Valtellina – Canzo 91.46km 4.55.17 ⏱18.6km/hr ⬆️ 530m (1115m on Suuz her Garmin) ⬇️ 610m (1212m on Suuz her Garmin) 🌡26C
We woke up after a night that felt way too short. Also, we heard rain 🌧clattering on the window and even some thunder 🌩 a little further away. We were not happy (and slightly hungover), but we had to leave, so we just got up and went down for breakfast. It’s hard to struggle with breakfast with the food feast in this hotel so we finished our plates without too much trouble. Afterwards we oiled the chain and pumped up the tires with the new pump Lotte brought. The same one as the one that got stolen in Split. We hugged goodbye to Mas her sister, waved one last time and left knowing we will see them again in a few days.
The road was soaking wet, but at least it had stopped raining. From Valtellina it was a great downhill all the way into Sondrio. From there this bike path started that would bring us through the Sondrio valley all the way to the grand Como lake. Since it was wet and a little muddy it took only minutes for our bikes 🚲 to look even worse than before we cleaned them, so that was an hour well spent (not). Also, Mas her bike started making a weird cracking sound all of a sudden. Nothing bad, but very annoying. The path was great, we had a pretty strong tail wind 💨 and we went just slightly down along the river. All of this made us go really fast, which is nice on a day we planned to cycle more than ninety kilometres.
Just before Morbegno the path stopped. At least it looked like it did. The main road next to us was not really an option. It was busy and one way only cause they were fixing the road 🚧. We stopped to weigh our options when this older man 👴🏼 cycled towards us and waved at us to follow him. And so we did. There was this hidden track with big rocks, gravel, mud and holes 🕳, but we trusted the guy and hoped it would be okay. It was pretty steep up and down so not comfortable at all, but we made it across and were able to continue on the paved bike path afterwards. Thanks 🙏man with bike!
When we got closer to the lake it got busier on the path as well. Weird enough we did not see one tour cyclist. We did expect to see more of them since it’s a bike path and a pretty popular area, but I guess they’re just not cycling towards Sondrio. There was corn 🌾 towering above us on both sides of the road, mountains ⛰in front and the river besides us. We had already cycled about 50 kilometres when we reached the head of the lake. We really had to pee and were in need of coffee ☕️, but nothing showed up. Luckily we found a hotel and could empty the bladder and get some caffeine. And stale carrot 🥕and chocolate 🍫cake.
After the necessary break we started with the twenty busy kilometres along the Como lake. Well it wasn’t that busy at all. There were definitely some cars and other cyclists, but it was all right. The view of the lake was nice and helped us kill the kilometres. We cycled though some tunnels we were anxious about, but since it wasn’t that busy and there was enough light in the tunnels it wasn’t a problem. It still worries Suuz that Mas wears all black and has black bike bags. She’s pretty much undetectable in a tunnel. Suuz is planning to Mas buy a fluorescent pink bike shirt 👚with sparkles, glow in the dark patches and little lights embedded into it. It’s gonna look great on her 👌🏻.
Once we hit Varenna we cycled right onto the ferry ⛴ that left as soon as we boarded. Pretty good timing! It was about half an hour to Bellagio, via Menaggio, so that was a nice second rest stop. We still needed to eat, so after a short uphill from the ferry we sat down at a take away restaurant and had a reasonably tasty slice of pizza 🍕and a cold drink. We already saw some dark clouds ☁️hanging over the mountains ⛰on the other side of the water and heard some of them banging together causing the sweet sound of thunder 🌩.
From Bellagio we cycled along the lake but then a little higher up over this narrow-ish mountain road with rock on the side. We love these kind of roads. It reminded us of Greece 🇬🇷 and Albania 🇦🇱 some weeks ago. Only this temperature is so much nicer, although it did get a little humid today. Right after we got to Onno, Onno who the flikfluck 🤸🏽♂️is Onno? Well it’s a town and we made a pee-stop over there.
And then we went up, all the way up. Some hair pin turns. Some long stretches. Some nice views and some spitter spatter rain 🌧 just before we made it up. We found a nice shelter, okay it was a bus stop 🚏, but it was dry cause it had a roof. When we thought it stopped raining ☔️we got back on the bikes, but half a kilometer later we took shelter because it started raining again. The bikes got all wet, but we ran into someone’s garage and stayed there for a few minutes before we decided we were just gonna have to deal with it and cycle the last five km to the B&B. Back on the bikes it was dry again and it stayed dry until we arrived at the B&B. The thing was impossible to find so Suuz called the dude who spoke not a word of English, but in the end we were guided to the place by a helpful neighbour.
It was already around four in the afternoon, so we took a shower, ate some leftover bread, posted some stories and walked to the Trattoria down the road just after seven. We planned to have crappy food since the last few days were so delicious and we have high hopes for the next few days as well. Our plan did not work. The food was very tasty indeed. We shared an antipasti of yellowtail tartar with an avocado and lime cream and amaranth popcorn. Followed by seafood 🦞 linguini with pomodorini 🍅 for Suuz and a shrimp 🦐 risotto with burrito and lime for Mas. We were very proud of ourselves as we stuck to our ‘no alcohol tonight’ promise 💪🏻. We have another long day on the bikes tomorrow, but it’s mostly flat so it will be okay. First we hope to have a good and long night of sleep 💤.
