We could not wait to get out of our hotel (if you are ever in Lausanne, do not stay in Ibis) and after helping ourselves to a quick breakie at a local coffee shop, we were off to Musee d'Olympique Lausanne. Incidentally, Lausanneans (not sure what the collective noun is for that lot, if anyone knows then please advise) are pretty proud of the fact that the Olympic headquarters are there. It kind of reminded me of Melburnians, which is my former stomping ground, so I will not rip into them too much. Except to sat that they are a bunch of... just kidding!
The Olympic Museum was not bad. The downstairs had a whole lot of quality artefacts about the history of the olympics. Apparently Switzerland was chosen as the venue as the Olympic headquarters as the decision was made to revive the ancient games into the modern games during world war one and they were at peace. Back to the museum - upstairs was pretty average with a number of memorabillia donations from athletes. It could have had a lot of cool stuff from recent games, taken you behind the scenes, etc, however I guess they need to protect their intellectual property.
Off to Lake Como via Martingy where we had been a couple of days earlier. We passed the UCI training facilities or headquarters in Arig on the way, however did not want to turn back when we arrived at Martingy. Good to know it is there and even better to have a reason to go back.
Martingy was pretty quiet and had just recovered from the thirty minutes of madness of a week or so earlier. As we could not get hooked up with a cow bell or cheap watch (FYI - the former cost a few hundred euro, so maybe the tales I heard about being thrown in jail if you go cow tipping and nick one are true, however like anything these days can be ordered on line).
Out of Martingy and up a hill towards Italy. I must say that I have noticed I have a hunger for climbing hills, even though I am at best a grinder rather than a pure climber. I look at hills now and the first thing that comes to mind is wanting to ride my bike up them.
I did not make B-Money wait for me in this instance, which was a good thing as there was a few of them to get through, as well as a few hundred other kilometers. I thought of the great Kenny Rogers and "you have to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run. You never count your money, when you're sitting at the table, there'll be time enough for counting, when the dealin's done". Everybody know...
Right-o, pretty boring from here. In Switzerland that seemed like Germany, then Italy that seemed like Switzerland, however not the German one, then Italy that seemed like Italy, then Switzerland thet seemed like Italy and finally Italy / Italy. So it was great that we were warmed up to Italy slowly.
In the Italy that seemed like Switzerland there was a cracker of a road sign which I unfortunately did not get a snapshot of, so I will describe here. A truck going down an incline with the wheels on fire - ie: steep descent, careful you do not smoke it up and overcook the brakes!
The border control was again pretty lax, however I think having Italian plates helped. Also the European Union. I reckon they would strip search anyone from Poland or somewhere outside the EU as a matter of course.
Today was special from the perspective that we decided to ban the b&%$ and go old-school and use the map. So, as navigator, I had my work cut out for me. Suffice to say that we arrived. Not on time, however we never did with the Garmin anyway. Just less stressed.
I had a socceroos jersey on and a bloke came out of the hotel and said "Aussieland? Why are you coming here from Aussieland?" His name was Andri, son of Adriano (FYI - I am McLovin my adopted name while I am here) did some semi-pro cycling and he lived in Rushcutters Bay for a year or so. We had a quick chat about how all of the pro peleton must be on the juice and then he upgraded B-Money and me to a ball tearer of a room. Very romantic. I mentioned to B-Money that I just hoped the evening would live up to the expectations of where the bar had been set.
A mammoth walk to dinner at the place our new best friend suggested as he must get a kickback. We returned the favour by not dropping his name.
Another comment on the socceroos jersey on the way home at a gelateria. Unfortunately it was a bloke and he was at least 120, however it must be working!
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