We were woken in Lake Como, Italy by the sound of torrential rain beating down on the tent. I had a rather poor nights sleep, Kelly decided she wanted to get up early and watch the sun rise over the lake, it sounded like a nice idea so I decided to join her. Unfortunately neither of us checked the time and it turned out to be 4am… it was raining and cold so we went back to bed.
When we woke again, still with the sound of rain on the tent, this time it was about half seven and time for breakfast. We walked down to some local shops and bought some Italian bacon, eggs and a baguette. Back at camp we knocked up some breakfast rolls, the rain still pouring if anything heavier than before. We waited to see if it would stop, it slowed a little but we was forced to pack everything awake soaking.
All packed and back in my nice cold wet leathers, we headed off to Milan, Italy. The roads were nice, hugging the edge of the lake before breaking off through the mountains, a lot of the roads were tunnels which gave shelter from the persistent rain. This leg of the trip was set to take a good two hours and most of it turned out to be in the rain.
By the time we reached Milan, Italy the rain had finally stopped !
We didn’t stay too long in Milan, we had a wander around some of the streets looking at all the expensive shops, before popping in to McDonald’s for a bite to lunch. Just as we left MacDonald’s the rain started again, another full on torrential down pour. We headed back to the bike and got on our way again. Riding in Milan was interesting, proper traffic light grand prix racing off the traffic lights against all the bikes and scooters. Some of the streets were cobbled which made for some interesting moments in the heavy rain, it didn’t help that my glasses had fogged up, along with my visor..
After escaping the chaos that was Milan, we were on the motorway heading towards Verona, Italy. The bad weather had slowed the motorway to a crawl and by now we had been on the bike for a couple of hours and wanted a break. We left the motorway and were greeted by some seriously flooded roads ! We took refuge in an underground car park belonging to a supermarket, the rain was coming through the ceiling and air conditioning vents. We grabbed a snack and drink from the supermarket and waited for the rain to slow, which didn’t take too long. We had to clock in at the camp site by six and the sat nav was saying we would arrive there at five fifty five !
A blast across the back roads eventually getting back on the motorway and filtering through the traffic, we made it to Verona, Italy. The roads were busy as people were leaving work for the day, it was now that I started riding like a proper Italian, dipping and diving around all the cars, grazing the odd mirror and getting beeped at, was most enjoyable !
We made it to the camp site just in time, it had even stopped raining and the sun had come out, result ! Before we knew it we had the tent back up and the bike unpacked. Using the heat from the bike to try and dry off some of our stuff.
We got changed and headed down in to town, trying to make the most of the remaining sunlight.
I even found a little Fiat Cinquecento, which I had to take a photo of.
We did the touristy thing and visited the famous balcony from Romeo and Juliet.
Verona, Italy was beautiful, the architecture was fantastic and the general atmosphere of the place was really friendly. This is one place I would come back and visit.
We had some dinner, followed by a proper Italian ice cream. It was getting late so we headed back up to the camp site, hopefully the weather will stay dry and be a bit warmer. We have a busy day planned, we will be heading for Venice stopping at the Ducati bike factory along the way, so be prepared for lots of bikes in my next instalment.