ITALY – ˝Cant Take My Highs Out Of You˝

WE ONLY WENT AND BLOODY DID IT DIDNT WE. Unbeilevable, we have just cycled into the town where Outlook Festival is. Still hasn’t really sunk in just yet but after EVERYTHING thats happened and almost 2 years in the making; WE CYCLED TO CROATIA.

 

I will let the boys do the day to day summeries of our time in Italy but i thought i would do a brief blog about our last few days. Italy was always going to be the difficult part of the trip. All the way through France we had destinations and rest areas to aim for, for example we had Raye for renovation, Paris to pick up Si, Jean Pierre in Besancon and of course our rest day in Cham. We also knew a fair bit about France and the roads were brilliant to cycle.

 

However Italy was completely alien. We knew no Italian, we didnt know much about their culture and we didnt really have any places to aim for but Croatia. The cycling in my opinion was horrible. Endless straight boring built up roads. They certainly didnt build their roads for bikes and due to this cycling became more of a chore than a buzz, which it was when cycling through parts of France. The main roads either had cornfields or industrial estates either side too which made it mindnumbingly boring at times but also very difficult to spot a good stealth camp site. One night of cycling around industrial estates like the Argos one in Bridgwater at 11 at night was definitly a bleak moment. However the endless straightness meant you could travel far in a day. And thats what we did for 10 days. Woke up, cylcled on the flat for 50k, had lunch, cycled on the flat for 50k, had a banana, cycled on the flat for 50k, found a campspot and went to bed. This was how the cyclingwas fore me anyway. If anyone wants to cycle in Italy i definitly wouldnt reccomend it, unless you have the time to take some of the nicer rural roads.

 

Thats the cycling out the way, now on to the experiences and more feelings. We viseted some beautifull places and were once again  greeted by some amzing generosity. The two lakes above Milan were the saving graqce for the Italian leg. Amazing views and a chance to cool down in the 37 degree heat. I think without them it would of been really tough. Moral was good too because we were covering a lot of distance, and once we bought a map which incorporated Pula on it it made the whole trip do-able. We began to ‘believe’. Also we had some hilarious and quite surreal nights. The night of Si’s crash we treated ourselves to a campsite, and were rewarded with a pool party full of Geramns with no regard for health and safety and an Italian DJ/Singer who treated the crowd to such delights as ‘Cant Take My Eyes Off Of You’ but of course sung like the title of this blog.

 

Anyway i havent got long so to sum Italy in a few words. Terrible cycling. Horrible Roads. Difficult Camping. Lovely Lakes. Funny Campsites. Cheap Wine. Good Food. And loads and loads of Lidl’s (our unofficial sponsor).

Not to be done again but an experience for sure.

 

I have 1 minute left so can hopefully write more tommorow.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Arthur

Last Days in Italy – Slovenia & CROATIA!

So…getting pretty bored of cycling on the Italian roads with their countless massive trucks and general bad attitude towards cyclists we knuckled down and powered along seemingly the same never ending road not changing gear for about 3 days. The only rest bite being finding an idyllic camping spot next to a river thanks to some teenagers on their 4 month long school holiday!

Had a dip in the fast flowing river and made our first camp fire (mainly to deter the HUGE tiger mosquitoes that were feasting on our oxygen rich blood).

Finally making it out of Italy and entering Slovenia we were immensely pleased to find extensive cycle routes, cutting through hillsides and along the stunning coastline. We pitched up in a lovely site on the stunning coast, had our first swim in the sea and prepared for our last two days on the bikes.

Having come so far and feeling like we were so close to reaching our final destination the mood in the camp was high, little did we know what we facing us across the Slovenia/Croatia boarder…

Entering our fifth and final country and with two relatively easy days cycle ahead of us we were probably a bit over confident in thinking that the ride would be an easy one and having been treated so well by the Slovenian cycle paths the rocky mountainous roads of Croatia came as quite a shock and the going was pretty slow. This being said we reached our target cracking out another 90km and making it to a very nice and very cheap campsite just 40km from Pula and Outlook.

The next morning, having been put back in our place by the Croatian terrain we started early and hit the road for the last time and we made it to Pula before 12 giving us plenty of time to rejoice in our achievement and fill up on local beer.

So the cycling is done! 1650 km covered across five countries! Feeling pretty wiped out but very ready to get in some well earned R&R and  prepare for destroying our bodies in a very different way…

Thanks for reading

Si

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!

After much debate we have decided not to bore you, our thousands of readers, of the trivialities of our day by day, here to here, this far etc so I am going to attempt to summarize the final few days of our trip, in as entertaining a way as possible. and as we would expect most people are only really in it for the photos, much like ourselves. so will try and get a few more of them up aswell.

So, Italy went on, pretty much in the same way as it had been, stifling heat, and the pretty much unchanging landscape of maize and grapes.

We all got pretty fed up with this, The heat, the terrible road conditions, Italian drivers leaving very little space, Lorries thundering past. our main preoccupation was to get out of this shit country as fast as possible. (Sorry Italy and Italians, im sure its a great country to visit in a car and in the mountains or by the sea, but that horrible flat strip that separates north and south, really is not for me. Even though the Women are incredible.)

There were some positive elements to our experience, which we should not be overshadowed by the apauling cycling conditions.

The day we were shown to a secluded river-side camp spot and had a great little fire, swam in the refreshing cold water before breakfast, was something I will remember for years to come.

Also a the words of  a very friendly Italian chap we met outside the biggest SPAR shop I have ever seen, “Its good, you are exploring europe and making the most of your freedom”… he said it was his belief that … ” People are the biggest monument in the world, especially the women!”

Camping in an abandoned football pitch , washing in the still functioning showers, sitting on a chair at a table, to eat our uslal potato and sausage based meal.

Arriving in Slovenia was a great experience, fluent english speakers, Incredible cycle routes, and tranqil seaside campsites. the first beer went down extremely well, after the day battling with trafic and the last of the shit Italian roads in Trieste.

Some Slovenians singing “Jingle bells” at 3am as they passed our tent having attended  the very popular disco/kareoke/traditional slovenian thing… we slept.

Today, Our Final Day of our epic journey, We ride the short ride 50km from Funtana to just outside Pula, Although it feels amazing to hve completed such an amazing feat, crossing at least two mountain ranges, climbing 1000m plus and covering over 1000 miles! the main feeling is one of relief, relief that we havbe made it, alive, and the second, one of excitement, for the impending week of partying at the biggest and best Bass music festival in europe, OUTLOOK FESTIVAL!

 

Si has a bit more internet time left so will put more photos up shortly…

Day 21 – The Ballad of Si’s Bowels – Lake Garda – She fell of her horse!

So the past few days have been pretty bleek for me. After a lovely time in Chamonix my intestines decided to treat me to a hefty bout of horendous bowel movements (trying to put it as decently as possible). After a lift throught the Monut Blanc tunnel the boys searched around and trying to explain my situation in Italian Phamacies, found me some ‘anti-spasmic’ and imodiom pills to get me through the next few days. They helped a lot but the next couple of days, for me at least, were for the most part dominated by periods of intence concentration and tencing…any change of position was something like the silent fear after kicking an active bomb. Not too fun at all, but the miles needed to be covered and feeling weak I struggled on and the boy’s patients held out.

After a few days of this I was feeling pretty run down, my moral was at it’s lowest point thus far and the feeling that I was holding back our progress was getting to me, a lot. So after the first good night’s sleep in 3 nights I was ready to make up for lost time. Bowels almost back to normal we set off for the beautiful Lake Garda, we were making excellant progress and were and 2 minutes from the turning to the lake when a way-ward swerve took me close to the edge of the high ridged road. After trying to recompensate and failing my rear wheel slid off the road and down the bank, off the road. This put my bike sideways a projected me forward, towards the hot tarmac. In a miraculous stroke of luck and in mid-air, I managed to simultaniously unclip my cleats and put my arms out, saving myself from possible a broken ankle and face and rolled along the road sustaning only very light grazes to my back. Arthur, being close behind me went straight over my front wheel buckelling it beyond repair but managed to save himself from a similar fate, Bunce stopped in time as did the following traffic and after a few minutes sitting on the side of the road I began accessing the damage which was the afore mentioned front wheel, my pride, a bit of moral and our target of a big days cycle.

We wheeled our bikes round to the lake and had lunch and replanned our day. Arthur discovered that there was a bike repair shop just a kilometer up the road and a bar with niternet just down the road in the opposite direction so here we sit catching up on the blog, drinking, eating and preparing for a night in a lovely, moderately priced (for the area) campsite.  

So all in all a fairly unsuccessful day but my front wheel has been replaced, for a very reasonable 20 euros and we are looking forward to a big dinner and good nights sleep in a beautiful part of the world, Arthur is also suffering from the sniffles so a night in a good campsite is just what the doctor ordered. Spirits are high and the trials and tribulations continue!

Thanks for reading and I do hope you realise I obviously intentionally crashed just to give you, our avid readers a bit of drama..!

 

Si 

 

Day 20 Fake Genever, Aperol, Graff.

After the worst nights sleep ever, a few packaged croissants, and some super strong esspresso, I was hyped for the days cycle. Smashed 30 miles out before lunch at Sarnieo where we swam, seista’d and brewed yet more coffee, this has become an integral part of the trip. We named this lake Fake Genever as it had a fountain lik ethe one in Genever, but it was actually much nicer, with mountains and shade, so I endulged in an aperol spritz, which unsurpruisingly, the italians do very well. We also managed to get iced water for out bottles, which was a first, this made us very happy.

The Town of bergamo we passed through in the morning was another shithole town, but as such had given rise to a seemingly thriving Street art scene, This made a change to the usual desolte deprived industrial area. we even managed to find loads of stickers to put on our bikes.

The long siesta, (due to the heat) and our lack of a decent route/end point for the day, led us in to some really crap camping territory. We decided agains cycling in the dark down a dual carigeway with a high speed limit, and found ourselves routing around an industrial estate trying to find a suitable patch of ground to sleep on.

Our attempts at persuading a local farmers wife to let us camp were useless, a combination of our pretty much non existant italian language skills, the time of day, and the fact it all looked a bit dodgy. Anyway, we soon found a field of maize which gave us good cover to camp on the strip of grass next to it, Although we cleard off early as there were two houses about 100m away in the unexplored direction and arthur was scared we might get mauled to death by huge dogs and shot at by farmers. Anyway good way to get him out of bed.

William John Bunce.

Day 19 Coffe and Potatoes.

We woke up in shitty moods, It was really hot, we had all been bitten loads by moscuitos, and we pretty dehydrated. Morale was not at its highest. We found a supermarket, bought coffe and cups for my espresso mashine, food and headed to the lake in Siesto Calebote, for breakfast and to cheer up, under the direction of a fireman.

Strong Coffe, bannanas and lakeside view worked a treat, and we smashed it to varese, about 30 miles. more coffe, and bannanas. I was really hyped up and wanted to push it and go faster, and further. It was frustrating as Si was still recovering from his dehydration and sickness, and struggling with the heat. But we comprimised on a lunch stop and I remembered Arthur and I had a head start with regard to getting our groove on. temwork skills.

That nights meal was the best yet, spuds, lardons, milk, onions, spinach, cous cous, epic. Spirits up, conversation improved. However the temperature was at an all time high and we were literally sweating buckets, hiding from the mosquitos and other weird bugs trying to burrow through our tents to suck our blood.

 

 

William John Bunce.

Day 18. Ten Km of uphill climbing, perfect morning work out…. hmm,

 Having photographed Gilio with his two dogs riding his Moto Guzzi,  And family portraits shot, we set off up a delightfull vertical climb, which had us pouring with sweat before 10am. Since being Italy its as if a triny raincloud has being following us everywhere and raining just on us. it literally looks like i just stepped out of the shower most days. At the top of the hill, Arthur snapped this Hero, who is most definatly the most stylish fellow cyclist we have encountered. most people sporting the full tour de france kit, us being the only topless until about a day ago when we saw someone wering just shorts.

Anyway, another favoriter Motto, What goes up, must come down, was the order of the day and we got well stuck in to our hairpins on the way down to Biella, A shitty Italian version of Bridgwater, with less charm,  where we had lunch.

Morale was low and the temperature very high. We got the hell out of there as fast as possible, only to find bikes were not allowed onour planned route. Another Low point. We soldiered on, and found that actually the road we wwere on was the right one and everything was ok. Ups and Downs… We made it tto Arona where we ate pizzas and drank bira morretti, which we had to wait ages for in ‘Speedy Gonzales’ pizza oven… Fairly deflated but the unrelenting heat we found a campsite and haggled the prioce down to 9 euros each. painfull but the only real option.

William John Bunce.

Day 17 ITAL!-y

Following a highly unproductive first day in Italy, We awoke once again to some awesome mountain scenery, It took the usual 45 minutes to rouse Arthur, but we were soon in the next town to buy food and have a decent cappuchino. Somehow we managed to find our way in the direction of Turino, still mostly down hill. Sis stonach bug seemed under control and we made resonable progress, my legs aching massively from our epic Somerset Representation at the Chamonix Ultimate frisbe games… The strong wind was annoying as it was in the wrong direction for us, However it gave a bit of relief for from the 35-40 degree heat. still awesome mountain scenery. We ended up in a small town Called Settimo vettone, having beein terrorised on the busy road but crazy dardevil superbike riders breaking the sound barrier as they passed us. lots of biker memorials on this road, I understand why. Idiots.

In an attempt to find ‘Camping nosy’ we started cycling up some ridiculously steep roads, worse than the ones on the road to Cham. Si almost passed out, Arthur was close to tears, Id had enough. Arthur got out the usual ‘help im lost, sweaty as Beisconi in a strip club,  English, and can I camp on your lawn please ?’ routeen which worked flawlessly yet again.

Our kind hosts for the evening, Gilio & sandra, and their two wild kids  brought us water, an ice cold beer, folled by venezian prosecco, and a huge bottle of the local red, which we didnt even come close to finishing, being totally nackered from the days cycle. Gilio was a photographer as it turnrd out, and proudly showed usa his hand printed B&w prints of local people, processing chestnuts, wine, etc, reminded me of Cristina Garcia Rodero. he was really proud of his rolliflex and leitz enlarger. I was very impressed.

 

no Photos today as the internet is crap.

William John Bunce.

Day 15 – Chamonix Rest Day – Well Kind Of

So were still alive. We are actually half way across Italy writing this but were going to try and catch you up on some of our goings ons. Safe to say the day after the night before in Chamwasn’t going to be our most productive. Much time was spent lying around Iris and Joes house drinking coffee, blogging and looking at the big mountain views. Big ups to Joes website Just Keyrings as well (Check it here).

Right, so after a lazy morning, Iris and Flo got us in to gear and drove us half way up a mountain in search of lake to swim in. It was stupidly cold but amazing at the same time. I jumped off the rock but was nominated bag holder so couldnt do the slide, a rock face you had to slide down trough a waterfall, extreme. Pretty much exactly what we needed after the night before and a perfect way to get focussed for Ultimate Frisbee, the next part of our “rest day”.

So yea we drove from the frezzing extrme river straight to the Ultimate Field. We limbred up and were fully prepared to kick the shit out the other so called frisbee players. Me and Bunce being from Somerset means that playing frisbee is in the genes so was fairly confident. After what was close to a 3 hour game of pure running around after a frisbee that was only very occasinally caught we retitired to MBC for a a post match drink. Just to say playing Ultimate with a backdrop of Mt Blanc Glacier and the rest of the mountains is pretty incredible, and the fact that Bunce got a few ‘touchdowns’ is even better.

The post match drink obviously turned into a few post match drinks, it was Cham after all, and our rest day to boot. We skipped the civilsed meal for a Steak Fritte Fromage and a few Riccards and joined the others after. Si opted for the civilsed meal and hitched home  (the dodgy stomach blog is on its way) which in retrospect was probably quite clever. Budgets and the fact we had to get up at 6.30 the next day went way out the window and after a few more ended up in the Garage. For those who know then yea. For those who don’t then its probably better that way. Big shout outs to Beth and Jess for partying hard, and doing what tourist do best in Cham, getting wasted and ending up in the Garage.

We woke up bright and early for our lift through the Mt Blanc tunnelo to Cormayer. Massive, massive thanks to Marty for the lift, your bottle of Buckfast will be in the post soon. Again generosity of others has probably helped us throught the majority of this trip.

ITALY. We felt shit. We didnt speak Italian. We didnt have a map and Si was ill. So we found a park and slept in it for 8 hours. Makes sense really. Finally we managed to get ourselves back on the bikes after a days rest, it felt a bit odd but all we had to do was point it downhill and after half an hopur we had covered 28km. Another stealth camp by a river, another pasta pesto and our first day in Italy was complete.

To finalise, Chamonix was SO much fun. Much needed rest day and the first landmark point of our trip complete. Massive thanks to everyone again.

Thanks for reading.

Arthur.

 

Day 14 Geneve to Chamonix

The hours that followed the last blog in Geneve, which ended up costing about 30 quid collectively,  went from bad to worse. having intitially been blown away by Geneve, we began to realize Switzerland is not a country for the empoverished.

It being about 8.30 all the supermarkets were closed and we were really hungry and tired, so felt the only option was to have a chicken doner plate, which ended up costing about 5 times as much as in any other country.  stupid move, having no water left, eating a salty load of gristle, and then having to cycle out in to tgeh countryside towards chamonix, not ideal. especially in the dark.

we donned our head torches and flashy red lights, but the road was pretty sketchy, We almost stopped to camp on some gravel wasteland but it loked pretty dodgy and hobo-inhabited, realising Arthur had lost the map made matters slightly worse.. luckily we carried on along the road and found yet another hedge in between some fields. Fed up and sticky, I impaled myself on a low branch under the tree I had chosen to stealthily pitch under, now really pissed off. Crap end to an awesome day.

It Struck me yesterday that my posts have been way to positive and this really doesnt give an accurate representation of the experience as a whole. So ill try and make it a bit more balanced..

The Cycling is really enjoyable but it is really quite hard, Im carrying a shit load of weight, mostly comprising of my camera gear, but also tent, tools, clothes, sleeping bag, etc… This makes the hills a bit more difficult. and its quite disheartening seeing arthur flying past me. but i leave him in the dust on the down hills.

So, Getting to the point, Today we cycled up the alps to Chamonix, It was between 30 and 40 degrees C. So I was literally sweating out as fast as I was downing water… from where we camped to the start of the big hills was about a 30 km ride up the valley, this was pretty chilled, nice and fast and quite flat raised our spirits as it was as it seemed as if we were making good progress.

The Scenery is absolutely mindblowing, abloutley perfect, beautiful alpine landscapes, Its amazing to see the place in the summer, such a contrast to the snow cover Chamonix I had experienced before.

We took the Chamonix cycle route , which kept us away from the disgusting motorway and took us past tranquil lakes and some of the most exciting, flowing mountain passes we have ridden. Dont get me wrong it was a seriously hard sweaty uphill struggle, and i had a few mishaps, my shirt getting stuck in my wheel and breaking the mudguard, and a load of punctures in the morning.

The tiny road up to Les houches meandered through jurasic park like forests, and seemed to go on for ever, it was stunningly breautiful, but i did have to stop frequently for water and a breather. 

having to go on the motorway for a few kms after this was a bit shit, but as we rolled in to Chamonix, past climbers, and people batching in the lake, almost felt like the finish line, even though we still have more than a few hundred miles to go…

We decended on Le Pub in the middle of Cham, to meet Iris bee Hawke, Sarah johnson, Marty, Flo, et al. I promptly downed about 4 pints of the local brew, whilst catching up with the Crew. I Half dislocated my shoulder on the way back to Iris and Joe’s pad out in Les Tines, where we ate a well needed barbeque, plenty of french cider, and headed out to the Rhodedendron to reconviene with Cham hero,Editor-in-Chief of Ernest Magazine (Check it out here)  Flo playing boule.

When it finally closed we decided to break in to a swimming pool for a skinnydip, before heading to a bakery for some freshly baked olive bread…(Big ups to Flo for the inside Knowledge )

Today is officially our first proper rest day, so we have been doing exactly that, in front of the magnifique mt blanc… Boom.

William john Bunce.x