Day 15 - Silvaplana to Lecco

This was a glorious day.

I arrived at the repair shop early, where a generous Swiss realigned my wheel and declined to accept payment. I set out along the flat shore of the frozen lakes and ate up the miles, though a few frankly churlish climbs insisted on reminding me that it would not all be so easy. Soon I came to the high end of the Malojapass, which would take me down more than 1400 metres to Chiavenna. The road wound serpentine down the steep mountainside and I felt like Tiff Needell in the mid 90s as I rounded corner after fast corner and more and more road spread out before me.

I will not forget the image of the broad spread of the valley drawing me back down to earth and the thrill of reaching my top speed of 31.5 mph as I approached the Italian border. The closer I came to this next country the more signs I could see of its innate style. The villages and small towns I passed through provided hundreds of delightful little snapshots and if I had had more time I could have spent all day with the camera in any one of them.

After crossing the border, there was a brief hold up as a helicopter lifted entire pines off the mountainside onto a truck below. This sight was so impressive I was happy to wait with the long line of cars and watch in disbelief as the flimsy aircraft lifted and carefully placed down sixty foot trunks.

Arring in Chiavenna after around two hours, I stopped for coffee and pastry in the company of some relentlessly talkative elderly townspeople and I knew immediately that I would enjoy the next few days in Italy. My trip across the valley floor from Chiavenna to the lake was slowed by a persistent headwind but my mood was so good and the surroundings so distracting I didn't mind at all. Turning towards the lakeside at Colico, I soon found myself on a road that ran all the way along the shore to my planned lunch stop at Varenna.

Lake Como does not need another glittering review of its beauty, suffice to say it was a treat to ride along. There were occasional tunnels in the side of the hills but the Italian drivers were much more accommodating than the Swiss. Some of the tunnels were also lit naturally by gaping holes in the rock and so formed galleries, each gap framing a stunning landscape of the lake and the mountains behind it.

My maps had told me that the road on the east side of the lake eventually turned into a major dual carriageway so, not wishing to end up stranded as in the Mainz to Karlsruhe leg, I crossed the lake by ferry, to Bellagio. I should say that this saved me about a mile in distance but I soon payed for this in a steep climb over the headland at the bottom of which Bellagio lies. The final stretch along the west side of lake Lecco was quick and I arrived in the city of the same name just after five, looking forward to the weekend's rest.

Late in the day I had discovered by text message that my host for the weekend, Oscar, whom I believed to live in Lecco, in fact lived in a town between Lecco and Milan, around 15 miles from my set destination. In the circumstances I had to take a train to his house, fearing that I would almost certainly be lost in the dark if I tried to cycle without planning or maps. I was not altogether comfortable with this but I settled my ethical quandry by determining to set out from exactly the same spot, at Lecco central station, on the Monday morning, thereby maintaining a continuous route and affording myself no advantage in distance.

Distance covered 71 miles