Cinque Terre recovering from floods and a wet ride to Lucca

The 5-Terre region of Liguria is comprised of 5 picturesque seaside villages. Each with it's own character and traditionally linked by age old trails through steeply terraced fields of olives and grapes. Huge floods in the fall of 2010 decimated large portions of several of the villages. We stayed in Vernazza, which was heavily flooded when the main creek jumped its banks causing a wall of water to come crashing straight through town, burying most of the businesses in 10+ feet of mud and rock. We were amazed to learn this because we arrived to a beautiful town, shops and cafes doing brisk business, and a general feeling of vibrancy.

For sure the recovery continues as was evidenced from ongoing work to re-open.the seaside trails and rebuild outdoor decks at trattorias, but we felt fortunate to be able to enjoy a few days exploring the villages (we were able to hike a few sections of trail, and take the local trains to visit each village - they are really all very close to one another). We were mesmerized by the awesome seaside topography and the beautiful villages which struck us as organic outgrowths on the hillsides and rocky shoreline. Amazing to realize just how long folks have been living here!

After a few days we opted to test the forecast and ride up out of Vernazza and along the ridges over to La Spezia. The road was pretty rough, and our gears ( or legs?) were almost not enough to climb up and out from Cinque Terre. The rains slowly strengthened until our final descent found us soaked to the bone, and pretty chilly to boot. We made our way straight to the train station and tried to dry off and change into dry clothes. We opted to train in dry comfort for the second half of the day to Lucca. We arrived and made our way into the walled city looking for yet another indoor accommodation (we had anticipated splitting our time between camping and hosteling, but so far the rain has pushed us indoors most nights). We are looking forward to dryer weather and more saddle time, until then we will enjoy being tourists in Tuscany.

Genoa to Cinqua Terre

Our ride from Genoa to Sestri Lavante was amazing as it was sunny and beautiful. We were both relieved to actually be riding and reminded how much we enjoy bicycle touring adventures. The traffic getting out of Genoa was not so bad but definitely not for the weak at heart. It was along the Mediterranean with fantastic views and amazing Italian landscape, up and down the coast. We arrived in Sestri levante just in time to find camping and get some dinner.
We awoke to rain the next day so waited it out before our 20 km climb and then decent to Vernazza! Oh my, I thought I had died and gone to heaven! I mean the coffee alone, mamma mia! and Cinque Terre is amazing! The coastal trail is closed due to a huge flood in October of 2011. The town of Vernazza, where we stayed was wiped out on the street floor where all the businesses are located. They are up and running again and depending on a good tourist season ahead, I'm sure. We were able to hike some of the coast trail and it is really beautiful, maybe by next year they will re-open the full coastal trail. Fortunately the train system here is great and you can easily ride up and down the coast to check out the other 5 villages, which we did. Vernazza was our favorite, but they all have their own special charm.
We are very anxious to ride, our legs are ready, but the weather says otherwise. Today we will ride out of Cinqua Terre and go as far as we can but it is supposed to rain later and significantly over the next few days. Thank goodness for the easy train system.

Not exactly tropical along the Golfo Paradiso, but winds were calm, the sun was shining, and the views along the coast were great.

Darryl is trying out a frame bag instead of a front handelbar bag to carry tools, pump, tent poles, and other easy access necessities, so far so good, and while we are both a little out of balance only using rear panniers ( instead of using front and rear panniers) our overall lighter loads seem to minimize the performance penalty of not being perfectly balanced.  So far I mostly notice it when wheeling the bikes through train stations, or when needing to make tighter, slow motion maneuvers.

Oversleeping in the rain...

After 3-days in Milan we were ready to move on and strike out on our own. Having Antonio and his apartment to land at was terrific, but after so much preparation and logistics, not to mention travel we were ready to get on with our adventure. Despite this we almost missed our train to Genoa. Both Susan and I struggled more than anticipated adjusting to jet lag and time differences, not to mention that I was only slowly getting over a cold I brought with me on our trip. So, ear plugs, and unintentional use of the total black-out shades in the room we were staying in led us to oversleep, awaking to steady rain several hours later than planned and totally out of it.

We almost opted to hang in Milan another day, but in the end scrambled to get ourselves and gear out the door. Antonio insisted on escorting us through multiple Metro transfers all the way to the train platform, which although we tried to tell him was unnecessary, was in the end appreciated as we were both pretty groggy and the whole morning had a dream-like quality. We said goodbye, the train pulled out into the rain, and I promptly past out as we sped by Milan's sprawling sub-burbs.

Genoa, still raining, we sought out a hotel and despite the weather were feeling pretty glad we were on our way. Spent the rest of the afternoons exploring Genoa (birthplace of Cristofo Columbus and Pesto) and enjoyed wandering the narrow cobblestone walkways, ancient architecture, and the bustling vibe.

In our rush to leave Milan we left our Euro-plug adapter and took about a pound more tools than we planned on - after extensive searching we found another functional (but chunky) adapter, and the tools will hopefully just be ballast (if we didn't need them to pack the bikes back up for their return I would have been tempted to unload them. So much for all our gram counting and repacking before departure.

Getting ourselves and our stuff overseas

To start off I apologize for saying We would show you our bikes in the last post. In the final shuffle to get ready the bike packing pictures were never uploaded, and now they are left behind. I will include a few pictures of the bikes being unpacked and reassembled in this post so as to illustrate how we go about getting ourselves and our stuff to our destination.  You can also see a few pictures from some of the sight seeing we did in Milan.  As you can see it was cool-ish when we arrived, low to mid 50's with mostly overcast skys.  Forecast is for rain too, so I guess we will just have to see what we find.

Tomorrow we hop a train for Genoa where we hope to begin riding.  Getting ourselves and our bikes through the Metro and train stations should be entertaining.  Our next post will no doubt show us off on our own figuring things out as we go.


Departing Colorado Springs Airport. That's everything we'll have for or 10-week trip. The cases will stay in Milan at Antonio's apartment. We opted to check a third bag to lighten our carry-on load (since we we each were allotted one checked bag we only had to pay for a single checked bag. Often we carry-on whatever we can't stuff into the boxes (which we maxed at at 49.5 and 50lbs respectively, the blue duffle bag weighed mayb 30 lbs, mostly light and bulky stuff including our rear racks), for Susan this was a lightweight duffle and one of her panniers packed as a day bag, Darryl ended up with a single lightweight backpack for a carry-on.

Unpacking and assembling the bikes is a bit easier than jig-sawing them into the travel cases.  Takes about and hour per bike to get them put back together, and then some adjustments and fine tuning.  We were appreciative of the basement storage and work space that Antonio had for us to use.  Last time we built the bikes for a trip we were in a hotal room.

A test ride around Milan's Parque Nord, a massive park that lies right next to Anotnio's apartment.

Milan's Duomo Cathedral - 2nd largest in Italy after the Basilica in Rome.  It is truly cavernous on the inside!

Cool to see bike sharing is alive and well in Milan.  These bikes are shaft driven (no chain).

Antonio cooked amazing food for us, here he is making mushroom risotto.

Susan has been very excited about the coffee (I think this is # 4 or 5 for the day).

Bike Touring Logistics

We have been taking bicycle touring vacations for many years, but up until now our longest trip was just a bit over two weeks.  Although we have both toured overseas before, it's been decades, and for the past 5-years we have been taking shorter "Credit Card" tours (eschewing heavy camping gear for the convenience of staying in B & B's or hotels).  For us this 10-week tour represents a return to self supported, extended bicycle touring, but with a twist.  We love riding bikes, and don't mind hauling gear, but we believe there is a sweet spot between minimalism and decadence.  This tour is our effort to explore and find that sweet spot.  We will be riding with rear panniers only.  Susan also has a rear rack and small handlebar bag and Darryl will have a partial frame bag and small dry bag on the rear rack.  It remains to be seen how well this experiment will work, but we will try to comment on it as we go.

This post will highlight our preparations, specifically it will show you what we our bringing, our bikes, and how we pack them up for travel.

Preparing for the trip involved hours and hours of pouring through guide books (we used the Lonely Planet Bicycle Touring in Italy guidebook extensively, as well as Lonely Planet and Let's Go Italy Guides, and Steve Rome and Croatia and Slovenia guides as well as reading lot's of blogs from other cyclists.  We particularly liked the posts from a couple who blog at  Going Slowly, and also read Cycles Seven account of a 2003 tour in Sardinia, as well as general reverences with Traveling Two website and other online resources.  Chances are wherever you are going you will be able to glean some valuable information online.  Of course we also spent a lot of time just gazing at the map and dreaming.

Susan did the lions share of the early route planning, although later on she had had her fill and just wanted to get on with it.

What Darryl will carry (~38 pounds w/o water or Food):

If you are curious about any of our gear choices, or just what something in the photos are just add a question in comments below, or email.  Clothing, Tools and Repair, and Electronics are detailed in below pictures.

Clothing - we just learned it snowed in Milan two days ago, we're hoping that we will bring spring and warmer temperatures as we will be stretched if we have to ride in cooler temps and/ or ride in the rain when its cold out.  We can always hole-up indoors.

Hopefully I have the bikes running really well and we can avid regular maintenance issues.  Major mechanical issues will require a trip to a bike shop.  We are still deciding if we will carry an extra tire, or will reley on careful riding and tire boots should we tear a sidewall.  The top right zip-lock has spare bolts, chain sections, quick links, lighter, patch kits, etc.

That's an iPad mini in the case under the headphones, we will use an Apple lightening to SD card reader to transfer photos to iPad and then upload to Picasa most likely.

Susan and I are sharing some items like toothpaste, deodorant, lotion, etc,  so see her pictures below for a full take on our toiletries.

 Susan will Carry the following (~26 lbs w/o food or water))

Notice tub of Acli-mate natural sports drink in the center of the tarp.  This product was formulated by our good friend Roanne Rouse, a naturopath who practices in Gunnison Colorado.We have been using Acli-Mate products for a few years now and they are awesome for aiding in acclimatization when heading up to altitude (or flying) as well as electrolyte replacement and recovery.