Life is busy lately - work, house rejuvenation and those other things that take up your daily life. It's only six weeks before we jump on the big silver bird for 10 weeks of new and renewed experiences., meeting old friends and making new ones.
The car lease is almost finalized, accommodation is booked and the route is mapped. We fly into Rome at the end of September and drive to the little town of Gaioli in Chianti to meet friends for the famous one day cycling event, L'Eroica (Oct 5) which attracts over 5000 participants to ride the Strada Bianco - the white gravel roads of Toscana.
It has a magic of past great Italian cycling events and riders of days gone by. Coppi and Bartoli come to mind.
We spend a week with fellow Aussies who pretend that they are in the days of those gladiator bike riders - well there are the pleasures of those stops along the way with pasta, pizza and vino served by the locals.
We leave our Aussie friends after a week in the region to travel to Bologna and then to Bellagio in the lakes district of Italy. We've never been there before so we are quite excited. After our stay we move off to France over a four day drive to meet up with our friends in the Loire.
We have chosen the following route - so if any of our readers might offer some advice of places to see or eat at, we would be very appreciative.
Italy - Fiumiciano, Gaiole, Bologna, Piancenza, Bellagio, Turin.
France - Chambery, Tarare, Riom, St Romaine Sur Cher.
Sue had the desire to live in France for a year but we found that people outside of the EU can only stay for 3 months - maybe our two months will help to quell that desire or maybe, just increase it. Well that's life
The car lease is almost finalized, accommodation is booked and the route is mapped. We fly into Rome at the end of September and drive to the little town of Gaioli in Chianti to meet friends for the famous one day cycling event, L'Eroica (Oct 5) which attracts over 5000 participants to ride the Strada Bianco - the white gravel roads of Toscana.
It has a magic of past great Italian cycling events and riders of days gone by. Coppi and Bartoli come to mind.
We spend a week with fellow Aussies who pretend that they are in the days of those gladiator bike riders - well there are the pleasures of those stops along the way with pasta, pizza and vino served by the locals.
We leave our Aussie friends after a week in the region to travel to Bologna and then to Bellagio in the lakes district of Italy. We've never been there before so we are quite excited. After our stay we move off to France over a four day drive to meet up with our friends in the Loire.
We have chosen the following route - so if any of our readers might offer some advice of places to see or eat at, we would be very appreciative.
Italy - Fiumiciano, Gaiole, Bologna, Piancenza, Bellagio, Turin.
France - Chambery, Tarare, Riom, St Romaine Sur Cher.
Sue had the desire to live in France for a year but we found that people outside of the EU can only stay for 3 months - maybe our two months will help to quell that desire or maybe, just increase it. Well that's life
 |
| It was 2009 that we spent a week in this lovely cottage in Thenay, near Pontlevoy. At the time we didn't realise it came with friends. Since then we've returned twice to the warm friendship of the Loire. |
That's a great trip that you're planning.
ReplyDeleteI do hope we can meet up this time! We're to-ing and fro-ing quite a bit at the moment and have various commitments on both sides of the channel, but if you're in France during October it's likely that we will be chez nous for at least some of the time.
Really hope we do get the chance to finally say hello. Maybe there will be a Bloggers lunch where we get to catch up with others.
DeleteLooking forward to seeing you again. The time seems to have galloped by since we last met up. Take care D & N
ReplyDeleteAnd we/you Diane but you must also meet up with our friends Carol and Michael whom we are house sitting for. You've met Ken/Walt, Susan/Simon I guess?
Delete