Howdy.

Well....woke up, met up with Mike at the breakfast table and we had decided....its time to head north.....was going to do a route the night before....but fell asleep sitting up in bed again. Well its a bit of a challenge as the problem is that we are in a mountain range....and get ready for it tip number 4....... when in Europe or any where for that matter...Michelin maps are awesome..they mark the best roads in green...if you want they sell supplement books...green books...get it....that describe the marked routes. I've yet to ride a green road that wasn't great.

So the hotel in Trento gave us a map (tip 4.5 Best western hotels give out Michelin maps). My challenge is to make a route maximizing the green roads......but wee still need to get there......where ever that is.....lot of humming an hawing.....eventually settled on the town of Lucca.....close to Pisa. But how to get there....hmmmm. So stared and stared and a route started to appear...... I put it into the GPS. So the GPS says about 3 hours......to go 250 km. Well what we have found out is that it takes between 2 and 3 times as long.....due to the roads compared roads back home...they are so twisty full of small villages.

So....Mike is the weather guy....he checks the weather were we go. Looks like rain ahead.....no matter where we go. With that we packed up checked out and basically do the Ariva Dirchi to Rome. Naving out was easy......low traffic and riding local.

Well lets just say the roads were stellar we were carving them up pretty good but a few times my front would slip out on me.....then the back....was bizarre. Starting to question Rossi's statement on bridgestone tires. Didn't go over a cliff though so all good. As we wound around the country side in and out of small villages black clouds were ahead....time to don the wet gear. We pulled in an put our stuff on and off we went.

Not 15 minutes later we hit it. Started slow.....makes me a bit glad...hate putting on rain gear then it doesn't rain. So the rain just got harder..the roads were the same.....very twisty....and we are rising.....so its getting chilly too. Then the tires really started slipping out.....had a few holy freaking crappers and Mike too. So we pulled into a little town and it seemed like a great place for a cappuccino. Saw a door open....parked hopped off.....and wandered in....forming a rather large puddle were we stood. Stripped down and the nice gal said its not just a place for coffee..... no prob...we could eat.

So we ordered some pastas......and cappuccinos.....and faced the facts that we had to alter the route to a more direct one as we were climbing and heading deeper into the black clouds if we kept on the same route. No worries.....little map work and beep bop boop.   The GPS is set. We burp....gear up...and off we go. Get turned around trying to get out of town. The GPS was messed up....had to wing it....then we got on track outside of town.

Well it was interesting getting out of the twistys.....had to slow it up a lot.....lost count of how many slips I was having. They are nerve racking. But eventually we popped out onto straighter roads....that pretty much follow the coast line. And the sun came out. So off we went.....then the black clouds appeared right in front of us. No going around it. Mike noticed that it had formed a funnel cloud just off to our right.....was very interesting to see....just didn't quite touch the ground...then popped back up. We stopped to watch it for a bit.....but we had to get through it so off we went....good news was that it was way black jut to the right and way black just to the left.....lighter black right where we seemed to be going. It was going to be a down pour but could see bright sky on the other side.

On que the rain started.....but then the hail...crap it came down hard.....cars were slowing up and we just honked on it....we were passing everyone. I tried to be small as I could.....I got great gloves....they are padded well. The only thing is that the padding has gaps were you bend your fingers. So all of a sudden I start getting hammered right in the gap on me knuckles doing 110 on both hands on three fingers.......felt like someone took a ball-peen hammer to me fingers....felt it swelling up....but had to hang on and just go......or get pelted worse. We blasted out of it and Mike got hit too.....I was a little worried the screen might shatter but it held.

All good then the winds picked up....we were getting blown around pretty good....then in front another black cloud much blacker this time....no avoiding it. So we lucked out a bit....again it was like threading a needle....we seemed to end up going were it was least black.....we got dumped on but less hail this time. Last time it was like snow on the highway. Nice thing is that with the right gear...not a drop of water on me. Then it started to clear and sunny skys ahead all the way to Lucca. We got into town not too late....we had found a hotel the night before and with a great rate to boot. You know how. So we are officially in Tuscany again.

Quick change....get a complimentary drink and a recommendation on a pizza joint....and yup pizza for sure today. We wandered off and found the place....but with a different name.....seems the one recommended moved....but they looked like they knew what they were doing and they had vino and beer in the cooler.....and the gals at the table gave it a glowing review...so we plunked er down and had a couple of awesome pizzas.

Pretty sure Mike would agree....it was a great riding day...even with the hail and stuff.