Day 1- Treviso, Italy

We arrived in Florence via a short plane ride over the Alps from Frankfurt Germany. Upon arrival in Florence we gathered our bags as we did not need to do customs since we did it in Frankfurt. We exchanged some cash in the airport and promptly looked for the bus to take us to the Santa Maria Novella Train station in downtown Florence.The Bus station happened to be right next to te hotel where we would be staying 3 days later in Florence and also across the street from the train station. It was now a two and half hour train ride to Venice from Florence where passed the time by playing some Euchre. Upon arrival in Venice we boarded a local train to Treviso which was just a short 30 minute trip north and finally arrived around 13:00 local time at the Treviso train station. After asking for a directions from one of the Policia, we identified our Hotel, Hotele Continentale, to be across the street from the train station. We had picked a pleasant hotel in town that allowed us easy access to all of Treviso and also to the transportation to the races we planned to spectate the following days.

In Italy, dinner is served late 19:00 til 24:00. Since we had many hours til dinner, we roamed the Treviso streets. We came across an amazing outdoor photo display in town with rather bizarre and extraordinary renderings of people from all around the world.

Soon after the photo display we ran into the Pinarello bike shop. This bike shop was started by the famed Italian bike racer, Giovanni Pinarello. He has a full line of bicycles that are handcrafted just outside of Treviso.

For dinner we finally decided on an English Pub around the corner from the hotel. The food was decent, with great Frites (French Fries), but the highlight was Guinness on tap (for Kristen) and Celis Blanche*.

After dinner we headed back to the Hotel for some necessary sleep. Since we all decided to stay up during the trip across the pond we were now feeling the effects of sleep deprivation.

*Pierre Celis is a native Belgian brewer, who revived the white (Blanche) style in Belgium years ago with the Hoegaarden brewery. The Belgian White style is a very distinctive wheat beer, usually cloudy and spiced, giving it the refreshing quality of a traditional wheat yet the flavourfulness of any good brew. When Celis' Hoegaarden brewery was bought by Interbrew, he left Belgium for Austin, Texas, to start a new brewery, naming it after himself. He used his skill in white beer brewing to create a new Celis White, one of the U.S.'s first and most respected blanches.

All Photos for this day can be found at http://picasaweb.google.com/mtbcolorado/ItalyTreviso