Monza – Iseo

This morning we were super good. I woke Jon up at 8:30am with my phone alarm playing MC Hammer's "You Can't Touch This" and we ran down to get our bikes from the station. Was only 17 minutes of running and then 5 back, but it was nice – and the bikes were where we had left them and still intact, which was a bonus. (Picture of my bike for you - "Top Bike" no less!)

We had been back a little while, and I had taken out and hung up the washing I had put on before we left (so organised) and I decided I wanted to do a bit more running. Jon said he would come with me, and so we set off round the park we were camping in. Hadn't realised until we cycled back through it how nice it was – and it seemed a shame to waste it.

It was pretty hot by then though – about 10am. We ran about 3km and were, we thought, on a route all the way around the perimeter of the park – at least that's what the map said. HAVE WE NOT LEARNED YET? Don't pay any attention to the maps – they are all nonsense. Although the park map showed a path all the way round, after about 6km we discovered that we couldn't complete our circuit because of the racing track and a wall – no go.

What else to do but walk a bit and run a bit, find another map, cut through the middle of the racing track (no-one seemed bothered even though we clearly shouldn't have been there) and out through a hole in the fence the other side. We made it back to the campsite with another 50 minutes of running and a bit of walking under our belts, and the welcome discovery that check out time was 2pm not 12pm which I had originally thought.

Funny how you can make the time stretch – if we had had to check out at 12 we would have done, but because we didn't we were rushing around to get packed away at 1:45pm! And it's not like we have much to do or anything, well - apart from having our breakfast of beans and sausage on toast :)

So, we were back on the road and heading through Monza in the vain hope of finding the one place in that area that sold Camping Gaz bottles. All we did though was manage to get ourselves nearly stuck in a very narrow alley!

No luck on the Gaz.

After the last couple of days of nightmare navigation, we decided to take the Autostrada to Bergamo – our next destination – paying for the 'pleasure' of hopefully not getting lost. Finding the Autostrada wasn't all that easy, but once we did it was all plain sailing.

Bergamo was nice – we had a ride on the funicular up to the castle, and a wander round that and the old town. All very pleasant.

Nowhere to stay though – so we pushed off to Lago d'Iseo a few km northeast of Bergamo.

We found a nice campsite near Iseo – nice but totally rammed full of people. We had been warned before we set off that campsites in Italy were like this – but this was our first real experience of it. There are lots of caravans there that are set up for the season by Italian families – they have huge awnings on, stuffed full of 'real' (rather than camping) furniture, fridge freezers, televisions and even washing machines!! But it was alright. And we arrived in time to have a swim in the lovely circular pool (must have been about 25m diameter) before it closed.

Also – extra bonus – the on site shop had a Gaz bottle the right size, so now we are fully gazzed up!

Some pasta and a bottle of wine and we cycled down into Iseo town to see what was going on. Nice place. Lots of nice little cafes and things down by the water, and loads of people just milling around. Lovely.

We picked a seat in one place that did cocktails (I am getting a bit of a taste for them) and finished the Cribbage “Lecco Cup” challenge – which Jon won. :(

We also got 2 games into the “Lakes Plate” challenge – finished up 1 all on that – so all to play for!

A good day today. Seemed to do loads, and not so stressful – which is good.