Italian, Swiss and French Alps

Our longest, and most draining, day in the car – however, well worth the sights. To see these awesome mountain ranges first hand is something to behold. We drove roads in the same famous regions as the Galibier, Izoard and Mont Ventou. These mountains are HUGE and steep!

We accidentally-on-purpose traveled to Grand Monte Bianca which is a slightly shorter version of Mont Blanc, on the Italian side of the border, but still extremely impressive. Driving in the very non-tourist region, we climbed in the car for about 45 mins on what would have been 12 % average grade climbs but it felt like straight up! How they race on the roads is beyond understanding.

After realizing the Sat Nav’s mistake (way too late) we reprogrammed for the real Mont Blanc and set off. As you can see from the photos, the weather was against us and the guy at the Mont Blanc cable car ticket office said going up the mountain would be no good.

It was a lovely drive but really long day – about 8 hours of driving. We made it to our destination, Evian Les Bains in France, late this afternoon and are now enjoying some local wine! This place reminds us of Mooloolaba or Noosa…very clean, great food and shops, and lots of touristy things to see. Perfect after the hectic Milan.

Au Revoir!

Fi Fi and Scott-Pierre

Giro Grande Finale

We jumped on our bikes and rode the time trial course in reverse, before it was set up, give or take a couple of wrong turns! We checked out the start area but it was a bit crazy. Only authorized personnel could get anywhere near the start area. Scotty managed to bluff his way past the guards, in his Discovery channel kit, only to woos out halfway up the chute when people who actually knew saw that he was an imposter…there was no discovery team at the Giro (Fi thinks maybe he got pinged for being a non-climber build!) Scotty did manage to find us some sustenance for the trip back to our spectating position – some paninis and 1kg of lasagne!

We did find a top spot to watch the riders where there were a whole heap of Italians spectating too. We made friends with an Italian lady who helped us with rider name pronunciation and we let her know when they were coming!

We waved our Aussie flag at the three Aussie riders and Nick Gates gave us a big cheer and a wave on his way through. Adam Hansen gave us a ‘courtesy wave’. Nick Gates (in 29^th overall) was way too focused!

As soon as Contador and entourage rolled passed, the course was open for young and old so we rode the Contador wake back into town (about 15km). It was awesome! We rode flat out, people cheering us on in Italian, we hammed it up (esp Scotty) and got back to our hotel in about 25 mins.

We ended up doing about 65km of riding and 4 hours of sitting around so were really tired when we got back…just strolled down to our fave pizza shop for a couple of BIG slices of fresh margeurita pizza, some birra, and then bed!

Discovering Milano

Today being our rest day from the Giro (even us spectators need a rest), we did a bit of metro hopping, saw some really old stuff, walked about 50,000 km, and after giving the posh centre of Milan the flick we stumbled across a giant Paddy's-style market. On the way back to see some more old stuff we found a sport and music festival which included some pro level go karting. It was much more our style than all the old buildings! We aren't total historic snobs but if you've seen one big old building you've seen them all!

The best thing about the posh centre of town was the goodness contained within a Luini - a freshly baked pastry filled with mozzarella and tomato (pomodoro) - it was melt-in-your-mouth and we don't think it had many calories!