Tour De France - Part 1

So Jacob came out for a visit, and we certainly packed quite a bit into the week and a half he was here. Touring around London, beautiful Milan and Lake Como in Italy, climbing Alpe D'Huez, eating our way through Lyon, not to mention meeting (and drinking) with Team Chipotle! Those stories will come shortly; it was a long trip, so I'll try to break it up into bite-sized pieces.

The general itinerary for our first few days: London, Milan, Lake Como, Milan. Luckily for us, Laura was able to take some time off work and join Jacob and me for this leg of the journey (and act as our Italian translator).

(Before we get into it, let me point out a fact that Jacob is sure to bring up... yes, I did manage to leave him waiting at Paddington station for 2 hours on Thursday morning. But seriously, I was prepared for customs to take at least an hour, plus the plane being a bit late, plus time for baggage claim, plus some extra time to catch the train. How could I have known that Jacob would take something like 5 minutes in customs and somehow bend the space-time continuum and arrive at Paddington at 7:30 instead of the expected 9:30? Oh right, cause the same thing happened when Mike Roy came here... so, maybe I'm not so good with picking people up at the airport.)

Anyway, we had some fun in London for two days, drinking our way from pub to pub mostly, all the while calling colleagues to remind them of the fact that it was 3pm, we were hammered, and they were working. Add to that getting in the requisite fish-and-chips meal, I think we pretty much had London covered.

I may have already mentioned that I love pub names in London. How can you beat "The Coal Hole"?

On Saturday, we all packed up and headed to Milan. We managed to get our rental car (and were thankful not to have to drive on the left), found our hotel and checked out the main attractions in Milan (aka. the Duomo and copious amounts of gelato).

In front of the Duomo

Mmmm... gelato.

Up early the next day for the easy drive to Lake Como. Beautiful. We checked into the hostel and walked around, taking in the sights. The city itself is fantastic, very old and picturesque streets, and the lake is fantastic. Nothing quite like being nestled in the Alps, sitting on a bench in the sunshine next to Lake Como (eating some gelato). The only downsides were that we couldn't go swimming right from the shore (too much muck around the harbour) and a 30 minute rain shower that evening. Other than that, it was fantastic.



Monday morning, up and walking around Como for some more pictures, then back to Milan to drop Laura off at the airport. Jacob and I went back into Milan, managed to find our new hostel (and not get a parking ticket in the mean time), then set off for the center of the city agin. Some more time near the Duomo, sitting in cafes, and a visit to the fantastic Peck, walk around the shopping district, then back to the hostel to find dinner and a few litres of vino.

Tuesday started the real Tour de France journey... but that will have to wait for part 2.