Being British I feel I should say something about the weather. Firstly the Brits seem to think that their weather is amazingly variable and this is why they are always talking about it. Alas evidence suggests the weather is equally variable in Europe and that our obsession with talking about more probably stems from our passion for stilted polite conversation.
Anyway, sticking to form, the weather up to the Alps was great cycling weather, sunny but not too hot with any rain mainly falling in the night in thunder storms. We then had a week of low temperatures and a couple of miserable, cold rainy days. Then overnight it went scorchio and with the exception of a couple of lovely cool days its been over 30C for the past month, most days topping out at over 35C. By mid-afternoon the heat is also coming back off the tarmac so we would probably be cycling in up to 40C heat. Great weather for a beach holiday, not so great for cycling 40-50 miles a day and camping. There's been days when I've felt like i'm being slowly cooked, like a pig on a spit. As you might imagine we are fairly tanned, but in slightly ridiculous ways - i'm especially proud of the rucksack outline i have on my back and shoulders!
We have found that cycling over 11mph creates sufficient breeze to make it bearable for all but the 1-4pm period when we have tried to find shade or ice-cream and sit it out. We've also been on the road early, partly as its cooler but mainly as the tent turns into a sauna once the sun is on it. Sleeping at night has been sticky, especially when campimg rough and we are covered in dried sweat, suncream and mosquito repellent! In short we are now shade lovers, we'll only stop if there is some. We get up in the morning hoping for clouds and a cool breeze. I fantasize about sleeping in a clean darkened room with air-con and no insects. Anyhow, i'm blethering on, you get the picture - its bloody hot. The two weather incedents I wanted to blog about are the consequence of the heat:
We stopped one ridiculously hot afternoon in the small city of Belzano in the Italian Alps. After our cooling off ice cream we decided to have a cool beer in a cafe in the main square when a storm came out of nowhere. I confidently predicted a short shower and that we would be fine seated at the table nearest the square. An atomic burst of thunder was followed by a torrent of ice falling from the sky in the form of marble sized hail stones which having travelled several thousand feet bounced off the concrete, buildings and cafe awnings - it was like being in a pin ball machine. everyone was huddled together under cover as ice bounced off their heads and shins, it was hysterical and slightly painful. Chairman Meow (the chinese praying cat super glued to my front mudguard) took a direct hit and was dislodged from his perch and Tracey's shopping basked looked like an ice box. The hail battered all the leaves off the trees which then washed into all the drains and blocked them, causing flash flooding. As we cycled out of town there was widespead chaos, sirens going, people clearing away debris, cars driving through 2 foot of water and the rivers which had been high anyway due to snowmelt were thrashing torrents of muddy water.
Just to prove that lightening does strike twice, fast forward 2 weeks to Zagreb and we were sitting out in a square eating dinner on a sultry evening when there was an atomic clap of thunder and it started raining. Recalling our previous experience we moved tables to be further from the edge of the gaint umbrellas used for shade. All the other people having drinks and food clustered under the umbrellas to avoid being dripped on - all in good sp[irits at this point and obviously a fairly common occurance. Then out of nowhere some kind of tornado style wind came howling into the square and all hell broke loose. The giant umbrellas were either shredded or tossed around like coctail umbrellas, crashing all the tables and people - people were screaming and running for the buildings like something out of a horror B movie. Tracey and I pegged it for safety - when we got there, soaking wet, eyes wide I realised that Tracey was stood there with her plate of rescued pizza - "well, i'm still hungry". All over Zagreb there was a trail of busted, twisted and shredded umbrellas and waiters clearing up the debris.
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