Adda Fiume wow

Wed 16th Sept

Today's ride was one of the best ever rivalling Kilarney for sheer beauty.
We atarted out in the techno Park hotel having a big breakfast as dad suggested.
Then the path along the Navigli Martenese was gravel and beautiful. Then a steep detour and a torre to view after crossing the A4 in a bridge.
Then along the Adda river fro 20ks of dream forest landscape and glorious water falls and views. Just simply marvelous. The path was a tad lumpy in places and yet Da Vinci's fiume more than made up for the mild rattle.
Green with forest sweeping down tot eh river with the first touches of gold autumn. Wild torrents leaping at times into the navigli along the side.....

Wed 15th sep

The Fiume d’Adda where Leonardo cogitated proved a spectacularly wonderful cycle path. 30 odd Ks from Casana D’adda to Brivio were simply out of this world. A navigli for the morning and a roaring river for the arvo, Gravel most of the way and then truncated before reaching Lecco at Brivio but truly beautiful. Overgrown locks and cataracts around sudden stone cornered walls were cool and shady treats. Our first outdoor cuchina with espresso and grapes for lunch. Really grateful to Alison Turner in Pedal; Power for her recommendation    We pulled up tired in Cisana after crossing the narrow bridge at Brivio  and stayed at the wonderful Fatur hotel and restaurant. The meal was simply wonderful with a goats cheese terrine and a very finely made lasagne with eggplant and sweet potato.  Crème brulee for desert. Nice people and a really woody and reasonable room.

Finally Brivio and it all runs out ....two hotels later we are at the Fatur a very lovely hotel with very friendly staff.
Some omeopatica calendula for sore toes and bieri for sunburnt faces and we are normal again....
Really really lovely riding today.

102 hotel 8 gelati

Techno park hotel

Tuesday 14th

Brilliant happy breakfast in the green room and Mussolini’s batons are revived. 37k of navigli proved a wonderful start tour cycle vacation.
Two men school teachers so far from their wives and the old lady in white on the path with an american past……
4 stars hotel and the concierge can talk….Tommy emmanual and his 30 minutes of fame….
The path today along the navigli was surprisingly beautiful....Lunch was very good....
Hot sunburned and late to eat but happy all the same..

TGV breaks down Paris to Modane

Monday 13 September

We find ourselves with an extra day in Paris and ride to the Bastille after saying goodbye to our hosts Chantal and Gerome who were very nice and even rescued our bikes from a midnight tide of sewerage through their cave or donjon as I joked with them. I awoke to hear the distinctive sound of a falling mop handle,

The day then proceeded to the Jardin des plantes and the big black woman’s laugh as we suggested making crepes was an art mystereuse.

Two big beers at the  station while the old man was removed from behind blue curtains on the platform made for gas emissions all night long.

The train forced a deafening rush to break down the bikes and get them bagged up for nothing really.
Then on board with brilliant Pony’s help and the train breaks down… ho hum we get to do it all again for the bus trip through the most amazingly beautiful alpine scenery. The old black fella with two pens and a suit felt so useful when he got to help with the black mammas baby ahip super heavy bags…love is in the world everyday….

Dead beat at 11.37 and we reconstruct the bikes in record time in the middle of the road on a concrete circle.  Then to the htel Flora and the it was awake and we had the best room with green everything and a really dead to the world sleep.

Glorious day at church

Lovely day today, in love, on metro or climbing our own stairway to heaven

We are both feeling a lot less jaded and today dawned cloudy and rained dung breakfast, it was Sheila's day en Paris so I was all ears. Bikes were to be forgotten and the metro employed to get us around.

Civvies on and off to the old Roman baths converted into Cluny. The Licorne was still there to amuse us and a collection of medieval knives and other Sunday objects. We laughed at how the postcard wish had come true after all these years. Then off to the Madeleine Mary Magdelenes fine 1800's retrro tribute. The fine thing was the uplifted stone breast on one side of the church and the staid mother and baby scene directly across haha I know which one I'd be praying for.....

Lunch was great even as I gave back the undercharged 10 euros to the macho waiter....

Then off to Montmartre the artists colony through which threaded our stairway up and up and up.... A quick circuit of an absolutely massive almost eastern  gold mosaics and divine essence pouring into peoples mouths.....

Beer and oversize shoes later we zapped home to book our Milan hotel....we will be on the Adda river soon to share the view with Da Vinci who died in Amboise.....

Pompidou centre

Today was a revelation with roomfuls of art. The whole of the Pompidou experience is a treat for the senses.outside escalators and inside rooms framed over a view extraordinaire of Paris. Brilliant Kandinsky and Brancusi and Roualt and Duchamp. Met Fiona from work and her friend who'd achieved  a lot of Alps and the Pyrenees with loaded bikes.

Yoghurt was hung on handlebars and then strangely before our eyes removed by persons inscrutable.
Lunch was a feast of faces eggs and mushrooms delivered tardily, The trip home was bus filled with youngsters dancing on their heads and a trip to the Gare de Lyon to book the TGV mit husse a milani now on monday to arrive at 10 at night.

The paint shop proved absolutely the most intensive art materials experience ever and was a worthy journey.
We are extended for another night and with some relief as I thought to have to find accommodation as well tomorrow... but no ....reprieve.

Feel more normal and sleep is required at the normal times......

e35 lunch e 10 Pompidou Coffees e21 Monoprix e23 total e89

pas de gonfleur

We awoke rhyming and laughing at 4am The day dawned sweetly and we hung out for le petit dejeuner which proved welcome with muesli and some creme fraisse for the baguettes. The coffee was nor exactly my cup of tea.  Les velos were hurriedly removed from their overnight stay dans le donjon with the spiral staircase of ancient flag stones.

Off to find the gonfleur via the wrong side of Cimitere Montparnasse  soft tyres not even the magazin des velos would assist. or the scooter shop. so in the end pumped them up with Shane's little silver pumps that we carry each religiously. they work.

Then off to the old camper via the lovely jardin de luxembourg where we see a fountain in honour of Delacroix by Jules Dalou yes the same as the little clay models at the NGA.

On and up to the Pantheon gradually gaining confidence to ride in the road. We australians are so very cautious and the traffic in Paris while heavy is very very courteous to les velos. We rode helmet free which also made me much more cautious and while getting used to wrong side of road. There are many more bicycle paths to choose this time..Old Voltaire's box which does not even have his bits therein. He is such a hero and to see his tomb again was great.

Then panini and exspresso with les eleves in the rue mouffetard was heavenly and the nature shop for la dentifrice and sunflower seeds and moisturizer also.

Then a hot walk and ride back to the vielle campeur for the maps and gaz. The manager remembered me from trois ans depuis and was very friendly. The maps were also tres friendly but lacking the essential ones...the tom tom rings their death knell.......we decided.

Back to Sheila resting in the park and onto the rue des ecoles for a tasse de the vivaine and jus d'orange.
Then a quick ride up the b/vrd Saint Michel and loop around the cimitere and we are home to shower and rest by 4pm. The bikes chained to the park benignly guarded by dog eared Chaim Soutine.with his perforated ulcer.

The net and service here are wonderful and to be recommended as the gare and cycle shop are all very close.

cafe e5  panini e7  health food shop e27 the e10 maps e18 gaz e4.50 equals 71.50

Thursday 9 Sept wonderful Paris city of belles

Landed in the wonderful city of 9 million belles we discovered today. The journey was long with a 6 oclock start in the frost and a rush to catch the plane before the one we'd booked which was cancelled unexpectedly). a huge electrical storm in Hong Kong forced another two hour wait with bright lightening to assist the surreal. Ma femme une pilote)was completely at ease so I became so too. devil may care at 20,000 feet with the most intense bursts of light below climbing the trees of clouds and flowering into the most divine display of thunderbolts. Barbs quality chocolate gift was a similar godsend resurrecting spaced out travelers with delightful mouth explosions.

The taxi driver was from Homg kong as well and took us the whole way in eliminating the 4 minute walk with bikes that I'd been dreading for two years in a single well spoken stroke. The ceramic cups and saucers that exactly resembled crumpled plastic ones were a surrealist treat as we began to fall back into australian time at 2pm.

The bikes quickly reconstructed with only a bent handlebar on Sheila's surly to remind us forever of the 747 mashing that this time was expensive due to the overload fees as we each went 10kgs over the limit in the hold. traipsed mud through the hotel as all the gutters were filled with little rivers form broken plumbing. The bikes were stored in the cellar down 10 well worn steps in circles. Gerome and Chantell proved s sunburnt and friendly.

A glorious sleep in the quire afternoon to emerge conscious in a vast underground Monoprix with the vasy array of fromage and tasty peches vins and muscatel grapes. So wonderful to have another chance to be here and this time together.

expenses

e 60 taxi
e 13 cafe and croissant
e 24 monoprix diner.