Race day today! Seats were great, David P. did a great job finding them. After the race we got separated from the rest of the group, it was manic trying to get out of the circuit -bikes and cars everywhere. Doug took the bike over a field "I haven't been to Mongolia for nothing!" and must've saved us more than 45 minutes of mayhem. The snag was though, that we got to the other side of the circuit ant couldn't find the way back. That didn't put him off i...

Busy day today: met mum dad, and Chris and went to Flrence for the touristy bit. Florence is an amazing town with beautiful scenery and rich history, pictures to follow. The boys went to the practice session before the race tomorrow and apparently the seats are realy good. Off to see the race tomorrow. Zi aglomerata azi: M-m intalnit cu mama, tata si Cristi si am fost in Florenta. E un oras cu relief minunat si o istorie bogata,poze mai tarziu. Baietii s-au dus ...

Rest day today, finally. We're taking a break from riding until Monday, so we did the touristy bit today. Aparently some of the boys got really drunk last night, so they haven't surfaced all day. Some of us went around town for a walk, and had a very nice italian icecream. We had dinner at a rustic restaurant and for desert I had an amazing spinach cake with cream. Yes, I did write spinach - it was amazing!!! So good I might go back and ask the chef for the recip...

We made it! We're all in Italy, first leg of the trip is over. Today was a long day... We set off from Gluringen around 10:00 am and finally got to Prato around 6:00 pm. We were ok in Switzerland,the heat wasn't that bad. but when we reached the Italian border we had to stop and take some of the heavy gear off. We hit the motorway traffic, and I have to say that italians are very aggressive drivers: they don't leave any space to stop if anything goes wrong with ...