Bicycle Tour of the Italian Alps

Arrival in Courmayeur, Italy
Thursday, June 7, 2012 

Today Art & I arrived in Italy to begin our next adventure - a bicycle tour of the Italian Alps.  Fantastico!  We'd be joining a group of about 16 other people, most of whom are from the west coast; one couple (our group leaders, Julie & Tom) hail from North Carolina and one gentleman is from England. We arrived in Milan around 10:30 a.m., picked up our luggage and bikes and met at the designated spot outside the airport.  Then we all hopped a bus for a 3-hour ride to our hotel in Courmayeur.  We put our bikes together with relative ease and got ourselves settled and ready to ride the next day.  A bunch of us went to a local pizza place - "Tunnel Pizza" - for dinner.  The pizza was excellent and unbelievably inexpensivo.  The weather forecast for tomorrow  calls for rain showers all day.  Fortunately, we are prepared for adverse weather conditions; we brought our rain gear and, most importantly, supplies to wash and maintain our bikes afterward.  Regardless of the weather, I am looking forward to a great tour, which will be a challenging test for my climbing legs.   I hear they have some pretty good hills here in the Alps.  : )