(the none-profit organization that set out this trip)

End of April, early May 2002 we went (on our bikes) to Tuscany. Obviously we hoped for nice weather, but the first day already was rainy. Thinking of postponing the trip for a day, we looked for the weather forecast on the German teletext and found out that heavy rain and gusts force 12 !! ( ) were forecasted for the next day. So we decided to go and hope for the best.

Sunday, at 12 o'clock we said good-bye to the neighbours and headed for Germany. As I said in the  rain. So we rode and rode, stopped every hour and a half or so for petrol and warm drinks and in the evening ( 7 pm or so) we were near Heidelberg, where we found a bed and breakfast over a Greek restaurant. The owner asked if we wanted hot water right away. Silly question, when you have been riding in the rain for so long.                         We did have a very nice meal though.

The next morning was better but not really dry. We rode through Austria (Fernpass) and ended up just before the Reschgenpass. We found a nice room, but as we discovered no restaurant that was open !                      The next morning we met a nice artist who was a crossing between Jim (in "taxi") and Kramer (in "Seinfeld").

BUT it was a nice day !!

We did the Reschenpass, which was a big disappointment and arrived in Italy. After a while the scenery became nicer.                              We then wanted to go over the Selviopass, but it was closed. We had to go to Morena instead, but did some nice passes as well.  We ended up at Lake Garda, where we found a room with a great view. Luckily the weather was nice and we sat in the sun, watching lake Garda. As you can see we had a beautiful sunset. 

The next morning was hot and we took off for the last leg of the journey towards our first genuine stop. Traffic was heavy, the Italians had the day off, as it was the first of May, so we had to ride a slow pace. Again after leaving the Garda area and some riding trough very flat surroundings, we came to a mountainous area and nice curving roads. That day ended at Gazzaro. There we had a very lovely hotel and sat in the sun for quit some time. NICE.

The next day brought us to a town nearby Lucca. We had bad weather and were glad to arrive at the hotel. We had to blowdry our clothes and get warm under the blankets.The trip towards here was nice though.                 The next day it rained again, so we decided to stay and go to Lucca. Nice city, terrible weather ! I decided to buy an umbrella of one of the many vendours, but according to Ilke the price was way too high. And she was right. After some hassling we got the umbrella for virtually free. Not a day to remember though.

Next we went to a place called Quercy al Pino. We had a stop at Pisa and were lucky to have nice weather again, though there was quite some wind. Now we were in Tuscany as we knew it from pictures in the books.                              The next day we stayed in the "area", had a very nice ride, on a nice day. Although the sky was very cloudy, we had sunshine most of the time !

 Firenze(Florence) for 2 days, again fairly nice weather. We had a nice hotel. A bit hard to find but we had travel directions which led us to the backdoor ! The man at the desk was very surprised to hear us from there (through a speaker). We got a discount for the room (but still it was expensive!). After settling in we headed for the town. There we had a discussion whether  Firenze was the same town as Florence. Not according to Ilke, but as we saw two guide books in a shop with the same cover, one for Florence and one for Firenze, we decided that both were the same. That changed our plans a bit. So we discovered the town. As we got back to the hotel the deskman (who we discovered in the afternoon was Dutch) said something had happened in Holland. I don't know why but my first thought was : "Someone killed Pim Fortuyn" (a somewhat discussed politician at that moment in Holland) and sure enough I was right ! I still don't know why I said that.

After Firenze up north again towards Massa (rain again). The last day of our journey took us to Livorno (rain !) to the railway station, where we had to wait for the night train to take us to Dortmund (Germany). We enjoyed that very much, because there were a lot of bikers there and they all had their stories. We met some bikers from Hamburg (Germany).                                                      And then, riding from Dortmund back to Doesburg and our trip was over !!!

All together some 2800km (approx.  1750 miles)

© 1999-2004 Henk Vink and Ilke Harmsen