Well I just finished organizing my photos from the trip into 8 primary folders including 22 subfolders. Hopefully that makes things easier to locate. I currently have no plans though to name each one of the 600+ individual pictures. That's simply far too much work.

So I'll continue with my retelling of our trip, adding in pictures here and there to punctuate different moments.

Tuesday, May 11th

We went back to Venezia to do a little bit of shopping. Then we took a short walk around the city before stopping in a shop to pick up some food. The store was run by a really talkative Italian who spoke fluent English. He told us all about the different types of cheeses and meats he had, as well as commending us on our plans to bike across the country. He talked us into testing a special cheese he had, local, and aged in a barrel of wine for 1 year. It tasted absolutely wonderful! That is potentially the best cheese I've ever had. We left the store with our essential food supplies, and a small indulgent piece of the wine cheese.

From there we took the free shuttle bus to Carrefour where we found everything we needed. Bikes, supplies, more cheap food, all of it. So after planning out what we needed for tomorrow, we took the bus back to Venice, then back to Alba D'Oro for the night. It was at this point that we decided to change our route to go through the Riviera instead of Switzerland. We were a little worried about going through the Alps because all the maps we had pointed out that most mountain passes were closed until either late May or early June, also the nighttime weather in Italy we discovered was bloody cold - up in the mountains, we surmised, would be especially bitter. Also, we thought seeing the Riviera would be a wonderful thing. Thus did our route change.

Wednesday, May 12th

First thing in the morning we headed to Carrefour to buy our bikes. After that, it was just a matter of putting everything together. The holders for the saddlebags didn't fit on the bikes, so James came up with a contraption that hooked them to the frame quite neatly. It took a couple hours for us to get everything set up and ready to go. We were finally off!

No more than half an hour after leaving Carrefour an Italian drove up beside us as we were biking and started shouting "Canada! Very Strong!" while pumping his hand in the air. It turned out to be a common theme through Italy, we were immensely pleased with the amount of support the locals gave us.

Mestre was a pain in the ass to get through, and resulted in the subsequent purchase of a compass (something that helped us out immensely over the coming weeks). We biked through town after town, basically with no more than a fence separating them, while the clouds grew dark around us. Finally, we entered the real Italian countryside. Then it started to lightly rain, so we took a break beneath some trees to see if perhaps it was just a short shower and would break up. Unfortunately, the rain just got harder as the time passed, so we decided to find a camp site. Having nowhere nearby to set up tent, we rode some more. The darkness continued to deepen as we searched fruitlessly for a site.

Finally, with conditions worsening, we stopped at a muddy field and trudged through it to the best spot we could find (Near the town of Spinea), and began setting up. It was far from comfortable, in fact it was downright awful. We were muddy and soaked, the temperature dropped to only a few degrees above zero, and the rain continued all night. It was almost impossible to sleep on the uneven chunks of mud with rivers of water running between them. The tent was waterproof, but that didn't keep the water out. Sleep was hard to come by.

Thursday, May 13th

At 5am, we'd had enough of the tent, and began to pack up (We were also hoping to get out of the field before anyone saw us). The rain didn't finally stop until near noon, it was about this point that our morale at last climbed out of the dumpster.

We spent the day plodding through the Italian countryside, with brief stops for rest. The longest stop of the day was in the late afternoon when we set the tent out for 30 minutes to dry it out while we ate our suppertime ration of 2 pieces of bread and a couple slices of meat. We made it all the way to Sermide, and camped beside a cemetery just outside of town for the night.

This day offered me one of the most vivid memories I have of the entire trip. As we biked towards the town of Canda (We affectionately called it Canada) I saw the greatest old man. James was about 100m ahead of me, and the man was standing in the field beside the road. He had on a wide brimmed straw hat with long white hair flowing out the back, his shoulders were hunched and his face had the wizened quality of someone approaching their first century in age. He was leaning on a hoe stuck in the ground, and was completely motionless. As James rode by, the man made no move whatsoever, leading to my supposition that perhaps it was a scarecrow instead of a human - so motionless he was! But that thought was shattered when I saw him squint at me as I neared; I was wearing my white shirt with the large Canadian flag on the front. As it suddenly seemed to click in his head that 2 Canadians were riding bikes by him, he suddenly burst into motion (and this is a relative term). His neck twisted around sharply to take another look at James, and then he turned back around to look at me in what seemed to be disbelief, or confusion.

It may not sound like anything important or even very interesting, but I don't think I'll ever forget that old man for as long as I live.

Friday, May 14th

Coming Soon!

I'm all typed out for the day, so I'll just post a couple pictures from the ride to Sermide and be off. That's 7 days down, 17 to go! I hope everyone is enjoying the recounting of the ride. Peace.