Mountains and Lakes - Switzerland and Italy

By my reckoning, I've now been on the road for two and a half months. Time to make some awards: Best for food - the French. Unsurprising really, but there's nothing like a French croissant or baguette no matter how hard the rest of Europe try, and the quality of the food is just so high from markets or restaurant. Biggest surprise was Belgium - a lovely country with lovely people and I'll definitely head back again. Best roads: Switzerland. They win by a margin. I met a family a couple of nights ago who described driving over the border to Italy as driving into one big pothole. The Germans came a somewhat distant second and unsurprisingly the Italian roads thus far are the worst. For cycle lanes, I think that the Dutch have it by an edge from the Germans. They both have wide networks, but the when the cycle path is wider than the road in parts, you know that the Dutch have their priorities right! Scenery comes down to a three-way battle between some glorious parts of the Rhine and the Black Forest in Germany, the Italian/Swiss lakes that I'm traversing at the moment and Lake Geneva. I think that Switzerland just nicks it due to the view from Montreux out into the lake surrounded by the start of the Alps. Oolderhuuske in the Netherlands definitely deserves a special mention and also wins in the Best Value category, with Lake Lugano coming out as worst (not that it wasn't lovely, it's just that CHF40 a night combined with Swiss prices for everything else is not easy on the wallet). That was last night, which brings me neatly onto now! As I write I'm sitting just off Lake Maggiore. The coast is about 100m away and it is seriously hot. I left off last time in Geneva and headed out the next morning towards Lausanne, fittingly the home of the International Olympic Committee, though I doubt many will be staffing their offices now! The campsite was nothing special when considering the price but it was clean and within a short walk of the Lake (Geneva still). An early start the next morning took me off towards Montreux, a town about the size of St. Helier though slightly more affluent! The morning's ride was seriously tough, including a chunk of pushing the bike uphill when heading through the foothills of the mountains that surround the region. Although this was a huge effort and had me almost wiped out by lunch-time the afternoons ride was absolutely joyful! After a couple of hours drifting up and down the side of roads clinging to the hills and a short stint under a tree to avoid the heat of the day the first big chunk of the afternoon was spent racing down long winding roads through vineyards towards the level of the lake and the second chunk winding along the waterfronts of the towns crowding the coast. It was great when a fifteen foot tall bronze Freddie Mercury hove into view, and I stopped off for the obligatory photographs and to soak up the wonderful atmosphere and weather. Montreux is a great town for music and there are live jazz bands and individual musicians dotted around all over the place. The campsite was a welcome surprise at a very reasonable CHF18 a night (about £11). I said at the start of my trip that if I particularly liked anywhere then the freedom of my plans would give me the chance to indulge and the weather, scenery, atmosphere and everything else persuaded me to stay for a few days to take it all in. After that it was down to Italy. A short (four hours, standing with my bike) hop over the Alps dropped me off into Milan and I swiftly jumped on another to head back up towards the Italian lakes starting with Lake Como. After stepping out into the sweltering humidity and heat of the region my priority was to find a campsite - the ones I had scouted out were 15k away and through some pretty tough looking hills. With it getting on in the evening Christian (that's my brother by the way) came to my rescue with some research on campsites a little closer to me! At about half-pas eight I pulled in to a very basic campsite, though with the welcome addition of a swimming pool and a good restaurant. After a short dip I partook of my first pizza in Italy for some years and was thrilled that a hefty calzone, half litre of beer, large carafe of wine and a snifter of grappa came to less than the cost of a store-bought lunch a couple of days before! The swim and part of the evening were spent in the Company of Andy and Anne, a couple of CTC members with two of their daughters in tow who followed a similar route to me though sightly faster as they had on this occasion eschewed the bikes and jumped into the car!! Friday's ride was a relatively short one 45k) to try to adjust to the condition of the roads, temperature and humidity and of course the temperament of Italian drivers. In the latter regard I've been pleasantly surprised - although they drive undoubtedly quickly and a few times closer than I'd like, they are for the most part aware and understanding of cyclists. The amount of cyclists on the road during the weekends might give some explanation as to why this is the case, and a large proportion of the drivers must be cyclists themselves. For the second time in two days I crossed the Swiss/Italian border as I hurtled on to Lake Lugano (60kph is seriously fast when you're load with as much gear as I have!). Lugano was, as I've said, both seriously stunning and seriously expensive. A bad wifi connection (charged for) and a camp party with assuredly the World's worst DJ (playing New York, New York halfway through a rousing set whilst trying to sing along but not knowing the actual words really kills the atmosphere - I could tell from a tent thirty feet away...) left a bitter taste in the mouth, thou assuaged somewhat by the experience the next morning of watching the sun rise from behind the mountains from the confines of my tent. I'd done most of my packing before the sun was fully up which is a must here as the temperature in the tent goes from comfortably warm to hotter than a beach on Mars in a matter of minutes. I still don't think this is gong to inure me to early starts however. Today's ride (for that was this morning) was probably the best day's riding I've ever had. Starting off following the lake around for half the morning followed by climbing the foothills through typically Italian towns in the strong sunlight, then drifting down through Varese and towards Lake Maggiore I extended my ride somewhat, following the river at the foot of the lake for a few miles before crossing and heading back up towards the campsite. This is another truly beautiful part of the world, and the people here (albeit many of them tourists) are lovely. I've been offered use of a cooler for my beers today by one neighbouring tent and been fed a large slice of watermelon by the other! There are so many little comedies that I see when I'm riding, too numerous to mention - stints of off-roading when I decide that I know the route better than the GPS, children trying to row a boat across the river Neckar, an old man teaching himself windsurfing with extremely limited success or just watching the ducks, swans, herring-gulls, pigeons, starlings and other sea birds fight out the hierarchy whilst being fed bread. I know that I've got a few of these on camera which I'll share as soon as I can but the are hundreds that remain only in memory, but I'm glad they're there at least! The sun has just gone down, the temperature has dropped from it's earlier high and the theme tune to Top Gun is drifting through the breeze from a nearby camper van. I'm off to cook my dinner and I think I'll call that a night!