"There's a train station not far from here" shouts Maiken across the noise from the rain and the cars. A wave of relief floods my cold, wet body. "Let's go straight there", I shout back.
We had cycled through Slovenia that morning where the sun had come out and dried us and our belongings. Upon crossing the border to Italy, the rain returned viciously and I watched a wave of dirty water hit Maiken from a passing car driving through a big puddle.
The weather forecast for Venice was much better than Trieste, so we rolled our bikes on to a nice Italian train. Two hours later we checked in to a huge backpacker hostel and started drying out.
The following morning providence smiled at us: I was down at the reception to find out where the nearest supermarket was to get milk and bananas for our musli, and a woman gave me her buffet breakfast voucher. She wasn't able to use it, as she was leaving. I bought a second one, and sent Maiken a message to come down immediately for our feast. It is always slightly embarrassing when hungry cyclists attacks a large buffet, but we really needed the sustenance after our cold and wet days.
After resting our full bellies, it was time to go sightseeing in beautiful, sunny Venice. We wandered the narrow pathways, took the obligatory selfies, watched the other tourists being serenaded in very expensive gondolas and bought a few souvenirs. It was a lovely day!
I'll skip the usual statistics for Italy, because from Venice we took a bus over the Alps, so we hardly ended up biking any distance there. One thing is sure, I'd love to come back and cycle more in Italy! I was a bit sad to say farewell to Italy so quickly, because it also meant saying farewell to the beautiful Mediterranean, that I had loved cycling next to for more than two months.