19 July 2025 (sunny and warm, late thunderstorm and torrential rain) 35km

Of all the wonderful things I love about Switzerland, especially the countryside, there is one thing that would put me off living in a rural location in this country. The flies are as bad or worse than in Western Australia. It's the closest I have come to feeling like a cow's backside.

There are dozens of them. Trying to watch the women's Euros last night was a nightmare, with these bloody things all over you. 

We haven't mentioned them in the blog so far, but as soon as you work up a sweat, they are after every drop of moisture and on the bike they just keep following you. On a descent, you can shake them off, but not going uphill at 6km per hour. 

Anyway, in this part of the Swiss/Italian border region, the local church bell chimed throughout the night. They obviously have a roster system for church bell ringers with Freidrich and Alberetto playing a bloody rock symphony at 6am this morning. 

Yes...God and his merry band of disciples in these country areas, want you up and working. No rest for the wicked.

Start ploughing those fields and lifting them bales, or God will strike down those with idle hands.

I must admit, it woke me with such a start that I'd already said twenty Hail Mary's and five How's ya father's, before I realised, I'm not a follower.

While Julia worked on the blog, I wandered into Mustair to pick up breakfast at 7.30am. This really is a quaint village.

Back at the tent, we ate, packed, lubed the bikes and pushed them over near reception, so we could chat with Georgina, after talking to Brody last night.

Her and Josh are good and they filled us in on all they've been doing and their holiday plans. 

A last visit to the shop on our way out of town, just to use up all the coins we had left, was extremely successful, leaving us with exactly no coins at all.

We will change our CHF 40 notes at a bank somewhere. 

An old war bunker we think?

Headed out of town on the main road after previously trying a river track, where we could see nothing but water and trees.

Main road was busy but passable and in less than 2km we were casually waved through the border crossing and into “Italia".

The change was significant in roading and housing.

Basically, we've just been enjoying the best of most things you can imagine....and then we're not.

However, Italy had that old world charm, except for the woman at a shop we called into, who had no charm at all. 

Bought some lunch and just a little further down the way, we joined the "Rad Cycliste" which is part of the national bike route. 

On a small bench we enjoyed our lunch, but did wonder where a sewerage smell was coming from intermittently.

Turns out, every time a cyclist passed over a manhole cover in front of us, we enjoyed somebody else's lunch as well. 

Carried on riding the path and came to a town with a campsite.

It looked very nice and Julia went in to pay.

Of course it looked nice.

NZ $ 120 per night.

Hello...we are sleeping on the ground, with just a bit of nylon protecting us from the elements.

Granted we are using your toilets and showers, but do me a favour. 

Needless to say we carried on.

Today was supposed to be an Italian acclimatisation day.

Well...that didn't take long ..you robbing bastards. 

We finished at 35kms, with the signs of rain staring us in the face.

It took another three hours before that occurred and by then we'd been to a "Despar" store, which didn't have anything we wanted, so it was more of a Despair store for us so we ended up buying odds and sods.

The worst thing is it's Sunday tomorrow and no way in Italy do they open supermarkets on Sunday.

Now we will be paying exorbitant prices to eat at an overpriced establishment. 

It was bad enough in Switzerland, but I thought we'd heard Italy was cheaper, but not so far...!

We are riding this Cyclist's Highway and like everywhere else in the world, they've realised that they can fleece the traveller, even the budget traveller. 

Back at the campground, we got our washing in before it got soaked by the rain, which was imminent. As we didn't have much to eat and the temperature had that muggy heat to it, we grabbed a ginger beer for Ju and a beer for me. Ten Euros just for that so we decided we would make what we could for dinner out of the meagre supplies we had.

At 7.22pm (God knows the significance of this) but the bloody church bells went off.

Tenor, Soprano and every other musical tone going.

I believe God knew we were staying here and this was his "Welcome to my World" greeting.

Meanwhile I wondered how many times and how many tunes, you can get out of a bunch of bells before you drive us insane.

Even Julia thought this was peculiar and she lives with me, so she knows peculiar. 

I kid you not....its now 7.45pm and a skill saw is whining across the valley and you can even hear it over my whining.

Common sense people...

What about young mothers trying to get their kids to sleep?...think about it.

I'm not really concerned about some little kid trying to get forty winks.

I only put it in there to sound more human. 

Currently, the sky is black, as we sit in the outside area of the bar/cafe of the camp after drinking a beer and a ginger beer. It's really chucking it down and we had a good show of thunder and lightning.

There's supposed to be a music festival in town tonight, don't know if that will go ahead.

When the rain finished, we wandered to the tent to make dinner. First off, Ju opened what she thought was a tin of pre-cooked rice. (They don't seem to have Uncle Ben's two minute rice here). Turns out it was a packet of stock cubes. Why it had a photo of cooked rice on the outside is anybody's guess.

So, busted out the chilli con carne, but had no rice or pasta to go with it. So we followed it up with a can of miniature mussels in a spicy sauce. It was indeed spicy, but quite tasty.

Good old nuts and half an apple each with a cup of milky coffee and chocolate, rounded out the evenin

g meal.

Went to bed at 9pm, listening to the nearby local festival starting…..