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14th January 2007

Location: Lyon, France
Distance Travelled: 20 500 km

The European Odyssey has begun. After disembarking the ferry from Tunis in Genova - Italy, we were greeted with the warmest of Italian hospitality by Paolo Marancio. Paolo cooking us great Italian pasta at 12.30am in the morning. An awesome guy! We found Paolo on the couchsurfing.com website a great website concept that allows people to organise free accomodation in locations all around the world. Thank you so much for your hospitality Paolo.

Timeframes are tight in order for us to safely make the arrival party on the 20th in London so we had to cut short our stay with Paolo and head high in to the French Italian alps. Before we could do so Nics bike was given a quick once over and some break pads by the great guys at Mar-ch-ald motorcycle store in Genova. These guys were awesome they didn’t even make Nic feel bad that his oil levels and water coolant levels were low, along with his tire pressures. Some would wonder how we got this far? As we headed towards the Alps and France we didnt actually know how far we would go but wanted to make the most of what seemed like a mild winter day.

Mild might be an apt description for the European winter when you are driving at 130km in the snug warmth of your BMW. Not how we would describe the temperatures, as we froze our way in to the Alps in a icy mist. We found ourselves making a typical Odyssey decision - mid French alps just on dark we decided to drive 200km down through the alps to Lyon in the dark. Oh how our poor fingers regretted that decision. In reality we were extremely lucky with the weather and on any other day it could have been a tourturous affair.

We warmed ourselves at one of Julians old haunts, Johnny Walshes Irish Pub, relishing one of the longest coldest odyssey days over a few brown ales. With 1000km or so to go we are soaking up the relaxed normality of europe and its luxuries, we pray to some one that the weather holds for the next 6 days. Does Jim Hickey still control the weather? Can someone get in touch with him for us.

The Odyssey Continues....

Tunis to Lyon Images

Chronicle blurp

We got out of AFRICA on a 100m converted cruise ship into a passenger ferry that took us from Tunis into Europe. After 24 hours we arrived in Genova, Italy. The weather was surprisingly warm for winter, aparently the warmest in 100 years! We stayed overnight with our Couchsurfing.com buddy Paolo, Nic temporarly fixed his bike again and then we were off towards France! After passing through super cold mist and the Spain/French alps in the dark we rolled into Lyon 24 hours after arriving in Europe.