Hello all! I am sorry I did not get this written last night, but I was just too tired. I am sitting here now in Como, just a few hundred feet from the lake, in our hosts apartment. Last night was our first couch surfing host experience, and I feel it went really well!. The guy is very nice and friendly. He took us around Como last night to show us the city and bits of the lake. We also had a really nice good dinner with him at a restaurant in town, where we ate, drank, and talked for a little over two hours. The restaurant we went to brought out three little bottle of different liqueurs after the main course. The three liqueurs were interesting... one was a limoncello, so nothing too new there; one was a meloncello, so think a cantaloupe smoothie with alcohol; and the third was a pistachiocello, so think a pistachio smoothie with alcohol. The meloncello and pistachiocello were both surprisingly really good.
But enough about dinner and liqueur. The riding yesterday was suppose to be a nice, easy 30 mile cruise to Como... It did not quite go as planned. For starters, we took the wrong turn a lot and ended up taking on a few extra miles from just zig zagging around to try and get back on the right path. On top of that, I popped another tube, so we had to stop to fix that.
The thing that really made the day a bummer though was it started to rain, and I mean like really rain at times. Unfortunately neither of our rain gear outfits were 100% successful. My boots and pants worked great so from the waist down I was completely dry, but my rain jacket did not work so from the waist up I was soaked to the bone. For Ben his rain jacket work excellently, but not having rain pants meant his waist down got soaked and his rain booties could not really work right. All that being said though we did make it to Como, where we found a cafe that had covered seating and proceeded to drink a lot of cappuccinos and tea to warm back up. We were surprised coming into Como, because we kept expecting to turn a corner and then see this massive lake, but that never happened, somehow the Italians completely hid the lake from the road until you get about 40 feet from the lake side. Once we did see it and the rain let up, it was gorgeous with the sprawling water and towering mountains all around it. Seeing the lake at the end of the day really made the day a lot better, and while it was a bit of a bummer to bike in the rain. It made getting to Como all the more satisfying.
Lake Como by day
Lake Como by night
Today, for day 9 of riding we are leaving Italy and entering Switzerland... It is amazing to think that we have already gone as far as we have. Today they are forecasting more rain, hopefully it is not to bad and we can be spared of any thunderstorms. Tomorrow is the day we are suppose to bike over the alps, but we will see how that goes. They are forecasting more rain and thunderstorms for tomorrow, and we have decided if it is raining bad, or even close to thunderstorm then we will not be biking up the cobble stone road over a mountain pass and down the other side (that just sound stupid to do in a thunderstorm, and like a great way to kill yourself). Anyway that is all I have for now, so best wishes and until next time.
In front of the Duomo in Milan
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