Hi all!

We are in Greece!!  Blue skies, green waters, white hills and a breeze rolling off the seas into the port of Patras!  2200 miles done already and 300 more to go to Athens.  Having a fantastic time despite some bumps and scrapes (see update below) and are excited for the rest of the ride.

Problems with the mobile phone (which might well be completely  dead now… also related to the bumps and scrapes) and steering clear of most cities has prevented us from updating as much as we would like.

Also haven’t been able to check emails to see how everyone is doing but hope all is well!  It is great to see that the pledges are still coming in!  Thanks so much again for your support and we hope that the actions have been fun/meaningful for you.  Look forward to hearing more about them when we get back.  We have been speaking to people along the way about our project as often as we can and handing out cards so hopefully we are getting through to people on this end.

Here is a quick overview of our trip through Italy:

Anyway- we crossed over into Italy from France around the beginning of October and followed the Italian Riviera all the way to Pisa more or less- camping on hills over looking the ocean.  Really pretty- not as rich as the French Riviera but the coast line was just as impressive.  The region on the far eastern end is called the "Cinque Terre", referring to 100km of rugged coast line covered in pine trees with five villages built up on cliffs along the way that can only be accessed by steep roads coming down out of the mountains into them.

This was gorgeous, of course, but the traffic was horrendous------ cars constantly around and insane Italian driving.   After Cinque Terre we turned inland towards Pisa--- and yes, the tower really is leaning.  But other than leaning it is actually gorgeous, as is the marble duomo (cathedral) that goes along with it.  And then from Pisa we went on to Florence..... which was obviously amazing..... just to be in a place that was the center of a movement that changed the world...... so much art and architecture and famous landmarks around every corner.  It was expensive but we went to the Uffizi gallery which houses one of the world’s largest collections of renaissance art---- so many fantastic pieces!  We really loved the Botticelli’s.

From Florence to Rome we rode through Tuscany... and that was probably our favorite terrain that we have come through so far.... rolling fields, forests and vineyards and cypress trees and walled cities..... and cheap, amazing wine!  Siena in particular was fantastic- probably one of the most beautiful towns that we have seen in Europe yet.  Rome was massive and insane… but of course we couldn’t miss it…. So we cycled through and spent two nights camping on the outskirts…. The colleseum, pantheon, roman forum, Spanish steps, all of that.  so much to see...

From Rome onwards we had a choice to make.  Rome is on the west side of the peninsula and Brindisi (where our ferry to Greece departed from) is on the east side.  Between lay the Apennine Mountains with peaks of up to nearly 9,000 feet.  Our friends who had been cycling with us decided to take a train across as winter is already setting in and snow is on the peaks and passes.  We really wanted to cycle through but the nights had been really cold up to Rome so we had to be careful about the route that we selected.  We settled for a lower pass (3000 feet) north East of Naples which would get us to Brindisi in about 8 days or so from Rome.

Long story short…. The cold wasn’t the problem…. Rather it was warm enough to create a massive lightening storm… one of the biggest that I have ever seen.  On the night before doing the mountain pass we were hit with the storm (which came in a serious of bouts) at about 3 am.  We were camped in a field near a forest and could see the storm coming at us--- literally raining light--- almost constant bolts from sky to cloud.  It was just too dangerous to be in the tent and we had just enough time to make a run for it so we left the tent and dashed across a field to an overpass of a train bridge that we had seen before setting up camp.  Only about 3 minutes after we got there the storm hit- lightening everywhere and winds that were bending the trees- bits of wood flying and a flash flood that ran right under the bridge.  We huddled together in the cold trying to wait it out and very happy that we had made the dash when we did.  For about 5 minutes the bolts where all around with some hitting probably only several hundred feet away.  About an hour or so later… as the sun was coming up… it finally passed.  We returned across the field to our tent exhausted,  cold and excited to slide back into our sleeping bags.  Seeing shapes on the far side of the field I said “well, at least the tent made it” to which Helena said “hm, I see the bikes…. But where is the tent?!”.  Where the tent had been there was now only a pile of clothing and gear that had once been in the vestibule now scattered across the field.  The tent we did find moments later- ripped out of the ground and tossed into the trees on the far side of the field.  The tent was a bag of water and everything was soaked….. clothes, books, journals, phone, camera, sleeping bags….. everything.  We plucked what we could find (which was thankfully almost everything) out of the field, tent and forest (where we had to search to find broken bits of Helena’s helmet that had been smashed into a tree) and separated the gear into piles from least wet to most sopping.  Cold, wet, tired and disheartened we made our way back to the nearest town to get ourselves dried out.

Only it didn’t work that way….. it turns out that there are not such things as Laundromats in Italy so we had to cycle another 60 k in the rain to a city where we got an expensive botch job from a drycleaners that left us with stinking clothes and limp sleeping bags.  NOT HAPPY DAYS.  It continued to rain for two more days but we bit the bullet and got a hotel for one night and took over the place as our drying rack…. Eventually… things were dry enough to go on.

The mountain pass was gorgeous and we were just fine.  Two days later we were in Puglia (the flat ‘heel’ of the boot of Italy) and in high spirits again.  And today….. in Greece!

So that is the story long and short.  We have 3 weeks left and only 300 miles to go, so we are hoping for a relaxed ride… Olympia, Sparta, Corinth and Athens to come!  The weather is warm and we are excited once again.

Well, if we want to get out of the city to find camping we should get a move on.  Thanks again for following along and hope to see all of you soon!

Much love,

Helena and Mike