Day 14- Decenzano to Telgate

Before I get on to today’s ride, I should mention the great meal we had at a local restaurant last evening. I had a lovely oven baked trout with vegetables followed by serve of ice cream with fresh fruit. The other guys had a seafood past which looked great. The hosts at the restaurant were delightful.

Last night was my turn to sleep on the air bed on the floor. We agreed that there will be times when there will not be 3 single beds and we are not going to share a double bed! Chris had a blow up bed which is ideal to make do in such circumstances….my turn was last night and I had a good night of sleep….proves I can sleep anywhere.

This morning we were up again at 6.00 am and after an in house breakfast of muesli and yogurt and packing up, Steve and I made our way down to the piazza not far from our room and had a cappuccino…. Great to start the day!

The weather today was in the mid twenties for most of the day. There was a little bit of rain in the morning and after lunch there was a strong shower for a period of time. As it eased off later as we reached our destination, the sun finally emerged making for good riding conditions. The only issue was the wet roads which made for muddy conditions in some parts which meant we needed to clean our bikes at the end of the day.

The first part of the ride today was through some rolling hills as we made our way out of the Lake Garda area. The mountain scenery was very beautiful and I can understand why people come here to holiday.

Morning coffee was at the 20 km mark at a place called Rezzato where we located a bakery which had some lovely fare. I took a picture of the fruit tart I had with my cappuccino.

After this it was on a short distance when we caught up with another rider doing a biking holiday. His name was Herb Morrow and he was from Warrnambool in Victoria, Australia.Great to see fellow riders doing their biking holidays. We then stopped at Brescia with Herb to have have lunch and have a chat about our respective adventures. Herb seems to have done a lot of off road biking up in the mountains and is throughly enjoying the Italian countryside.

After lunch the rain started as I said earlier and we made good progress towards our final destination at Telgate.

We made a drinks stop at the 60 km mark where we had a great chat to the lady who ran the shop and a few of the other customers… I think we were the entertainment for the day. The cool drinks were great and the owners of the shop provided us with free potato crisps which really hit the spot!

The rest of the ride was enjoyable as we were refreshed after our break. We arrived at the hotel accomodation at about 4.15 after doing about 78 kms and climbing nearly 400 metres.

The ride was quite complicated as we made our way through towns along the base of the foothills of the mountains and there were no long stretches of roads. Chris did a great job of navigating us through the maze of roads and intersections along the way….. great work Chris!!!

Arriving at the hotel early was ideal for us to clean our bikes and equipment and for Steve to go to a bike shop to fix 3 broken spokes…. Yes he had broken 3 of them…his wheels was quite buckled when we arrest the hotel.

The day was another day of adventure through lovely country where we saw a lot of wine grapes being grown together with crop farming. A lot of the country is serviced by a well structured irrigation system which is fed of the rivers that flow through the region.

The photos of today are:

Our route

Morning coffee before the stops the ride

A couple of photos of the piazza and view of Lake Garda in Decenza

Morning coffee break with a lovely fruit tart…

The trusty bike! Apologies for the beer bottle…. Not mine as I have been off the grog for 2 weeks now!

Lunch with us and Herb Morrow.Great to have a chat.

Sometimes to route took us on strange places… here we are crossing a railway line to get to a road. Luckily it was not a busy train line

An old monastery on the hill with great views

The group at the afternoon drinks… lovely people who enjoyed our conversation

A very stunning home on the hill… it was a reception centre I believe

Home for the night in Telgate