I'm not at work today

Its taken me 10 days to get to Venice from the french border. Yes, even i am surprised it was that quick! The roads in this part of Italy are as you might of guessed straight and definitely flat ( well compared to the alps anyway). I even managed to trike 95k in a day, although that was the exception rather than the rule. Most days i look at doing 70-80k which takes about 6 hours on the road. At one point i was able to 28k in one hour.....trust me that is fast for my trike!!!!!

The towns I've camped in have all been in campsites that are about a 30 minute walk from the town centre, so unlike France, when i get to the campsite in the mid afternoon i pretty much stay there swinging in my hammock keeping out of the hot hot sun! ( i hear its quite wet in England these days ) On the two occasions that I've "camped" in a hotel/hostel i did make good use of the fact that they were in the centre of the town.

Today, i am spending my second day walking around the city of Venice. Its a 20 minute boat trip from the campsite. It's a beautiful city with a confusing maze of streets, passageways and bridges. After about 10 minutes on the 1st day i gave up trying to use the city map and just wondered around.

So far i have managed to resist the temptation of buying tourist crap (sorry "quality gifts from Venice") and have just stuck to the traditional buying of beer and pizza. Its great when you can eat what you like knowing that the next day you'll be burning all those calories off. If you ever want to lose weight, increase muscle mass and lung capacity.......get yourself on a bike and cycle to the north east of Italy

Tomorrow I'll be having a day at the campsite and then i will be back on the road on Friday, heading down the coast for a few days before heading inland to Florence.