Originally Posted by Zinger

^^^^^^

Wow Billy Donn !

Gavia Pass is just an amazingly beautiful pristine place. Just a great set of photos and I'll hafta come back and see the rest. Thanks for posting.

Originally Posted by jppe

Don-I saw my hotel room in slide 14 in your Venice pics. We were in the Hotel Principe....hotel before Continental walking from the train station. We were on the second floor corner room next to the Continental.

Funny......we had prearranged transportation throughout the trip. Our travel agent arranged a water taxi from the Train Station to our hotel in Venice. Our hotel was like 3 buildings down from where we got on the water taxi........took longer to load and unload luggage on the water taxi than just walk down 3 doors to the hotel. It was really nice having a private taxi back to the airport as the taxi's were on strike.

Originally Posted by billydonn

Thank you Zinger. The Hampsten tours are pretty expensive, and from what I gather, not for the "non-expert" rider.



Hi Joe,
Hotel on the Grand Canal eh? That's pretty high zoot I think. On slide 28 there's a pic of the little alley off of Campo Manon where our hotel was located. It was really nice, very intimate, and the breakfast buffet was excellent. People will see a lot of food pics in most of these slides.

Originally Posted by billydonn

Thank you Zinger. The Hampsten tours are pretty expensive, and from what I gather, not for the "non-expert" rider.

Originally Posted by jppe

Great two weeks of vacation doing the typical tourist stuff in Central to Northern Italy. I did not take a bike nor did I ride. In fact I have not been on a bike for over two weeks. Hope to go back with a group just to do some riding at some point.

We visited Rome, Florence, Siena, Chuisi, Montepulciano, Pienza, Pisa, Livorno, Milan, Como, Bellagio and Venice. I took about 1600 pictures but currently don't have a website I can throw them out on, currently I'm at a maximum for my free website. Any suggestions for free or cheap sites???

From what I observed.......very few if any bikes in the area of Rome we were in (Don-we were all around Borghese Park but times just didn't allow for it). Bikes were the mode of choice in Florence. In fact it was easy to get run over by a cyclist in Florence there were so many.....I saw several groups of roadies south of Florence on some great rural curvy roads. There were some terrific roads where I'd love to ride around Siena. Lots of curvy hilly roads. There was one road from the west coast (Livorno/Cecina area) to Siena that went through Volterra that would have been terrific.

Another place I saw a group of roadies was north of Milan around Como. I'd love to do the road around Lake Como........but it is very narrow and curvy but worth doing on a bike. Part of it goes from Como to Bellagio and is about 50 km. Bellagio might just be one of the most scenic spots I've ever been. It is on a point on Lake Como and has the Dolomites across the lake with many of the peaks covered in snow.

If the tower wasn't leaning in Pisa I'm not sure that area would survive. Not a really small town but just didn't seem to have anything going for it other than the tourist attraction. However the Basicila and Battiste there next to the tower were beautiful and were a pleasant surprise.

I wish we hadn't spent much time in Milan......felt more like NYC than Italy. But since it was the fashion capital of the world we were able to pick up some things for my daughter in the fashion industry. The mode of transportation of choice in Milan is scooters with "super chargers"...........I had the privilege of driving a car in and around Milan for a few days and scooters broke every safe driving rule in the book. You really had to be careful not to run over someone on a scooter as they darted around you between lanes and came from every direction. Also, it didn't help that all the traffic signs were in Italian.......and there weren't any street signs except on the sides of the buildings on the street corners. Needed binoculars........

Venice was a welcome sight after Milan.....what a unique place. all the transportation there was either on foot or by something on the water. The water taxis were on strike while we were there. We were welcomed to Venice by a full moon.

The biggest disappointment was not getting a case of wine on the plane with us back to the States. We had bought a special box for shipping wine while there and picked up bottles in the various towns we visited. Inexpensive but some great wines. It was very well packed and taped. When we got to the airport the airlines agent said it was "cargo" and wouldn't let us check it as a second bag..........the folks were with got a different agent and they let them check theirs.........go figure.

With the current exchange rate it was not a cheap trip. I took what I thought was enough Euros and had to get more US currency converted in the first week. However the wine was inexpensive. We'd go into a super market and but some really, really good wine for 3-4 Euros. Loved the food as well. Their pastas and sauces are super fresh and seem lighter than what we typically experience in the US. Our worst meal was mid ways of our trip. We were driving from Siena to Milan on their auto strada. We stopped at a Mega sized rest area that had a Burger King in it. Got a cheeseburger and fries.....amazing we in US eat that stuff and live to tell about it!!!

I did pick up a few pounds but gratefully not a many as I feared. We did tons of walking so hopefully that helped. My body is still on Italian time trying to get back readjusted to the 6 hours time difference. The older I get the longer it seems to take to get things back to normal.......

Looking forward to getting back on the bike.......hopefully I can remember how to ride 20-30 miles and build up to the longer rides.

Originally Posted by Gyro_T

I am going with five people this June. Did you get a feel for whether buses were a viable form of transportation, e.g. to get from a the Florence train station to Siena with bikes? I'm thinking of renting a utility van to tell the truth.