Next Stop: Italia!

After 4 days and nights in Les Clapiers, we leave for Italy on Friday, June 18th. It's supposed to be a little over a 3 hour drive. I'm interested to see how well our Garmin 275 performs--it came pre-loaded with European maps. We'll have maps, too, but I'm counting on the Garmin to be a healthy contributor to the venture.

Back to Italy: our first stop in Italy will be in Bellagio on Lake Como. We'll be staying at Il Perlo Panorama after having read about it on pezcyclingnews.com (http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7375 ). For cycling fans, the hotel is on the climb to the Madonna del Ghisallo, part of the Tour of Lombardy race course in the fall. There's a chapel at the top of the climb that's dedicated to cyclists, she's the patron saint of cyclists. A large, new cycling museum was also opened there (http://www.museodelghisallo.it/home.html). Yeah, we'll go check it out.

There is a lot of riding to be done in the region, but this is the one stop where the beauty of the area has sort of taken precedence. We'll do some great rides. But we'll be interested in seeing the lakes (Lago Maggiore, Lago di Lugano, and Lago di Como, and at least a half dozen other smaller lakes nearby) and the towns that dot their shores. We originally planned on staying just two days, but after seeing pictures of the place, we added two days. It is our honeymoon, after all.

We'll do the climb to the Madonna del Ghisallo (frequently, probably, since we'll be staying ON the climb). We'll do the Muro di Sormano, Civiglio, and others.

Next stop is Bormio and some tough rides: Stelvio, Gavia, Mortirolo, Tonale. Hope the snow's gone!