Italy 1993 Cycling Trip

My memories of Italy are two fold. Northern Italy is just stunningly beautiful; when you can see something. Nearly all of our trip was day after day of rain and drizzling. In the summer and fall of 1993 all of Europe was suffering under rain and more rain.

So, most of our cycling was over cold, wet, and windy mountain passes. Every now and then we would just stop at the top of pass; enjoy an expresso and wait and wait to see what would happen. If we were lucky then the clouds would rise, the rain would stop and we would be surrounded by stunning views of mountains.

These pictures are all scans of slides. Brent shot Ektachrome and something went wrong with the film or processing - making the pictures blueish.

Our one and only complaint with Italy was that they seem to use diesel cars, busses and trucks and they seem to tune the engine to spew out clouds of pollution. It was so bad that at times we simply pulled over and held our breath while black clouds billowed out of a buss coming up the mountain.

These pictures were all taken on a day when I was resting. I'd pinched some nerves in both of my hands and had lost feeling to 2 fingers in each hand. By the end of the trip it was 3 fingers in each hand. Within a few months I had normal feelings back.

But, on this day Brent went up high - to see if we could use some of the hiking trails to cross the mountains. As you can see; the answer is a definate no!

Pictures (c)1993 Brent Little:

Pictures by Eric Praetzel:

Gawd - yet another mountain pass in Italy! Like the rest, it was cold, wet, cold and wetter than we really wanted to experience. I'm rating the Sella di Razzo (1760m) pass with a thumb down and an expression for what the weather was doing to us! I hated the wet and Brent didn't like the dark; but we pulled each other thru day after day of both wet days and long days into dusk.

These pictures continue on Day 2 of Italy