Day 31 (1/7) - Getting the band together

We arrived in Nice, found a bike shop to tighten up Reuben's rear hub and caught up with our camper van buddies, newly wed's Matt and Flic and soon to be, Lachie and Erica who have there own camper van and together the six of us will be following the Tour de France for the next 3 weeks. We navigated the twisty one way streets of Nice, only breaking one cars side mirror in the process and found a caravan park on the edge of the city. We were keen to get on our bikes so while the others were jet lagged after their 30 hour flights went to sleep early we took advantage of the 9:30pm sunset and went for a ride. We got lost a few times but managed to visit a Carrefour, a super huge french supermarket that has almost everything, Reuben was very impressed to see some female staff on roller blades.

Matt & Co's camper van we will be following in the whale.

Day 30 - 4 countries in one day

Today we both aged about twenty years. Reuben did all the driving as we navigated our way through Switzerland, Germany, Italy and into France. The van so wide, trucks, cars, tolls, mountains, tunnels (including a 17 km monster), hills, speed, all very terrifying for Anne-Marie and nerve wracking for Reuben. We did stop at a lovely, picturesque town in Switzerland for lunch, like something off a crazy postcard, not to mention the best cappuccino we have had on the trip so far. Once we hit Italy the freeways got wider, faster and more confusing, we made a wrong turn and ended up in the sea side city of Genoa. Doing as the Italian's do (when in Rome) we illegally parked the van on a quay and had strange seafood pasta for dinner. Trying to make our way back onto the freeway was an adventure; tiny, skinny, cobbled roads with bare millimeters to spare, trucks and motor bikes coming the other way and some of the busiest peak hour traffic we had ever seen. We made our way to the French/Italian border and slept at a truck stop for the night, 700 km under our belt and 50 euros spent on tollways.

Reuben at the helm of the "whale"

Picturesque Switzerland (excuse the bug on the lens)

The whale parked illegally by the waters edge

Day 29 - Collecting the "whale"

We woke to a rainy morning, left our bags at the hotel and rode the 20 kms to collect the camper van in Germany. Anne-Marie was keen to follow the river Rhine along the German/Swiss border but soon we were soaked and covered in mud, so the romantic interlude Anne-Marie was hoping for turned into more of a cold mud bath. We arrived to collect the van surprised to see how big and daunting it looked. Once again the language barrier hindered us when we were shown how to use the car, lots of pointing and nodding. We crossed our fingers and hoped together we would understand enough to get us through. Anne-Marie was too terrified to drive the "whale" so Reuben jerkily crawled our way back to collect our bags. We managed to find an abandoned factory to hide the van behind for the night. Reuben slept like a baby but Anne-Marie's guilty conscious kept her awake, worried the French police were going to burst in at any time.

Day 28 - To Switzerland/France/Germany

Awoke to our first rainy day in two weeks, the alleys of Venice are damp and slick. We saddled our trusty steads and made for the mainland by the one perilous bridge. An awesome local lady from Mestre, Daniella with her two lovely children very kindly escorted us almost all the way to the airport on their bicycles as they where "going that way". Daniella is a bicycle advocate and activist in Mestre and proved a wonderful guide taking us via the picturesque rural back roads, avoiding the crazy Italian traffic.

After the regular bike deconstruction and reconstruction we arrived in the Euro airport that services all three countries, after few minutes on the French roads we realised how glad we where to be out of Italy, signposts, bike paths, and traffic lights (even baby ones for cyclists). Reuben's bike may be a little borked from the baggage chuckers :-( and Anne-Marie may have finally passed on her cold. We will find out tomorrow.

Discovered how much of a language barrier France is going to be when Reuben ordered a second pizza by accident when saying he enjoyed the first. Have to try and forget all those Italian greetings, numbers and pleasantries we picked up over the last three weeks.

Day 27 - Pluriball in Venice

At breakfast we heard a young English couple talking about an awesome Venetian food and wine tour they had done the night before so we got on line to make it happen.

Walked and walked for 19 hours looking for pluriball, saw most of the city and then some. Eventually after many wrong turns including crashing the filming of some amazing period drama with full mascaraed costumes, we found a little hardware store that sold our bubble wrap for protecting our bikes in the plane to Switzerland tomorrow.

In the evening we did our first organised tour of our holiday. Cecilia  took us around the back streets of Venice to tiny cicchetti bars to taste the local wines and cicchetti ("chicketty" basically tapas). It was pretty awesome, although it showed how thick with American tourists Venice actually is.

Anne-Marie is now in love with the place, It had a lovely feel and after the tour she wants to stay.

Enjoying a local Merlot.

Canals by night.

One of the friendlier locals.

Some of the local graffiti is awesome.

Day 26 - To Venice

Cycling through Roma's insane streets all morning again, confidence at an all time high, everyone may be insane but they look out for you.

An easy choice was presented, 3 hours on the high speed train with dismantled bikes, air conditioning, clean seats and nice passengers or 7 hours on 3 dodgy, smelly, hot slow trains with bikes intact. Twenty five minutes, bikes in bags. Not bad. The high speed train to Venice was eye opening 240kmh, lots of tunnels with air pressure changes and smooth as butter.

Arrived in Venice as instructed by some "good friends" no sooner off the train than informed bluntly, No Cycling, it's illegal. Talk about lead astray. We only had to carry our 40kg bikes over one bridge to get to our hotel.

Our high speed train after delivering us safely to Venice at 240kmh+

Reuben among the crazy Romans on the Train.

Hotel Alle Goooglie LOL.

Anne-Marie shows off Venice with a nice canal shot.

Cheers, Here's to delicious fresh seafood.

Day 25 - Cycle the City of Rome

Anne-Marie is hit with a good cold and spends the morning in bed before Reuben drags her out onto the cobblestone streets to dance with the insane Italian traffic.
Sighted today on the streets of Roma:

1. Scooter vs 4wd Accident.
2. Bump parking (reverse till you see the car behind you jump).
3. Wrong way up a one way street (300 streets, 150 sightings).
4. Cars parked across intersections everywhere.
5. Double parking, everywhere.
6. Indicating with the correct blinker, hmmm not even once.
7. Horribly slick cobbled streets with tram tracks, We are glad it's not wet.
8. Respect for us cycling, everywhere. Which was appreciated.

Enjoyed a delicious lunch at Cafe Romano while watching lots of very expensive cars drive up the pedestrian only side streets as if they owned the city. Somewhere around here a police department could make a motza.