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We had a couple more pleasant days with my cousin and her husband in their house in the country. The address is just a number and the village name as there is only one street. Ian surprised them both by insisting on a DIY fix of various hard labour in hot sunshine, so he earned our keep.

We got rather distracted by Italy due to warm weather, no rain and the promise of more free accomodation further South. From Genoa we head down the coast to the Cinqueterre region, a national park with picturesque coastal villages. The terrain is fairly hilly and the temperature rises as we get further South. In fact on one day after I have collapsed due to the heat I say to Ian ‘I almost miss the weather we had in Switzerland.’ The next day we woke to torrential rain. The campsite was flooding due to poor drainage and our tent and porch was in a puddle. Ants were using our luggage as island refuges. As we climb further along the coastline there is a sign saying the road is closed -which of course we ignore. We have to get off the bike eventually and push it over a small rocky landslide across the road. I promise Ian to be more specific with my weather requests in future.

After Cinqueterre the coast flattens out and degenerates to a downmarket Blackpool experience with miles of restaurants and campsites that are very empty. It must be standing room only in Summer. We get to Lucca where David & Kirsti (from Lucerne) are holidaying. I still can not really believe this but as we get off the bike at the Tourist Information to find out where their road is David & Kirsti are less than 5m away !! They let us stay for another rest. We do a train day trip to Pisa. Pisa is a one attraction town only, even though Ian trys to press Tourist Info for more to see. Ian goes up the tower but I can’t bring myself to pay €15 for the experience. There are loads of people staging the famous ‘holding up the tower’ photo shot. We try to be original with a picture of me pushing the tower down. Lucca is a much more interesting walled town with hundreds of churches – much more worth a visit in our view.

In Florence we climb the dome of the cathedral which is very impressive. Inside are paintings of heaven & hell and you climb to the top inside the double skinned dome. We are disappointed by the Ponte Vecchio which is just a bridge with tatty buildings even by Italian standards. Florence is packed as is the city centre campsite which has many young backpackers. I feel a little old.

From Florence we find more Alps before we get to the East coast. In Ravenna we enjoy mosaics and Roman remains. Its fairly flat before we get to Venice and then we island hop to get to the East side of the lagoon. The first ferry is a foot ferry which then takes a bus load of passengers to the other end of the island for the next ferry hop. We disembark and pedal off 5 miles as fast as we can. Providing the bus does not overtake us we know we will get the next ferry OK. As we get to the port the bus goes past and straight onto the car ferry. As we shoot on after the bus the door is lifted and we are off. Made it in the nick of time. Venice is also packed and some of the canals are overflowing onto the pavements. We do the sights but there are too many people and pigeons. The next day we enjoy riding the vaporettos (water buses) and visiting the smaller Venecian islands.

East of Venice is perfect non cyclists country – miles of flat. Unfortunately thats 3 day of riding into headwinds through dull countryside. We meet a Swiss cycle camper on his first long tour of 2 years !

At last we make it to Slovenia and vist the Škocjan caves. We walk for 3km with an English speaking guide, a welcome novelty. The caves are huge and much better than the Belgian ones. At Predjama there is a castle built into the rocks which is very interesting then we aim for Ljubljana over the mountains. The road disintegrates into a track and then to gravel. We are stopped by car drivers who only speak Slovene & Italian so they flag down 2 tractors and I have a conversation in German – of sorts. We are on the wrong road heading to nowhere and must go back to town and turn right. This we do and end up in a rather startled ladies driveway. We smile and backtrack taking the more conventional route to Ljubljana around the mountains.

We have had a rest today in Ljubljana (nice castle and old town) before heading north to more scenery. It looks like we will not get to Romania due to lack of time left but we still hope to see a bit of Croatia and fly back from Hungary. Until next time ……………