Ciao Bella Italia
This was the first time (and actually only time) we decided to divert from the route that I had originally planned for us. Originally I wanted to ride along lake Como, and then take the train to pass Milano. But we all felt well our legs not too tired after the heavy stage the day before, we looked for alternatives and decided to follow Lago maggiore and pass Milan on the west in the Ticino valley. Again a decision we did not regret at all.
To find our way to the route to the lake was a bit tough and we ended up in heavy traffic but in the end after 45 minutes we found our way to the road on the lakeside and cycled along the beautiful lake.
After another 45minutes we crossed the Italian border.
Cycling on the lake was great and especially after we met some other cyclists it became even better since they were going on road bikes and we could stay behind them in their slipstream and we made great progress in no time. While it was fun it also made me a bit proud that we could keep up with them for a long time even with trailer and luggage.
Eventually it was going up and we lost them, after that we did not push too hard and arrived in the afternoon at a nice camping on the lakeside
Another fun story happened on this stage. Anouk’s first word was “Hi” and since she is very outgoing she often greets people by saying Hi. Now we were in an Italian spaking region for some days and and instead of Hi she picked upthat people now said Ciao and she picked it. Of course being on the road we were quite an attraction for other bikes and were often friendly greeted and so now the other bikers were even more astonished when they heard a loud “Ciao” coming out of our trailer.
