2003      Across    the Alps

Updates from the Alps     (still in progress, more to come, be patient!)

July 2-6, Bolzano-Corvara-Falzarego                                            The heart of the Dolomites! 

A wonderfully scenic train ride brought us up the Adige Valley to Bolzano.  As we rolled north the cliffs on either side rose higher and more jagged, with castles and fortresses sprouting up on many crags and ridge-tops.  Vineyards and lovely villages cover the narrowing valley floor, with the ever-present church steeple marking each town center.  It would have been quite a nice 2-3 day ride up from Venice, but we unfortunately are a bit pressed for time, and want to maximize our days in the Dolomites. 

We unloaded our chunks from the train, and did some reorganizing right there on the platform… all of a sudden the train pulls away, and the amazing view just grabbed us!  There they are, piercing the clouds, floating up in the orange alpenglow, the jagged spires of the Dolomites!  We are stunned and thrilled!  We’re going to ride our bikes over that!?!?! Holy Jaborznik!   Then the clouds rolled in, obscuring our vision, and we rushed off to grocery shop and find camping before the rains hit.  We didn’t make it…

A raging stormy night tested our patience, and the capabilities of our little Sierra Designs tent.  We love our cozy blue nylon home, but after 100+ nights in the thing, it may have hit its limit!  Paul was out trenching, re-staking the fly, and trying to sew a blown zipper in a howling wind, when a CRAAAAACK brought a nearby tree crashing down!  It fell right in the center of the gravelly tent site area; fortunately right in the middle of a semi-circle of tents!  We were all lucky that night!

Our next few days brought us through stupendous alpine scenery.  We’ve entered the Alto Adige/SudTirol region, which was a German-speaking part of Austria for hundreds of years… until World War II.  Everyone seems to speak both German and Italian, and the road signs are bi-lingual, but it certainly feels and looks much more like Austria! Steep green manicured mountainsides… neat little villages with red-roofs and churches galore… goats and cows grazing with bells tinkling…

We rode up from Bolzano, heading towards Castelrotto and the Val Gardena, along a fairly quiet road.  This canyon is the main route north, over the Brenner Pass, to Innsbruck and on to Germany, but fortunately the majority of traffic uses the Autobahn.  Branching off, we began the first of many BIG climbs in the Dolomites… huffing and puffing up towards Vols am Schlern, we tested our atrophied tourist legs on 11 and 12% grades.  The roads here are really narrow and winding, but drivers tend to be quite respectful of cyclists.   Yes they zoom up on your tail, revving the engine of their shiny new Audi, VW, or Fiat, but then they hang back waiting patiently for a straightaway on which to pass.  As we neared the summit of the 8 or 9 km climb, there were 2 branching options to choose from… The main road continued at a steady steep grade, and a really beautiful and quiet country lane veered off at 28%…. Twenty Eight Percent!!!!  Egads!  There a lots of psycho-roads like that around here!  We chose to stick to the “easy” route! 

After a sweet “sound of music” grass & flowers campsite, we continued our climbing towards our first pass; Passo Pinei at over 1400 meters.  It was a long but gorgeous haul, and a screaming whooshing brake-burning descent down into the Val Gardena.  Bummer to lose any altitude though, as tomorrows climb is a 2200m Pass!  We shopped, found a playpark, and had a luscious picnic lunch, hoping to do 10 or 20 more kms before quitting, when Karen’s ankle snapped…  She was just trotting over to dump the picnic garbage, and didn’t twist it or anything.  But there she was, unable to walk, with excruciating pain on the side of her ankle alongside her Achilles.  What to do?  Karen wants to keep riding, as it’s less painful than walking…  Just a couple of kms proves that hers is a serious injury, so she parks herself under a tree.  With a thunderstorm commencing I raced off to find the nearest reasonable “zimmer frei” (room in a private home) in the small village of St. Cristiana.  We holed up in the top floor of a cute place, with Karen’s leg elevated and iced, quaffing ibuprofen and watching Italian cartoons. 

A day and a half later, Karen still couldn’t ride well, but she could hobble a bit with a new ankle brace. We tried not to think about the consequences of her injury, but couldn’t help but worry that it might be impossible to continue our cycling trip… just as we were getting to the best scenery! We chose not to play the “what if” game, as it was too tragic and depressing, and decided to think positive and take it day by day… 

She and the kids decided to ride the local bus, with bike and trailer stowed underneath, up and over the Passo Gardena to Corvara.  I rode the 2200m pass on a gloomy threatening day, worried that I wouldn’t get to see any of those famous jagged peaks!  Lightning and thunder kicked in during the final 5 km push up to the pass, with buckets of rain drenching the few cyclists passing me on the road. With plastic bags protecting my gear, and soaking gore-tex holding in the sweat, I pushed on through deep puddled switchbacks….  Just as I approached the pass, the pounding rain became a sprinkle… then it stopped altogether!  Miraculously the sun burst out, the gore-tex came off, and the clouds began to lift, revealing stupendous views in all directions.  I spent almost an hour up top, soaking it up and waiting for the road to dry out, then bombed down the smooth glorious switchbacks towards Corvara and the campsite.  There were TONS of cyclists on the road today, and I figured it must just be a popular weekend ride.  After all, the Passo Gardena is part of the “Sella Ronda,” a strenuous 4-pass 60km circuit around the magnificent Sella Group of peaks. 

I pulled into the campground, and found Karen and the girls, but the place was PACKED like nowhere we’d seen in Europe.  Every tent, every RV, and every car had bike racks and LOTS of fancy racing bikes leaning here and there.  Most of the “campers” were wearing colorful lycra bodysuits and clickity-clacking around camp in their cycling shoes.  Hmmmm….  Something was brewing here!!!!  Sure enough, we had stumbled into a training camp for the Marathoni di Dolomiti!  This is the annual 160km psycho-ride, where 8,000 cyclists cross NINE of these radical mountain passes in a day!  The top riders finish in under FIVE hours…. Humbling to say the least, as we were planning a pace of about 20-40 daily kms, crossing one pass per day. 

What to do… what to do…  The roads would be closed down for the weekend races, preventing Karen from riding any buses…  And our chosen route was right through the heart of the upcoming Marathon ride…  We really needed to keep moving to avoid being stranded for the next 2 days.  Super-Karen decided to give it a try, so after two full days of rest, she started riding the flat and downhill section to Villa.  Then we started to climb again towards Passo Valparola, and her ankle was feeling much better!  As the grade kicked in (and kicked my butt), Karen just kept plugging along!  What an amazing turnaround!  We crested the Valparola, and enjoyed hot beverages at the requisite mountaintop chalet, then cruised along towards Passo Falzarego to look for a sneaky “wild” campsite! 

After a lovely quiet night sleeping on a grassy slope, we packed really early, stuffed the sleeping kids in the trailer still in their sleeping bags, and rode back up to the Passo Falzarego to get some cappuccino and watch the today’s big race.  We laughed at our miscalculation, arriving at 6:30am.  Totally deserted… no one around!  That gave us some time to look up at the crazy Lagazuoi peak above the pass.  It has a gondola ride up to the top, and, of course, a comfortable lodge perched on the cliff thousands of feet up.  But the cliffs themselves are pockmarked with caves, tunnels, and a wacky bit of World War 2 history.  Apparently the Italians pushed the Austrians out of Cortina, but couldn’t break through their defenses over this high pass.  Both sides dug in, and for two years, they battled it out on the cliffs, each side digging tunnels by hand to try and get a better angle to from which to shoot at each other!  You can still hike through the old passageways, Cliffside trenches, and tunnels. 

Finally the police start to arrive at 8am to close off the roads, and direct race traffic… Well actually they seemed to arrive to stand in a cluster around our kids and gawk and ask us what police officers earn in California.  Then they started giving their own sack-lunches to our kids.  Chocolate for breakfast was a hit.  At one point we had all 5 or 6 cops gathered around, pinching our kids cheeks and crying “bellissimo!” “oh due bambini!!!,” when a few cars drove up and started down the pass on the “closed” road.  Suddenly one polizei noticed, and runs after the cars shouting to stop while waving his little red plastic traffic stop sign.… It would be so much easier if they just brought a few barricades with them… or if they parked their patrol cars part-way across the closed road!

Café opened at 9.  We quaffed a strudels and cappuccino, then waited for the racers.  When they finally showed up, we were stunned!  4 hours into the race, 6 or 7 passes completed, and over 100 kms ridden, and the leaders just chugged on by like they were on a Sunday stroll.  Amazing conditioning, and ridiculous leg muscles are in great abundance today!  So are colorful lycra suits and the fanciest road bikes we’d ever seen!  After a few hours of cheering on the racers, the police said we could finally head down towards Cortina.  40… 50… 60 switchbacks down?  Let’s roll kids!!!!!

July 1, 2003 – VENICE!

What more can you say about this phenomenal floating city?  It’s more impressive, more crowded, more ridiculously photogenic, more romantic, and more intriguing than we could have imagined…   We thoroughly enjoyed our 4 days here, wandering the ancient streets and back alleys, riding as many boats, and partaking in as much gelato as possible. 

Warned that bikes are “not allowed” in vehicle-free Venice, we stashed our bicycles, trailers, and excess gear at the train station.  It was well worth the high price.  Being able to wander the labyrinth of the ancient city unencumbered by luggage was a real joy.  And what a treat to explore an entire city without a single car!  Every morning Paul would rise early in search of fresh baked goodies, but the city was totally shut down… he soon found the one local bakery that would begin selling at 7am.  In the meantime, it was so peaceful and mellow to stroll about the deserted streets…  no tourists, no open shops, just a few locals streaming off the vaporettos (water-taxis) heading for work or a quick espresso shot at the one early-riser corner café. 

Dad found us a perfect 4th floor rental apartment that slept all 11 of us, with postcard window views down 2 narrow canals.  Any time during the day, we could just open the windows and be serenaded by passing gondoliers singing opera and playing accordions and guitars.  Our favorite game was to hide while firmly holding Sylvie’s legs as she lay on the window sill, with her head sticking out the window.  She loved to wave and scream “bongiorno bongiorno bongiorno!” at the top of her little lungs to the passing boats. She is now, I’m sure, a part of countless tourists’ slide shows and photo albums!  Aside from the window game, the kids loved chasing pigeons, riding vaporettos, and exploring tiny bridges and secret passageways.  One night the tide really came in and began flooding Piazza San Marco… this was considered a major highlight for our puddle-splashing girls!

We could spend SO much more time here, but the Dolomites are calling us!  Back on the bikes, back to the mountains, back to camping and exercising and burning calf muscles!!! Let’s GO!

Oh yes… the POX UPDATE:  Sylvie kicked in with major chicken pox just as we got to Florence.  Her blisters weren’t as bad as Elizas, but it was an impressive sight nonetheless.  Fortunately for her, our whole week in Florence was spent in the same rental home, with daily dips in the pool.  No long sweaty days in the cramped trailer… This, and her pretty high pain tolerance, certainly contributed to her easier time with the outbreak!   By the time we left Venice, she was all scabbed up and ready for action! 

FIRENZE - 27 June, 2003

Ahhhhh Florence....  We are just concluding a wonderful week here, and know that a second week would be just as full of great sights and experiences.  But, it's time to move on to Venice tomorrow by train!

Our train trip from the Cinque Terra via Pisa to Florence was quite smooth, with plenty of room in the Regionale trains for our bikes and trailers.  Travelling with sister Kirsten and Grandma ChooChoo is quite smooth as well, as the kids usually just board with Grandma while Karen and I shuffle the bikes and gear.  Kirsten has been doing an admirable job of muscling "Big Red" around Italy... Big Red is Grandma's massive suitcase, chock full of too many things she now wishes she didn't bring.  Handling 2 active squirming grandkids is easier than a single Big Red!

Paul's parents met us as planned at a small town station just outside Florence... Dad was driving a huge Ford Transit Van, that could accomodate all 8 adults, and 3 kids (2 in car seats).  It's about as big a vehicle as you could possibly fit through some of the tiny streets of Florence, and Dad and Paul have certainly put that theory to the test!  So far both rearview mirrors are intact, and we've only clipped one (parked) scooter!  Actually, after a week of shuttling in and out of central Florence by van, and doing some daytrip drives to outlying villages, we've become quite comfortable driving here!

The rented house in which we are staying was origially built in the 1400's, and has fortunately been renovated a few times since then... The best improvement is the swimming pool in back with amazing views of rolling Tuscan farmlands off into the distance..  Having access to the pool has made the toasty hot weather, and steamy van with no A\C, quite tolerable.  And both Eliza and Sylvie are having a blast swimming every day!

Aside from the phenomenal art, churches, monuments, and scenery, a huge highlight has been "pool time."  Lounging and conversing by the cool pool with our extended family, with a table of tasty tidbits from the local market... cheese, fresh bread, veggies, salty olives, and plenty of excellent inexpensive wine!  Eliza arrived at the pool on day 1 with a tentative dog paddle, always in reach of mom or dad... today she leapt in by herself with great confidence and splashes, and did 2 consecutive round-trips of a 30-foot swimming pool, constantly shouting "don't help me don't help me" as she swam!  That will be her main memory of Tuscany!  Well... and the gelato.

We have really enjoyed this incredible city... the churches, the museums, and just walking the old streets of the historic centro. The Uffizi gallery was awesome, with some of the finest works of Renaissance art just inches from your nose.  Karen was all teary-eyed at seeing a few of the works in person...  Another highlight has been climbing up tall things like bell towers, domes and castle towers.  Getting that bird's eye view of complex crowded cities and villages, and the lovely views of distant rolling hills, gives such a better perspective on the place.  And there is usually a deliciously cooling breeze up high!  It has certainly been hot here...

A few day trips have brought us to outlying towns like San Gimgniano and Assisi, with their smaller scale, ancient narrow cobblestone streets, gorgeous frescoed churches, and classic surrounding countryside.  It would be fantastic to cycle around this area someday... in a cooler month like April or October! 

We've been really lucky with the crowds in Florence, which can apparently be seething with sweaty hordes all summer. The guidebooks all warn you about 2-4 hour waits at some of the most important sites. This moring at the Uffizi we waited exactly ZERO minutes... there just wasn't a line!  A few days back we went to see the famous statue of David, and waited 5 or 10 minutes.  Maybe it is always this quiet in June, or perhaps it's the effect of the Iraq war and terrorism, but overall it has been a great time to be traveling.  Execept for the abyssmal exchange rate with the strong Euro! 

Tomorrow we train off to Venice for 4 days with the family in a rented apartment that sleeps 8.  Everyone else will take a speedy 3 hour Eurostar direct train, and Karen,Paul and the bikes will ride slower "regionale" trains (3 different ones) that allow bicycles.  We'll be chugging along for 6 hours, but our tickets will be about half the cost.  It's too bad they don't take bikes on the fast trains, but at least some trains allow them! 

More from Venice in a few days!  Sylvie is especially excited to ride lots of boats! 

Ciao

6/20 - VERNAZZA... Cinque Terre, Italy

We are lounging along the Mediterranean coast in the spectacular Cinque
Terre region at the moment... just sampled a few of the local wines, and
 anchovie bruschettas!  Tomorrow it's off to Florence by train to meet
Paul's family, so we're now having the middle "non-bike" section of the
trip.

Since LOCARNO and Lago Maggiore, we've had some wonderful adventures! 
We ferried and rode to stunning Lago d'Orta, a much smaller and more
laid back lake than Como or Maggiore.  Just about the instant we hit
Italy (at Baveno, actually) the heat cranked up a few notches, and we
felt like we were cycling in Thailand... SWEAT APLENTY!  So we quickly
fell into our current pattern of 2 or sometimes 3 Gelatos per day.  the
girls are thrilled with this situation, and have settled on melon,
cherry, and limon, as their favorite flavors.

After experiencing the heat up in the lakes and hills, and anticipating
higher temperatures across the Po River valley, we decided to enlist the
 Italian train system for assistance.  Just to make it exciting, we
decided to start the train adventure at 6pm one evening, and caught 3
succesive short rides from Arona to Sethia to Vercelli to Casale
Monferrato.  This cut out a day or 2 of brutal "central valley in August"
 riding, but also put us in Casale at 9:30pm at the peak of their annual
 mosquito festival!  BRUTAL assault indeed!  We rode around in circles
in a parking lot as fast as we could to converse and make plans for the evening... if
 we even paused to chat, we were swarmed with bugs!  All the trains were reletively quick and efficient, but it was a challenge to load and unload our heaps of gear each time.  fortunately, every "regionale" train has a bicycle designated car with wide doors and bike-hanging hooks in the corridor.

We were back on the bikes at 6 the next morning to avoid the heat, and
paced ourselves well while cruising through the amazing wine-country of
the Asti region.  Every village is an ancient hilltop fortress, with
castles and church towers... every acre of land is cultivated in multi-hued
 canvas of crops like grapes, wheat, corn, etc... Beautiful landscape,
but hot hot hot.  We paced ourselves by pausing every hour or so in a
town for cool drinks, cappucinos, and cold beers.  If there was a shady
park, we ate snacks and let the kids play for an hour, then continued
our ride.  This way we rode from 6am to 10pm, and did about 90kms...  oh
 yes, gelato was consumed 3 times today!  As well as a couple of local
wines in several towns (for 50 or 60 cents a glass straight from the
large barrel!). 

A second day of wine-country riding finally broght us to Ovada, just one
 watershed over from the Piota River!  We spent a few nights here in a
cheap hotel, exploring the area by bike and train. 

As we rode down to the "Torrente Piota" one day, we were elated to
finally SEE this place we'd been looking at on maps for more than 2
years!  Would it be a huge river or a creek?  wild or urban?  With the
high temps our main thought was "can we swim in it!?" 

We rolled down through lovely vineyards, over a few incredible ancient
hill fortress towns, and then down towards the Piota drainage... here it
 is!!!! there's the bridge Karen!!!!  Oh... well....  it looks dry!  Is
this it?  Dang, it's DRY!!!!  A little creekbed, overgrown with willow
and blackberry, totally devoid of water.  We were bummed, and there wasn't
 even a sign to snap a photo of!

Well, fortunately our cartography skills were lacking, as just over the
next ridge we hit the actual Piota river drainage, and it had water
flowing!  Ahhhhh.... lovely flowing clear mountain water!  Plenty of
locals hang out on the Torrente Piota, and we did too, enjoying hours of
 picnicking and splashing.  Sylvie continuously said, "this is MY river!
 Piota is my river daddy!"   
    I asked Eliza again about her choice of her sisters name, and she
replied, "well daddy, I think I was just wondering if Piota had ever
lived in a country like this before she was born, so I thought of the
name for her... that's all.  Can you help me catch that fish!?"

Karen's mother and sister met us a day later, and we embarked on another
 family-adventure... the search for Varni!  Grandma ChooChoo (Ardath)
came from the Varni family, with roots "somewhere north of Genoa."  Paul
 managed to find a town of Varni on an obscure map, and Ardath just had
to go there... so we did!  With all the bikes, trailers, and gear
strapped on the roof of their rent-a-car, we set off on a long winding
drive through phenomenal hills and canyons looking for Varni.  Plenty of
 stops for foccaccia, fresh cherries and peaches, and beverages, then we
 saw the sign!  VARNI - 18km    Yahoo!  It really exists!  We drove up
up up the steep hills on a hilarious one-lane hairpinned road, past tiny
 towns and lots of lush forested countryside.  Varni was WAY up and out
in the boonies! 

Finally we got to VARNI's  "city limits" sign.  The "town" of Varni, at
the very end of the mountain road, was about 5 houses clustered around a
 single hairpin turn in the road.  A few really nice old men, plastering
 a new room, said that most Varni's lived back in Fascia, not in Varni
itself.  We also noticed that we were almost out of gas.  Fortunately it
 was mostly downhill all the way back to Genoa...  A few drinks with the
 Varni's in Fascia, a few "family photos", and we headed back down the
cliffs to the big city.

In Genoa we hopped a train for Vernazza, and have been enjoying the
rugged coastline for a day or 2.  Tommorrow it's off to Florence by
train to meet up with Paul's family for a week.  We miss the structure
of life on the bicycles, but it's also great fun to be with family and
to have more of a budget available for food and wine in this lovely
place!

This evening Eliza told me, "dad, if I don't swim one more time in the
Mediterranean Sea, maybe I won't ever get to again."  So OF COURSE we
went swimming "one last time."  She is also fixated on the fact that
Africa is right across the sea... just over the horizon!  "Dad, can we
just get one of these boats to take us over to Africa? I really want to
see what Africa is like, OK?"

Sylvie meanwhile has made a new friend named Lorenzo, from Rome.  The
two of them entertained the entire town tonight by running in circles in
 the main square, then hugging and kissing (on the lips, no less!) for a
 moment, and repeating.  Thirty minutes of this had many tables of
diners rolling with laughter and snapping photos.  Unfortunately Lorenzo
 and his parents return to Rome in the morning...  Ahhh, Sylvie will be
heat-broken! 

Buono Sera from Italia! Ciao!

6/11/2003

LAZING IN LOCARNO
Last stop in Switzerland

Ahhhh.... lazing along the lovely shores of Lago Maggiore, planning to head south to Italy tomorrow morning by ferryboat to avoid a particularly sketchy 30km section of narrow busy road.  We're actually taking a few rest days to allow Eliza some recovery time from her outrageous case of the ChickenPox!!!  Oh joy....  The last few nights in the tent have been rough on all of us, so we saw a doctor and obtained salves and tonics to ease her itches and aches.  The boat trip tomorrow will be a good motivator to get her back on the road at 8am!

Well, since the last update, we successfully road across two astounding mountain passes, the Grimsel and Nufenen!  Early early starts, lots of stops and snacks for the kids, slow tortoise-like pace for Karen and I, and cooperative weather were all contributing factors for a few amazing days in the high Alps!  Now that it's hot, sweaty, and semi-tropical, we are longing for that cold mountain air...

The other bonus has been the girls little tape recorder that we got them.  They have 5 cassettes and total control over the volume and rewind buttons when we ride, so we were treated to a medly of Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, John Denver, Chemystry Set, and a hundred of their favorite kids songs as we sweated up the steep hills.  Eliza even played "the little engine that could" for daddy 5 or 6 times in a row on the steepest bit of the Grimsel!  How kind of her!

The Grimsel was a 5,000 foot gain over 15 miles, and passed by several reservoirs and spectacular granite peaks...  Sort of like the east side of Tioga Pass, but 2,000 feet higher...  The Nufenen was shorter but steeper, about 3,200 feet gain over 7 or 8 miles, with lots of 10% and 11% sections.  Both were long and difficult, but we really enjoyed the ride!  Traffic was OK and very considerate of us on both, with loads of motorcycle clubs zooming along, and a few bikers too.  On the top of the Nufenen, we were informed by a few other cyclists that it is the highest drivable pass in all of Switzerland!  Surprise!  And as is always the case in the Alps, there is a cafe (or 2 or 3) and hotel on top of every pass.  So we were able to celebrate with cold beer, ice cream, and a crisp apple strudel for Eliza!  I hope to post photos, but am having trouble finding USB ports to plug into!  We are also a bit busy with the bikes, kids, and pox...

The descents from each pass were stupendous whooping glides down countless hairpin turns... well graded, smoothly paved, and so SO scenic!  Karen and I paused every 2 or 3 hairpins to enjoy the views, and to let the brakes cool.  I burned through a pretty fresh set of brake pads in those two days... just replaced them today.  We rolled downhill for the last 2 days through the gorgeous Levantina valley of Ticino province, through the town of PIOTTA (in the pouring rain), and now find ourselves in Locarno. 

All the villages have ancient stone houses, narrow cobbled streets, and tall church towers also of local stone.  Great swimming holes in the granite riverbeds, but there is always a flood warning sign because every stream seems to have a hydro project upstream!  And the Swiss Cycle routes are AMAZING... leading us along back roads, dirt tracks, quiet country lanes, and bikes only paths.  Just follow the little red signs! 

So now we head to Italy, for higher temperatures and lower prices (we hope!!!).  Our budget could use a break from pricey Switzerland!  All is going well aside from the pox problems... Sylvie will certainly get hit by them in a few days.... we hope for a lesser case than Eliza got.  Ouch!  But we are all in good spirits, really enjoying the rides each day and the amazing country and cultures we are experiencing. 

6/5/2003

INTERLAKEN, SWITZERLAND

Bonjour! Grüzie! Gruss Gött!

We are ON the road and rolling through gorgeous Switzerland, all according to plan, and even a bit ahead of schedule... which is nice!  The highest passes of our trip loom ahead in the next few days, and most folks we ask for information just shake their heads and moan "oh difficult... oh so tall and steep and you know so difficult..."  We are psyched to give them our best shot!

We began the journey with a whirlwind of tough traveling.  Flight to Munich, then wrestling our 3 huge bike boxes and 2 duffels (and 2 cute but exhausted kids) downtown on the train and subway. Pretty easy when we had access to luggage carts, pretty frustrating without carts and going up multiple escalators with both kids transformed into gelatious sleeping blobs!  Hotel overnight, then the morning train to Bern, Switzerland... more challenging gear movement, including a 6 minute train connection in Zurich that we barely made on the run with Eliza riding atop the speeding luggage cart through the station screaming "push faster daddy faster!"

Once in Bern, we unpacked and built the bikes and trailers on the BahnhofPlatz, and started riding... FINALLY!!!  It is so GOOD to be on the road, under our own power! The hassles of moving our gear across Europe only make the cycling part that much sweeter. 

We met mostly blank stares and serious looks as we built the bikes, but one man took great interest in us, Werner Marx, a local bike mechanic who works for an organization that refurbishes and sends used bikes to African villages!  Amazing coincidence indeed... He invited us UP to his place, which was just a 20km ride away and a 1,000 foot elevation gain.  Might as well jump right into it, eh?!

Great staying with his family, and he even rebuilt karen's front wheel bearing and rewired her broken cyclocomputer!  Danke shön Werner!  Then 2 truly gorgeous and idyllic days of riding towards Interlaken and Lauterbrunnen.  Covered bridges, greeeeen hills covered in flowers, ridiculously cute neat homes and barns with cows grazing, all with a backdrop of snow covered peaks in the background.  WOW... the Swiss also do great things for cyclists.  There are signed bike routes almost anywhere you want to go, and plenty of our time has been on "bikes only" paths. We even used a few freshly paved and perfectly graded bike offramps and underpasses to cross major roads... Ahhh the Swiss.  Everything works well here... and you pay for it too!

Spent a couple of days off the bikes hiking in stunning Lauterbrunnen Valley, with it's steep glacially carved cliffs and high waterfalls.  At the head of the valley are 4,000 meter peaks with icefalls and glaciers aplenty... It was hard to leave, but we did this very morning, and are ccycling along the Brienzer See (lake) today.  In the next few days we hope to tackle the high passes en route to Italy; either Grimsel and Nufenen, or Susten and St.Gothard. 

Gotta go!  Karen is outside with the kids, and they need a playpark... and a toilet stop!