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Showing posts from July, 2012

Pat and Belinda, Tour De France and 40th anniversary

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Just a Little 40th Anniversary Kiss! Gran San Bernardo Summit Aosta Castle Great Supper x As we left Levanto and headed north that mindset of the trip is over and we’re heading home starts to set in. But when we got to Aosta Italy we were excited by the fact Pat and Belinda were going to meet us there. We hadn’t seen them both together since ‘06 and Pat in ‘09. Our time was going to be short again, only 3 nights but we made the most of it. After a great tour of one of the Aosta castles, we headed out the next day up the Gran San Bernardo pass to Switzerland. It was spectacular, and when we got to the top we became the centre of attraction for a lot of other riders there since we were from Canada. First we chatted with some Swedish riders then 2 German riders one who had the same make model year and color Vstrom as ours. Lots of video was shot on the way up and down as it is a very scenic ride. From there we decided to take some back routes to our destination and

Cinque Terre 2012

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RioMaggorie, gorgeous in every photo Each year there has been one common element to every trip and that is our visits to the Cinque Terre in Italy. Harbor Boats This year has been no exception other than about 6 weeks after we left last year two villages, Monterrosso and Vernazza (The crown jewel), were hit by a flood that devastated their towns. When we caught news of this last year we had emailed our friend Cristian in Levanto where we stay how things were. For 3 weeks we did not get a response to several emails. Finally he replied by saying that for awhile power was out, then while Levanto was OK he was busy helping the other villagers in those two communities dig out from the terrible damage.  Dredge Crane in Harbor No doors? They are 10' down in the mud and debris As we hiked the 5 villages this year, yep we still did the cross country 15 km hike in 5 ½ hours, we saw first hand the damage that was done as not all of it can be repaired within such a short t

Pisa

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Hope it doesn't fall on us! Wanting a day outing that would keep us from the sun, we had been toasting a bit too much on the beach, we decided after breakfast t head for a day trip to Pisa. All the Old town buildings Down the coast on SS1 after La Spezia to Pisa it took us over 2 hrs to cover 100 kms. And on arriving in Pisa we realized how small it was compared to it’s reputation for the Leaning tower. Making sure it's Steady Inside a walled city component we had parked the bike and walked in. Along side the area were small shops set up like Morocco with tons of trinkets for sale. We walked around, took our pictures then bought some Panini’s ( salami) for lunch and then got post cards and gelatto and wrote post cards home in the 35C heat. Whew it was hot. After filling with gas we decided it was worth it to head back on the autostrada , It was just after 3:17pm. At 4:00pm we heard the bells of the church in Montale ring as we passed by off the autostrada.