In-between House/Pet Sits a cycling holiday along the Rhine and the Italian Lakes

Having finished our house/pet sit in France our next destination was Florence in Italy later in the month. We had organised two weeks, without sits, and decided to take a weeks cycling holiday in Germany, cycling down the Danube from Donaueschingen to Ulm (a total of 330 kms in 6 days!). We would then have a week exploring the Italian Lakes.

We booked our cycling holiday through a company called Radweg Reisen. They organised for the bikes to be available at our starting hotel. A couple of friends joined us (our "Stalkers" who visited us in Thailand) and off we set. What great fun despite some wet weather. It was a lot more challenging than we had all thought given it was supposed to be an "easy" trip...... there was a bl**dy lot of hills!

We travelled to different hotels each night and the company organised for our bags to be waiting for us at each new place, so we could travel without excess baggage (other than that generated by the great food and German beer). We had a puncture on one ride and they quickly organised a new bike for us. Excellent trip and great company! With 6 days in the saddle we were very thankful we'd invested in some padded knickers ( cycling shorts for the men!!!) and we made good use of the chafing cream!!!

We then dropped our friends off in Zurich and travelled through Switzerland to the Italian Lakes area of Italy for another week's holiday, just the two of us. It was a stunning journey, driving through Switzerland and despite being in the car for 9 hours due to traffic jams, and driving through the 3rd longest tunnel in the world(Gotthard Tunnel) all 16920 metres of it, we enjoyed the journey and love the amazing scenery.

We arrived at Lake Orta close to Lake Maggiore and once more were surrounded by the most stunning views. We stay in a Manor House in a small self contained apartment there (found on Airbnb).

We really enjoyed exploring the area around Orta. At Lake Maggiore, we took a cable car to the top of one of the mountains and looked out over the lakes at the top.....absolutely breathtaking!. We also explore Lake Como and had lunch in Bellagio...unfortuantely no sign of George Clooney (and believe me I looked!!!!)

It was a lovely break, we had good fun with friends and really enjoyed the wonderful Italian Lakes. Next stop Florence to start our next house/pet sit.