Verona, 4/5/6 June

Food of the day: Lampone: raspberries. In season now and delicious.

Word of the day: Prego: You're welcome, or at your service. You hear this a lot!

Verona is another picture-book Italian city with cobbled streets, colourful buildings, and another church and piazza around every corner (almost!) and many beautiful flower boxes.

I took a ride round on a city tour while Marcus was cycling his 100 kms in the hills outside the town. It was a great way to get an overview of the city without being too exhausting. When the drive was finished I just sat in the main piazza, opposite the amphitheatre and watched the world go by.

This city thrives on tourism, especially from fans of Shakespeare. There are scads of romantics lining up to see Juliette's balcony and tomb, and there are guest houses and a street named in honour of the famous play. We wandered round a few streets in the late afternoon, and came upon a group of men singing Italian folk and popular songs, a cappella, in a little piazza. The rain interrupted an enjoyable entertainment, and everyone scattered to find shelter. It was quite an easy city to visit "on the surface", to have a quiet wander and not actually go into any buildings. Starting to suffer from overload - so much to absorb is very tiring.

Ride report from Marcus.

The Granfondo Damiano Cunego is a mass participation, timed event on closed roads. It's one of the top 10 such events apparently. Nearly all the participants were Italian, with Australians the next largest group, numbering 12. The 4,000 of us started in waves - elite first - in town and the first part was very exciting, riding through the old town in closed off roads with spectators calling out and clapping. This doesn't usually happen when I go bike riding! Over the cobbled sections, there were lots of dropped bidons, jiggled out of their cages.

We continued out of the city and up a river valley towards the mountains, by this time in a settled pattern and maintaining an average a little over 30. Then to the big climb, which was 10k at about 6%. As usual, this sorted things out. The road was very appealing, mostly shaded, like so many lower level passes, and of course no traffic except a few support vehicles. Once at the top, we rolled up and down through various mountain-top towns. One of them was a classic - maybe 30 buildings with tiny wriggly streets, unpaved, and one old gentleman placidly going about his business. Then back down the long hill, where I reached over 70kmh trying to pick up time. Only one rider passed me on the 20k downhill, and after feeling a bit skittish trying to match him around the bends, I let him go and enjoyed the rest of the ride. At the bottom a good bunch of about 20 formed and we kept a pretty good pace back into town, through all the intersections with police holding up the traffic for us, to finish under the arch near the stadium.