight off like other people....ahem shane ahem.....
night after that was pretty cool as well it was raining and we stopped for lunch to find a rather larger cycling group there as well.after finidng out that one of them was in fact an irish guy we joined them for the meal.....lovely bunch of people who have taken a squat in a old disused factoryy and set up a free cycle repair centre in rome????odd you think so do we but whatever they invited us to a house for the night with promise of food and wine and after alot of umming and arghing we decided to go and see first but as there was no other accomodation avcaliable to us we went for it in the end....and when i say food and wine i mean the food was coming out of and space possible in a kitch the size of my bedroom with a table of 16 sitting down eating at over 50 liters of wine present and i dont mean bad wine this stuff was so tasty you would no believe howeven we only managed 15 litres but i think i had y fair share of the stuff for free im not complaining....the guy whos house it was is an editor of a book company which is quite sucessful but he is really obscure as his books are as well......all in all a fantastic night topped off with a guy and a guitar and a girl with an accordian and tamborine as well as everyone singing untill the early hours a night well worth the effort of pushing our bikes up hills for 2 hrs and im not kidding they were up up up....
if i think of anything else notable i will catch up again soon in the next few days but thats about it for now.....oh shanes foot is a bit better but still bad enough for him to be complaining about though......
ttfn
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