Milan is a beautiful city with wide treelined streets , trams, coffee shops galore and great shops reminding me of Melbourne but of course it also has a lot more history to offer.I was amazed to learn that at one point Milan was Spanish and the incredible beautiful central railway station akin to Moscows station was built by Mussolini to show off his power.We spent a long time in the Leonardo da Vinci s science museum, who have made models of all the things Leonardo drew but didn’t necessarily make. I liked his clever diving suit best !They had all sorts of other exhibits including the hangglider of the italian who flew over Everest.In Milan hubby had his most expensive haircut ever, barbers are not just barbers in Milan still hubby enjoyed his oil head massage and hot towel treatment!

We left Milan by train to Geneva a very comfortable train although it was running half an hour late.I didn’t realise till later that our tickets had our carriage number on and our seats on, how lucky was it that we had got on on to the correct carriage as we couldn’t have moved our bikes.There were quite a few carriages with bike storage but only 2 to 4 bikes for each one.Yes, our bikes did have to their own tickets to get on the italian and swiss trains.Quite a scenic train ride with river views,lake views and the snow covered Alps.

We had planned to stay in Geneva but lack of reasonably priced accomodation meant we had decided to go to Seysell for 2 nights and then cycle back towards Geneva so we hadn’t missed that part of the Rhone.The train connection in Geneva was very tight and then we lost half an hour with the train being late. We missed the french train(platforms7&8) to Seyssel by 2 minutes so had to walk back through french customs. Luckily Geneva station does take euros aswell so at least we could enjoy lunch waiting 2 hours for the next train.I was fairly relaxed after our 4 hour train ride so happy to settle down with a book and a proper chai latte,yes!.By the way on french trains the bikes don’t need tickets and the one we took was very easy to get onto.However people with heavy massive luggage also make a beeline for the bike carriage and are then surprised when there are actually bikes in there.Seyssel is a quaint French town straddling both banks of the Rhone with a relaxed holiday feel,easy to walk around.

Well the following day we started cycling back towards Geneva from Seysell to complete the section we had missed by catching the train but it was by the side of a very busy road and we thought we don’t really need to do this. So we turned off into some beautiful country lanes, they did go up for about 5kms but it was a gentle up. It was lovely to see cows in the fields munching away, all of the ones we saw in Italy had been jammed into tin sheds with a few fans running on them to keep them cool.And to also enjoy the countryside without the terrible smell in Italy ,of what seemed like raw sewage, fields just soaking in it. Just beautiful scenery here with hills all around. We had lunch at a hotel overlooking the river Rhone, a midday special. Gorgeous food 4 courses for just 14 euros tap water supplied and free fresh bread, yes its good to be back in France.The starter hot goats cheese on salad was lovely not the really strong chevre we had in tne Loire Valley.As for the third course which was the cheese course…

Good job we have some serious cycling today tomorrow after all this food, so back on our bikes with our luggage for the next 4 days till we reach Lyon.