Lake Garda / Italy

It was a long day getting to Lake Garda - north Italy.  We started our day with a trip across the border to Switzerland to go to an Outlet mall and do some shopping.  David managed to get some much needed footwear and a few gym clothes.  Catherine, surprise surprise, got some shoes.  It was 40 euros just to cross the border (for all four of us).

Leaving Switzerland and heading to Lake Garda proved to be a bit of a challenge as Apple Maps took us the wrong way, then we go caught in a traffic jam.  What should have taken us maybe three hours, took us five.  We drove up the left side of the lake which was lovely (and through some amazing tunnels) to Riva del Garda - a stunning place!

This was the view from our room when we arrived.

Looking out from the town.

Just outside our hotel compound - the town is to the right.

Steve's 50th birthday dinner

Lido Palace.

From Riva del Garda we traveled to a place called Treviso to meet one of Maria's friends.  We then carried on to Ravenna, our base for the following four nights while we went to the MotoGP.  Ravenna is a lovely town with a ton of history we had no time to explore.  We arrived Thursday evening and after having dropped our bags at the lovely house we were staying in we headed to a local café for some dinner.  The lady serving us spoke no English so Steve resorted to asking her to speak into his phone that was running GoogleTranslate and incredibly it did!!  So we were able to order nice pizza’s and beer (Birra) for dinner J

The Boys enjoying dinner out in Ravenna

Friday turned largely into a recce to find how to get to the Misano Circuit de Simoncelli and how long it would take to get there.  Our first attempt took 1hr 45 mins.  Our return trip home took an hour – much easier we thought.  David and I attended the first practice sessions and got a chance to have a look through the Honda LCR pit and see both Cal Crutchlow and Jack Miller going through their paces.

Saturday was Catherine's birthday so on our way to the circuit we call into Tuvallia which is the hometown of Valentino Rossi. Given the level of signage they clearly revere the man :-)

In the main centre of Tavullia. 

Tuvallia

This cafe went all out in support of Rossi - inside and outside.














On race day it took us 3 hours to get from Ravenna to inside the gates at the track – thankfully we had left early.  Whilst we enjoyed the two lead up races the main event was nail biting stuff!!  We waited at the track for about and hour before we attempted to head home.  Well that was a mission!!!!  It took us an hour for the first 100 metres getting out of the car park, then an hour for the next 1 km, then an hour for about the next km and nearly 4.5 hours to get the rest of the way home.  Seriously intense traffic.  Thankfully David had mastered Google maps that took us on all sorts of routes to avoid traffic accidents/jams.  

Steve, Catherine and David on Pit Lane.  The garage (pit) to the left was Valentino Rossi's - the lights were still on as he was still working - while all the other riders had gone home.  THAT is why is does so well - he works for it!!

... and his favourite pit girl :-)

Catherine on Rossi's 3rd place grid position for the next day's race

Holding out the start flag... in Catherine's dreams

These rigs are incredible!!  The fold back into one or two single rigs that get transported to the different events.