Day 2 and well on the way to ticking all the boxes. Treviso, is Venice without the crowds, sunflowers on umbrellas, tour guides with microphones and selfie obsessed "people" blocking bridges and narrow passages. Treviso just also happens to be the home of Beneton, Sisley and Geox so now, with a full quota of tee shirts, a fine wool jumper, shoes, socks and a coat/jacket it's probably time to start the sightseeing. After a fairly solid workout, Jean's credit car...

So our European adventure is coming to an end, as we are waiting for the aircraft to push back and start our first leg home - Venezia to Dubai. 6 hours. But since the last blog, there is much to remember and enjoy. We had planned to spend a few days up in the Dolomites with Raimondo and Sally but for a couple of reasons, that was not to be, which was just as well because at the time, the weather was all rain. But fortunately, we were all able to go the followin...

Back in Lozzo and life resumes a more respectable pace, lots of thinking about what to do, less time doing it and just generally slotting in to "la dolci vita". With nothing much else to do, it was out on the bikes and as it was Jean's first ride we rode out to Montagnana, a magnificent walled city. It was so good that we went into the hills up to Teolo, a gentle 60km ride, except for a small section of 3 kms up with 250 metres of climbing and as it turned out, ...

As we leave Portugal today, I can sense that with every step we are getting closer to Italy. First, the bus to the airport was a few minutes late. Then on arrival at check-in, we are told the flight has been delayed 1 hour. Next, comes the line at the gate. Fortunately we have "Speedy Boarding" an Easy Jet innovation to minimise exposure to the great European crush, although I must say, the lines in Portugal were pleasantly polite, with any queue jumpers given ...

Sadly, or perhaps just as well, the rain continued and so we spent the first day unpacking the bikes, so imagine my horror when I unzipped my bike bag and saw the angle of the handle bars relative to the bike frame as can be seen in the photo for this blog. I had visions of the front forks being realigned for anti clockwise track work, but no, just a bit of slippage on the post. All good. Friday saw us out and about along the canals to Vo and home in the rain, t...