Recap of my Bike Trip in Italy

I never got around to telling about my Italy experience, so here goes...

First, you can see all my pictures (and a few videos) from Italy here: http://web.mac.com/davidhphillips/Site/Bike_Tour,_Italy/Bike_Tour,_Italy.html

I basically planned my entire Europe trip around this bike tour. A company called Blue Marble organizes guided bike tours all over Europe, and I chose the "Italian Lakes" tour (Provence was a close second). I liked the bike trip idea because it was different; hearing myself say "yeah, I just finished a week of riding along lakes Maggiore, Lugano, and Como" sounded appealing to me. So, I ponied up the money and went for it.

On June 13, I took a train from Granada to Madrid (4 hours), metro to the Madrid airport (45 minutes), plane flight from Madrid to Geneva, Switzerland (2 hours), and another train from Geneva to Brig, Switzerland (~3 hours). The train from Geneva to Brig was an experience... coasting down the shoreline of Lake Geneva with the mountains in the background, eventually carving our way through the mountains around sunset. I was definitely feeling the "independent Euro traveler vibes." I got into Brig just before the restaurants close (at 11:00 in Switzerland, unlike the 2:00 closing time in Spain). The hotel was nice (no hostels in Brig), and I was very glad to sleep in a clean single room after 3 weeks of being in a hostel. I watched Swiss German TV for an hour and then conked out.

Observation: On my trip, I was fascinated by cultural differences. I never got tired of asking "what do [Germans] think of [this]"? I spoke with Germans about WWII's legacy, learned that many Australians have a great sense of gratitude toward the US for coming to their rescue in WWII, discussed why Australians travel in great numbers, how the French and Spanish have a definitively relaxed pace of life (contrast to Americans and British), and so on. Stereotypes and generalizations don't hold true all the time, but when they do it's 1) hillarious and 2) hillarious. For example, there were more than a few Italian news anchors that wore skinny jeans on air. How funny is that? I digress...

The following afternoon at the Brig train station I met up with my traveling companions for the next week: Mike (a political journalist from Australia), Doug and Jen (a couple from Colorado), Barry (a friend of Doug’s from Colorado), me, and Catherine, our wonderful tour guide from NYC (but who lives in Bologna, Italy these days). Without a doubt, getting to know these people was the highlight of the bike trip.

I won't give a play-by-play account of what we did, but here are some highlights:

Here's our itinerary: http://bluemarble.org/RteItLakes.html
Day 1: Through the Simplon Pass from Brig to Domodossola
Day 2: Through the Ossola Valley to Pallanza on Lago Maggiore
Day 3: Rides around Pallanza, stayed at the (very nice) hotel a second day.








Day 4: Took a ferry across the lake to Laveno. Had lunch near the weekly market in a small town, took a swim in the lake, crossed to Switzerland for a bit, took a train to Lugano for the night.
Day 5: Amazing cycling along Lago Lugano. The last few km were rough before getting into Como.














Day 6: No biking today. Took the ferry to Bellagio for the afternoon, then the slow ferry back in late-afternoon.
Day 7: Dropped off our bikes and said goodbye at the train station. I stayed another night in Como with Barry, Jen, and Doug. Barry and I woke up early to take a train to Milan, from where we went back to the States.

- The first half-day was almost all downhill through the Simplon Pass. We pedaled along a river that traces through mountain ravines, and descended onto a large, flat valley across the Italian border.
- The first night in Italy, the town was having some sort of festival. I witnessed one of the funniest things of the trip: Ty, an American who works for the Blue Marble company, was likely the only black man in the entire town, or so we thought. Then an older couple in full African dress walked by Ty, at which point they gave each other the silent "recognition head nod of acknowledgment." Of course we all stared at Ty and asked slyly "dude, what was that about," to which he replied sarcastically, "Hey, we made it!" We all laughed.
- Far fewer people than expected in Italy (at least the areas where we traveled) spoke English. I had assumed that Spanish and English would get me around, but I felt severely handicapped by not knowing Italian. Cate, our tour guide, was fluent in Italian.
- You might be wondering - how did they carry all their gear? We each had panniers (bags on the bike) to carry our stuff from town to town (on average, panniers w/ gear weighed 25 kilos or so. Every 3 days we'd have access to the rest of our luggage. So, we only had to carry 2 days of extra clothes/gear on the bike.
- The routes weren't too challenging, but we definitely got a workout. It was neither all flat nor all hilly. I got stronger as the trip went on, which was encouraging.
- We'd usually start around 10:00 in the morning, ride for a few hours, have lunch, then ride again until 5 in the afternoon (give or take).
- The scenery is exactly like I pictured it: countryside with old villas and small towns surrounded by mountains, large lakes with beautiful (and expensive) villas on the perimeter.
- I ate very, very well on this trip. We had gourmet food every night. A lot of it.
- While in Pallanza, the US soccer team was playing Italy (in South Africa). I thought it would be a huge deal in Pallanza and that the Italy fans would be at bars getting rowdy. I was mistaken. I, an American, was obviously the one person who cared most about the game. I walked to a couple bars, none of which were showing the game. Realizing the game was about to start and that I was far away from the only place I knew was showing the game, I took off my sandals and ran about 2-3k on the street/sidewalk back to this particular restaurant. All for a 3-1 loss.

Well, those are the highlights. Again, the best part about the trip was our group - everyone got along very well. Here's some random photos. To view them all, go here: