Today was another rolling day of cycling with lots of climbing thrown in, and of course there was an optional climb up a huge mountain for the hardy souls of the group. The day began much like the previous day – a big breakfast at 7:30, bags packed and downstairs at 8:30, and everyone at the bikes by 8:45. Libby was feeling a little tired after the previous day’s exertions, and was a little worried about how she’d fare on today’s ride. I, meanwhile, was a little worse for wear for other reasons – my stomach was acting up (perhaps due to the level of exertion the previous day), and I wasn’t sure how long I’d make it before being forced to make a rapid exit for the nearest restroom. We dutifully trooped down to pick up our bikes, however, and got ready to roll out. Our guides went over the course with us, handing out direction sheets that we all stuck in our pockets, and explained that today’s course, while hilly, should be much less difficult than the previous day. They also admitted that the previous optional climb, the Mottarone, was perhaps a bit harder than they had expected: “It didn’t seem as difficult from the van when we previewed it”. After everyone finished sighing with relief, they explained that there was another, even longer optional climb today, although it was not as steep. Directions done, we all suited up and rolled down the road, enjoying some beautiful lakeside scenery dotted with castles and ancient villas. Even better, the road was mostly flat, so we took it easy and chatted as we rode, getting to know each other a little better. Of course, nothing good can last forever, and after our morning cappuccino-break the road swung steeply upwards. This climb was a mere 6 kilometers with a thousand feet or so of climbing, so we only “got” to experience it’s pleasures for about a half hour this time. As usual, Jerry (the mountain goat of the group) leaped up the road with a huge grin on his face, while the rest of us settled in for a painful grind to the top. I was still feeling a little queasy, so I decided to take it easy and just spin slowly up without exerting myself too much. I was soon on my own as everyone got into their own rhythm, and just concentrated on making it to the top. Amazingly, as the ride went on I actually started feeling better, and before too long I made it up to the finish of the climb. Meanwhile Jerry was already rocketing back down the slope to meet his wife and climb up with her again, with that same huge grin on his face. I decided to play the gallant gentleman myself, and cruised back down looking for Libby. Before too long though, she came into view, far ahead of everyone else in the group. Excited by her great riding, I swung in behind her and began offering encouragement. Unfortunately, Lib isn’t much for gallantry, and soon told me to “shut up so she can concentrate on getting this done”. I wisely followed her instructions, and within a few minutes we reached the top for a much deserved water break.  After refilling our bottles and regrouping with everyone, it was decision time: from here we could either do the huge optional climb, or have lunch and then cruise on down to our new hotel. Since I was still feeling reasonably good after the climb, I decided (perhaps foolishly) to

Looking down at a hairpin turn from the climb

once again go for the harder loop, along with Jerry and the lone Brazilian on the trip, Eduardo. Everyone else, meanwhile, decided they’d rather skip lunch and just keep riding, so we said our goodbyes and headed off. The road once again shot upwards, and Jerry and I decided to pair up and climb to the top together. The climb itself was actually a great deal of fun: it was much bigger than the previous mountain, and longer at 13 km in length, but it wasn’t as aggressively steep, so Jerry and I had plenty of time to chat and exchange stories while taking advantage of the views to snap some photos.  Jerry kindly didn’t push the pace too hard, and after only about 45 minutes we reached the top and stopped to enjoy the view. With Eduardo and Hendrick another half hour behind us, we decided to descend off the mountain as fast as we could in the hopes of reaching the hotel before everyone left for lunch, and we ended up rocketing through what is so far my favorite part of the tour: beautiful small villages,

Filling up at a village fountain

spectacular mountain vistas, and an alpine creek littered with marble boulders the size of small cars. It was so much fun that we both agreed we didn’t want to tell our wives about how nice it was, because we knew they’d wish they had gone on the ride as well. Eventually we rolled into the hotel, arriving about 15 minutes after everyone from the short tour did, and we swapped stories about our respective rides. As predicted, Libby and Stacy (Jerry’s wife) were both irritated they’d missed out on such a spectacular ride, but it sounded like they had a good time as well. Impressively, Libby was feeling so good that she and another rider (Joe – do you like how I’m littering names throughout this?) had left everyone else in the dust and shot on ahead towards the hotel. Unfortunately, it turned out that Joe had a pretty poor sense of direction, so they got lost and got in an extra climb or two of their own before reaching the hotel at about the same time as the rest of the group. Once we all had exchanged our stories and gotten something to drink, we agreed to meet for some shopping and lunch in a half hour, and everyone headed up to get changed. We all ended up getting some pastries, pizza, and coffee together, and then finally Libby and I headed back up to the hotel for a much-deserved nap before dinner.

We were on our own for dinner, however, an older couple on the trip from New York asked to treat us.  It was extremely nice and we visited an excellent restaurant, La Lira. We shared some great stories, great wine, and truly excellent spicy rabbit taglietella. The night finished off of course with gelato.

Steven at the top of Mottarone!

Today was our first full day of the tour. We woke up early for breakfast then met up for a map review and headed out. We cycled hilly terrain to Lago Maggiore and stopped for cappuccinos at a café overlooking the lake. We saw the St. Charles state (Sancarlun), a giant statue built in the 1500s. You can pay to walk up the statue and overlook the town. The statue of liberty was based off of this statue and the builder came to Lago Maggiore to study this statue before building lady liberty. After a pretty grueling uphill climb we reached the town of Stresa. In the town is a fountain that we people go to for filling water bottles and containers. We filled our bottles and soaked our heads. While we were there an old Italian man approached and begun filling his bottles; he told us that this water makes the climbs easier. With that good omen we headed off to Arona. On the way at an intersection we stopped to regroup and a bunch of older Italian cyclists stopped as well. They didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Italian but through pantomiming and hand gestures they told us we were crazy for heading up to Monte Mottarone and a mountain climb that is higher than the sky. The Monte Mottarone was an optional extra loop as it is extremely, extremely challenging – it was used as one of the hardest climbs of the Giro d’Italia a couple of years ago. Steven decided he was up for the challenge and I opted (despite my pride) to ride the van up the mountain with several other members of our group. The climb was 11km with an average of 14% elevation and ramps of 20% elevation. Riding up in the van I became increasingly nervous about Steven doing the climb. He is a strong rider but this was one intense climb and it just kept going. At the top of Mottarone is a gorgeous lookout. I nervously waited and when he and Joe came into sight I was very relieved.  During the climb his handlebars became loose and he had to pull off because they were completely downwards. Without giving up and despite some stomach issues he made it and I am so proud of him.

When we all made it back to the hotel we put on our swimsuits and headed for a dip in Lago D’Orta. It was wonderful.

The dinner was another five course meal at a restaurant overlooking the lake in the town square.

Finally at our hotel and totally beat and hungry after no sleep and much travel we could not check into our hotel. We asked the front desk where to go to eat until check in time. With extremely unhelpful directions we headed out with visions of pizza, gelatos, and cappuccinos. After wandering streets in scorching heat we found a map and headed up a giant slope towards what promised to be a collection of buildings with a coffee cup, plate and fork according to the map. The buildings, however, were 15^th century meditative sanctuaries built by St. Francis of Assisi; not the town we were looking for. Worse, the promised food attraction was a junk food vending machine. It was an amazing sight, though, and while there were no restaurants to be found I had to remind myself to enjoy the view and not to be grouchy from the travels. We walked in one of the chapels, I guiltily prayed for pizza and some sense of navigation, and took a moment to look out over Lago D’Orta (the gorgeous mountain lake we were above.  We then decided to walk back to the hotel for some better directions. It’s often mentioned how bubbily and friendly the Italians are; this hotel must be an exception. After unhelpfully being told “you have to walk more than two minutes (you lazy Americans), we explained that we had walked for an hour, but had ended up in a museum instead.  We finally received some slightly better directions and headed off again, this time finding an incredibly charming town square. It was truly spectacular. We ordered pizza, cokes, and of course, gelato. It was fantastic; thank you St. Francis. We meandered through tiny streets and explored the town, taking in the lakeside charm. We then went back to the hotel to check in and meet our Ciclismo group for an orientation meeting. At the hotel we were treated to sparkling wine and snacks, (St. Francis was on a roll), and met the nine other members of our tour, along with the two guides. After orientation we adjusted our bikes and headed out for a hilly warm-up ride of 13 miles. After the brutal travel from Germany to Italy I was toast and the warm-up ride was difficult. The heat didn’t help either – we hadn’t felt anything this warm since leaving Indiana. I was a bit worried about the trip but before I left Emily kept telling me over and that nothing compares to the cycling in Italia! We had dinner that night in the town square; a full five course meal that lasted 2.5 hours. The food was good, and Steven was in heaven – he got to discuss the Tour de France, soccer, and every other sport he loves but never has anyone to chat with about. After finally finishing off the last course and strolling back to the hotel, we crashed for the night.

The past two days have been an epic adventure in travel. We made it to the Dresden airport, checked into our flights and found out we had to check our carry on bags. Down 150 more euros we found our gate, and discovered that we really hadn’t needed to check our bags after all: bummer. After chilling at the airport for a couple of hours we caught our flight to Cologne without issue. Our flight connecting flight to Milan, however, was delayed for two hours. Two somewhat crummy cappuccinos (complements of Germanwings) and a couple of Castle episodes later (yeah Amazon Kindle!), we finally made it into the air and eventually arrived at Milano-Malpensa around 9:30 PM. Unfortunately, the airport is not actually in Milan but an hour away by bus or train (Did I mention we were quite hot and tired by this point?) Fortunately, Rick Steves had clear directions about navigating to the train platforms and how to pick up our tickets at the convenient ticket kiosk along the way. What he failed to mention as that the kiosk no longer exists, and that the ticket machine is impossible to understand even if you can figure out how to switch it to English. After several aborted attempts at buying tickets, we finally bumbled through the menus on a machine, found our train and an hour later we were actually in Milan. From there it was a short hike to our hotel through some charming, cobbled Italian Streets. The charm was somewhat dampened by the oppressive heat (even at 11 PM), the clouds of mosquitos, and the weight of our luggage bouncing across the cobbles, but we charged on. Fortunately, the tech-savvy Steven had cached a map of Milan on his phone (I am so sorry Steven for bugging you for messing with your phone, you were right: it was not easy to navigate as Rick had led me to believe). The hotel owner spoke no English and when he asked what time we would be leaving could not understand that we were taking a train not a plane. After much confusion, repetition, pointing, writing, and putting our bags in our room we were able to communicate during the second try that we would be taking the 5:18am train. He graciously called us a cab for the next morning and told us to be in the lobby at 4:45 and not earlier because he wanted his sleep. By the time we made it to our room it was close to midnight. Mr. Steves describes this place as “a simple 30-room hotel with overstuffed little living rooms, an inviting breakfast room, and all the amenities” that is “tucked away on a quiet side street just off vibrant Via Dante.” All I can say Rick Steves is EPIC FAIL. Lying on a stone slab after a rough day of travel Steven and I tried unsuccessfully to think of a worse hotel we have stayed in; this place topped the list. The smell was indescribable – a combination of mothballs, mildew, and decay. The air conditioner did not work as I found out when I turned it on and soaked Steven with stagnant water that spilled out of the unit awkwardly located near the ceiling, so I tried to open the window to find that there were wooden slats covering the opening. Steven literally did not fit in the shower and had to open the door to turn around. The last words I heard from Steven as I was falling asleep was “I hope this room doesn’t kill me in my sleep.” Amazingly we both woke up at 4am, packed up our stuff, made it to the lobby at 4:45 exactly to find the owner asleep on the couch and the taxi waiting outside. We ended up having to wake the owner to let us out of the hotel and took the taxi to the train station. After another confusing round at the ticket machine we purchased out tickets and made it on our train. We had a change over in the town of Novaro. Unfortunately in Novaro our next train was cancelled leaving us stranded and trying to figure out buses.  Now comes the Rick Steves kudos; the Italian Survival Phrases page of his book was a life-safer. The only change I would suggest is taking out the “Parla inglese? PAR-lah een-GLAY-zay Do you speak English?” and instead just changing the title of the page to “Italian Survival Phrases- You’ll Need Them No One Here Speaks English.” So we made it to Orta Miassino hiked down a hill and to the hotel.

Today was our final full day in Dresden, and we decided to spend it mostly recovering and getting ready for the next stage of our trip in Italy. One of the things we needed to address was a distinct lack of clean clothes around the hotel room, and after several hours of doing laundry we have concluded that Laundromats are pretty much the same experience all around the world. The German ones are perhaps cleaner than usual, but they’re all pretty much exercises in boredom. For dinner we asked the hotel concierge for recommendations (over Steven’s protests). After procuring a couple of candidate restaurants, we headed over to the Altstadt and found Sophienkeller, the first restaurant recommended. Like most restaurants, it had indoor and outdoor seating, and seemed like a reasonable place. We walked inside as I was hoping to find a rebuilt beer hall – the kind of place where beer steins would be clinking and maidens would be scattering about – a place that would suddenly erupt in boisterous song. Instead we found ourselves behind a very excited tour group wildly snapping photos. Following their lead, I pulled my camera out only to notice utter embarrassment on Steven’s face. Before acknowledging the embarrassment I too took some photos. The maidens were definitely scurrying about along with heavily made up, over the top costumed characters. We had ended up in the one restaurant Steven had been adamantly avoiding: the Gastronomie, one of a series of themed Germanic restaurants.  His co-workers had said of the place, “one does not go there to eat”; now we were stuck in a German Medieval Times restaurant. The barmaid offered us a seat along with a larger party at a “traditional trestle table”, a prime seat on the swinging carousel, or a spot outdoors in the fairly normal-looking square, which we chose. Unfortunately the only somewhat redeeming quality of the place is its entertainment, which is not apart of the outdoor seating. It was by far the worst meal in Germany. (Note from the editor – this may or may not have resulted in Libby’s restaurant-choice privileges being revoked. Also, never trust the concierge at the Westin Bellevue. Libby should have known better after trying their recommendation for “an excellent bakery for breakfast”).

After that less than ideal experience we walked around the Altstadt in search of Dresdner Eierschecke, a local cheesecake-like desert. We ended up wandering into the main square where the Frauenkirche and other historic sites are, and eventually stumbled across a nice restaurant in the shadow of the church. There we had some excellent hot chocolate and Eierschecke while sitting outdoors, and wonder of wonders, saw green vegetables being served to the other patrons around us! This place was noted for future visits, as it looked a whole lot better than where we’d just finished eating. The rest of the evening was spent walking around Dresden and practicing photography skills along the waterfront, before we finally headed back to pack our bags.

Dresden has been an interesting place to visit so far, although as Libby said it is unlike many of the cities we’ve seen previously in Germany. This is the first time we’ve visited an East German city, and it definitely has a different feel fromthe west. For one thing, there’s a heck of a lot more concrete. It’s still been a fun place to stay, though, and I’ve enjoyed my two weeks here. The food is probably the biggest problem I’ve faced so far, as we had more pork in our first two dinners here than I’ve had in the previous year (Oh, for the record: SchweinHaxe? Avoid it. No, really).  My coworker, John, and I made it a point to hunt out non-Saxon food after that, with varying success – we tried Indian, Spanish Tapas, Australian, Italian… and avoided the Tex-Mex place (with real cowboys) like the plague. Unfortunately we were limited to the Altstadt near our hotel for most of our meals, so the restaurants tended to be fairly touristy. We also made it a game to try and see how long we could stick with German in ordering our food. Game over was when the waitress/waiter either got impatient with our stumbling German and switched to English, or we ran out of vocabulary and were forced to change. In a good round we’d get to dessert, in a bad round the waitress would hear “Ich möchte…” and immediately say “ah, I speak English”. Our best bout came when we got a waitress who didn’t speak English at all – game on!

As for work, well, it’s been fun. The guys that work in Dresden are a nice bunch, and they’ve been good about taking us out for lunch every day and telling us about what its like to live here. Generally the morning starts for me with a jog down the Elbe (which has some pretty spectacular scenery, and it’s flat!), followed by breakfast with John at a bakery in the plaza next to our hotel. Then we checkout our bikes, ride 3 km down the river path to our office, and get a couple hours of work done before the rest of our coworkers show up at 10:00.  After that, it’s meetings for a while, a walk to a restaurant for a two hour team lunch, meetings for another hour or two (often sitting outside the coffee stand next to the office, which has the only good coffee in Dresden), then we bike back down the river to our hotel and start hunting for dinner. All in all, I could live with the German workday J.