Benvenuti in Italia!

I added it up and from home it was 21 hours door to door to the Hotel Italia in Verona, Italy. I also counted my trips and this is my 13th trip to Italy! Other than being long, the flight to Munich was fine and I had plenty of time to have lunch and relax a little before the short flight to Verona. Besides treating your bike box as a normal piece of luggage (free), United now texts you a link to a baggage tracker site, which worked well – although if you use a tracker in your box you don’t really need it, but it is nice to see everywhere they scan your baggage.

I walked in and prepared for a wait at the oversized luggage area. Soon I met a local cyclist waiting for his bike plus four more Bike Dreamers who I’ll be riding with. One from Portland and the rest from California. I texted my roommate Michael and he had just successfully arrived at the hotel.

The local guy got his giant box first, then the outside door closed. But eventually it re-opened and disgorged five more bikes, mine in the lead. That was a great moment – 🚲🚲🚲🚲🚲!

Out at the taxi stand there was a sort of long line but it ended up taking maybe 30 minutes for us to get to the front. Because we all thought good thoughts the whole time, right as it was our turn, up pulled a giant van taxi and we were able to cram in four bike boxes, lots of luggage, plus four people. It was a relief to pull up to the hotel. I opened my box and the bike looks fine but I might wait until the morning to assemble it. Step one complete!

In the evening 7 of us walked down to a highly rated pizza restaurant for delicious pizza and beer. It was great fun getting to know some of my fellow riders. Now I’m really ready for sleep.