At last ...

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OK, time to admit that I'm not going to catch up with this thing unless I move into fast forward summary, so here goes.

I think we were heading off to Italy weren't we? We had so many adventures just getting frm Santorini to Ancona in Italy. We bought an overnight ticket from Santorini to Athens on ANEK lines with a connecting ferry the next nigth fom Patras to Ancona. Only problem was the connecting bit. The 'bus' they provide wasn't running (so we found out after asking the purser on the first ferry who told us to ask reception who told us to contact the information desk who told us to contact head office in Athens when we arrived (why they couldn't pick up the phone and do it... and when I finally rocked up at the head office at Athens around 10am they told me there was no bus connecting us through to our next ferry 200kms away in Patras). In between all this, we had got back to our hostel, packed up the bikes (again), carted them down to the subway, smiled very nicely at the guard as we sauntered in (bikes aren't allowed), dragged them out to the interregional railway, where we found that there weren't nine trains every day to Patras (as per the website) - there was on, and it didn't get there until about the time our ferry departed. So by about 10.30am we weren't looking so good. I'd left christie to guard the bikes after the train problem to go buy her some new tubes and to talk to ANEK head office, where I'd found out there was no bus. Anyway, finally the girl at the ANEK office told me how to get a public bus to the interregional bus station and get a bus to Patras that way. So back I wen to Christie, we dragged the bikes back down into the subway (smiling again at the nice guards), popped up three stations over, found out that the bus I was told to catch was the wrong one (have I mentione dyet how much I hate ANEK?), managed to get on the right bus, had people falling all over us as the bus was standing room only and our bikes took up half the bus, until we finally got to the interregional bus station, and got onto a bus to Patras with minutes to spare.

I'm thoroughly convinced that bikes are great for travelling when theyàre on their own two wheels, but they're worse than a crying baby on a long distance flight when they're not.

We got to Patras around 3pm, and finally had a bit of luck with the bus stopping only 300 metres from the ferry, by 4pm we were on board, and (having been woken up at 5am from our pevious ferry and not eaten all day) I bought a 7 Euro Giros (usually 2 Eruos) and a beer and just thanked the wold that we made it.

The second ferry was much better than the first (the first stank and had a loose door which rattled all night) and so it turned out to be rather a pleasant cruise across to Italy.

We got into Ancona around noon I think, carted the bikes one last time, then put them together. We met our first bike toursist (who was getting on the ferry we just got off to go to Crete and only had a pannier bag the size of a handbag). Christie was looking at it very enviously. Managed to blow up yet another tube on Christie's bike while chatting to this guy (this time the valve just came flying off) but finally got under way and to the train station (500 metres down the road). It may not seem much but that was a big moment for us. There in came aother wait of 3 hours for a train to Cortona which we had picked to start out ride from as it was the end of a ride from Florence to Tuscany we foun din our Cycling Italy book so we thought a good as place as any to start.

After a few nervous moments we figured out where to store our bikes, and even made the 6 minute interchange where we had to get them off one train and onto another. The train trip was fantastic, just the most wonderful and beautiful country. I was actually gobsmacked, and it takes a lot of a lot to impress me. We headed up through Assissi and finally got off the train at around 8pm at a very, very deserted train station.

After a bit of trying to figure out where we were, we eventually just took off in what we thought might be the right direction, and found a sign pointing to Cortona. Cortona, it turns out, is at the top of quite a long (and if you go the way we did, vey steep in sections) hill. Still the ride up was magnificent, even if it was about 9.30 - 10pm by the time we finally knocked on the door of the (very dark) youth hostel. Nothing, we knocked and rang and finally called the number on the door, and were basically told to go away to some convent (which we never found). Finally, about 10.30 - 11pm, as we were standing on a corner deciding whether to pay 136 Euro for two beds, or 85 Euro at another spot for a room (closet) with a single bed, this nice lady walked up to us and offered for us to stay at her place for 65 Euro. We accepted, even thought it was well over our budget. Turns out the place is usually 90 Euros, and it was a wonderful old B&B. What's more, as we stepped in the door, there were four Americans and two Aussies who were all also cycling around Tuscany ...

Finally, as I crawled into bed around midnight, I felt like this holiday is getting on the right track, even if we've only clocked up 12.4kms.

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