I slept in whilst Dave diligently got up at 6am and started planning what to do about his bike.  So after breakfast, he set off to a nearby mechanic armed with a notebook full of useful Italian phrases!  And I sat down to catch up on some things at the hostel.

It was really nice actually, I got to do some writing and catch up with my school friend Michelle, who’s just had a baby!  Can hardly believe it!

When Dave returned, he told me that they hadn’t really been able to fix the problem, but it was working okay for now.  So that meant we could set off.  We loaded up and went in search of lunch.  We got some paninis then headed back to the ice-cream shop we’d been to yesterday – so good!  We sat outside the shop watching the crazy drivers at the junction.  During the 10 minutes we were there, at least five cars parked on the junction and several others reversed or turned around in the middle of the crossing.  Bloody pandemonium!  Oh, and a guy was stood on the top of a rickety step ladder loading the roof of his van in the road.  And pogo-ing the ladder along every now and again to reach further over.

Finally at about 4pm, we were ready to go.  The roads were busy and we set off slowly amongst the traffic.  Approaching a roundabout, the car in front of me didn’t set off when I expected and it was too late for me to stop properly – I didn’t get my right foot unclipped from the pedal in time and toppled over helplessly.  Doh!  Luckily I landed in an empty bus stop!  I bruised my hand stopping the fall but otherwise only wounded pride.

Back on the road, out of Milan and onto the horrible busy road to Como.  It really was awful.  The ‘scenery’ consisted of shop fronts, apartment blocks, traffic lights, building sites and roads.  We had to stop every two minutes for a red light.  And the traffic was crazy!  Sometimes it was so busy that we had to crawl along the side of the stationary line of traffic.  Or worst, wait in it.  Ugh.

This is what most of the ride looked like

So there we go, we did 41km of miserable road.  But when we got to the end, we could see the mountains on the horizon!

Oh look – mountains!

We stopped at a roadside campsite and went about the miserable business of sorting ourselves out for the evening.  It was almost dark by the time we were cooking dinner and we were both in a terrible mood.  When you’re not enjoying the trip, you start to wonder what the hell you’re doing it all for.

Late to bed, but at least with no fixed agenda for the morning.

– Anna