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Today we discovered the problem with the industrious north of Italy, and that is... industry.
Our day started most promisingly, with a beautiful 12 mile ride along the quieter fork of Lake Como, on a twisting turning lakeside road with very little traffic.
After a 4-km tunnel ("yes! yes! Fine for the biciclettes!" as a fellow cyclist told us), we emerged at the town at the end of the lake, and had our picnic overlooking the marina.
From there, it was all downhill, figuratively at least. Actually it was quite a bit of uphill. This sign shows a typical intersection that we faced. There were no good choices however, even the smallest roads had lots of traffic, including 18-wheelers. (This explains the PPPP, we figured out. The trucks have crushed the pavement where the wheels go, causing the distresse strada, as they say here.) At one point I was passed by six 18-wheelers going uphill on a two-lane road with switchbacks.
Needless to say, by the time we got to Bergamo we were pretty fried, mentally and physically. This is a shame because apparently there's a lot to see in Bergamo but we had very little get up and go to get up and go. Instead we took a wander around the sights of the lower town, some of which are pictured here.
There was a dino invasion in town.
And then off to a friendly bar for dinner and World Cup watching. It was family run, and the father was rooting for England, who narrowly beat Tunisia 2-1. We started with an apertivo
Then we both had the regional specialty, homemade meat-filled ravioli with sage butter.
To celebrate England's victory, the father provided this revolting digestif on the house. Yay.
We definitely had to chase that with some gelato! Peach and stratchitella for E, coffee and chocolate for A.
Off to bed and dreams of quieter roads for tomorrow!
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