All roads lead to Roma

Ave!

Here we are on the Italian Riveria, sipping wine from Orvieto and baking in the sunshine. Although don't feel too jealous - I (Claudia) got sunburnt through my top while biking, I've got 1001 itchy bites and we've got to put up with hairy near-nude Europeans who insist on ditching all but their speedos the second their feet hit the campsite. But these are our crosses to bear, just as work is yours.

Rome was a gluttony of sightseeing with all the usual suspects spotted - the Fountain of Trevi (had to settle for throwing our English pennies in as couldn't find our sesterti), St Peters Basilica and Square, the Roman Forum, Colosseum (next to Via Claudia!), various piazzas, the Vatican and Sistine Chapel, the Spanish Steps, and several gelaterias and pizzerias. Whew! George Bush Jnr even had a cameo whizzing past us twice in his excessively large motorcade (it included three helicopters).

There's probably only material enough for 3 complete buildings in Roma - the bronze ceiling of the Pantheon had to be requisitioned for an altar in St Peter's; the Colosseum marble floors have supplied various projects; and it sounds like the city has been in a revolving state of ruin for centuries.

From Rome we got back on the bikes and cycled north through Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany. The Tuscan countryside is justifiably famous although relying on our legs for propulsion we feel it's been under-reported in terms of its hills. Vineyards, olive groves and cyprus trees are the norm, interspersed with medieval hill-top towns. From a distance they resemble a castle on top of a hill, but encompass a whole town of cobbled streets, narrow alleys created by jumbled stone buildings, and the obligatory cathedral. The Gothic style came as a surprise but features large - lots of black-and-white striped zebraesque buildings with intricate facades of multicoloured marbles, mosaics and statues.

This is the paragraph on food. Our culinary tour of the world continues, and what beteter place than Italy? To this end we've learnt Italian, "Due espresso per favore!". What more do you need? Well, you need to be able to get 200g of cheese, salami, and proscuitto, and we can do that too. Our tried and trusted method of snack buying in Asia was to heft things, figuring more grams = more calories. Thus we were delighted to find you can buy pizza by the weight in Italy. Other favourites include gelati which comes in every flavour you can think of including local specialty wine varieties, and of course the wine itself. This must be the only thing that's cheaper than home, $7 NZD will buy you 5L if you're keen. A bottle of nice wine will set you back $10.

Aside from the wine Italy, in true Roman style, is plundering our coffers. A campsite here costs $40-50 NZD per night. Some tell you the showers are "free", others charge extra. At least after 5L of wine you don't really care.

Our last stop was Pisa, a seedy town with a leaning tower and zero ambience. It was a bizarre town with one main piazza filled with African touts and American tourists, and even a "native" North American Cherokee busking squad. The tower is astonishing and surrounding buildings are also amazing but its certainly not a place to linger (in fact we set our highest average speed today hightailing it out of there).

Tomorrow we're heading to Cinque Terre, five villages on the Riveria "clinging to the cliff faces or concealed in miniature inlets" (thanks tourist brochure). Then its over the Appenine mountain range (make it sound easy don't I?) which will take two days with the sun burning from the outside and lactic acid burning from within, down to Venice.

Ciao with love
C&D

2000km and Buns of Steel

We made it! 21 days of cycling, 2000km and only 2 days biking in the rain. We got to 8000km and have done over 500 hours of riding since leaving home. England was pretty, with its rural life and stone villages, but Scotland, well Scotland is where its at.

After Edinburgh we headed west to Loch Lomond which (despite the presence of millions of midges) was beautiful. Then it was through the highlands, where the scenery was highly reminiscent of parts of the South Island, and a welcome change from the rolling paddocks of England. The comparatively small mountains (highest in UK is Ben Nevis at 1300 odd meters, cf Mt Cook at 3800 ish) did a fine job of showing off some steep granite flanks and giving a general impression of grandeur, surrounded by tussock covered moors and the odd tarn, which of course here they call a Loch. On that, we have discovered that to the Scots, any body of water is ripe for the moniker Loch. Loch Linnhie is an inlet, Loch Lomond is a lake, and Loch Ba is a small alpine lake which we call a tarn. This led to a predictable renaming of our drink bottles.

Our route took us past Ben Nevis and its northern face which is not only steep but steeped in mountaineering history as its ice filled gullies have been targeted by generations of climbers. It was then onto Loch Ness (a lake, just so you know), where we did the obligatory monster impressions - no real sightings to report unfortunately. Two more days plugging up the east coast from Inverness had us arriving at John O'Groats as we had left Land's End - in the pouring rain. Very satisfying to reach the end point after being cut down just short of our last goal.

We took a guided day trip to the Orkney Islands, and were treated to stories ranging from fascinating WW1 and WW2 history based around the Scapa Flow harbour that was often used to shelter the British fleet, to very small town gossip, such as the life history of a swan the bus happened to pass, and a slow drive by of a paddock so we could all admire a lone deer that was apparently pregnant. This was clearly a woman who loved her community and loved her job. One story told of a German U Boat that managed to sneak into the harbour through a small inlet and sink a British warship. This led to 1000 or so Italian troops being shipped in from North Africa and a sidestepping of the Geneva Convention in order to put them to work building barriers that now form the causeways that link the islands. We visited the last remnant of their camp, which was a small chapel they built complete with Madonna and Child fresco that the artists stayed on after the end of the war to finish. It seemed like a far cry from the emaciated and haunted looking images of Allied prisoners we are all accustomed to. The Orkneys were also the site of the first British citizen killed in WW2 by a stray bomb during an air raid in the harbour. This despite London et al already being the subject of raids.

There are also tons of archaeological sites on Orkney. We visited some stone block houses from 3100BC (earlier than the Pyramids of Giza) and a couple of random standing stone formations that the use of is still unclear. There is much more to be discovered here with a major dig currently underway, so for a tiny wee place there is much to keep the otherwise unengaged cycle tourist interested.

Now we are in London frantically preparing for our departure to the Continent tomorrow. Rome beckons initially but from there it is still completely vague except for ensuring our presence in the French Alps mid July for the passing of the preeminent cycle Tour.

Ciao in anticipation

C&D

Exploration of extreme UK

A cold and blustery hello from Edinburgh. Its been a solid couple of weeks since our days off in Bath and Oxford. From there we headed north to Stratford-upon-Avon - the birth, and final resting place, of the Bard. Had a very atmospheric time at his grave which is in a church, and in a town full of tourists, we were the only ones there.

From here we got into moor territory. Through the Peaks District, which was surprisingly unpeaky, but certainly more rolly, then over more and more moors of increasing bleakness towards the Yorkshire Dales. It felt like we didn't see a tree for days on end, and with a cold wind harassing us from the East, it has been a cold and temper testing experience.

On the plus side, we have managed to survive the bank holiday without becoming homeless. Apparently the correct way to secure accommodation for this period is to book some 8 years in advance, and hand over the deeds to your house as a deposit. So thank you to some kind campsites who took us in. Other exciting events include cycling past Banbury Cross, seeing Dolly the cloned sheep (stuffed now), eating haggis, and buying Wensleydale Cheese of Wallace and Grommit fame.

In the north of England we stopped in a Hadrian's Wall to see the northern border of the Roman Empire. Many Asterix history lessons were fondly remembered. Then it was on to Scotland but with no border marker whatsoever, we are not quite sure when we entered. We are now in Edinburgh, so it must have happened at some point. Today is a day exploring the city. Its a fantastic place with huge stone buildings crowding the streets and tiny alleys squeezing between them. We did a really interesting tour of the Scottish National Museum, which included the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For nerds like us, that was pretty exciting.

Along the way we have been passing the time on the bikes by marveling at the oddity of English place names. They range from the absurdly normal such as Simon's Bath, Box, Choppingknife Lane, and Mousehole, to the straight absurd, like Nempnett Thrubwell, Wigglesworth, and Giggleswick. We had a telling warning just before reaching Scotland and whiskey country, when we spotted Booze, and just a short trip up the road - Crackpot. Perhaps we can start a new pseudoscience divining meaning from the associated experience of place names.

From here we shall battle our way north, into the Highlands and the ever present wind. We note that today is 29 degrees in Rome so are blocking out reality with visions of us there in a couple of weeks!

With a hearty cheer
C&D