Day 1 Lucca

Our soigneur Rachel is really the men's soigneur and she observed that with the women we are so animated interacting together and I guess she is right. Never thought about it before, but probably we women feed off of each other's energy. I woke up to this kind of energy, everyone talking about the rides on offer today while making coffee and eating breakfast. I was the last one up which is not surprising really, except for maybe Tina beating me to being awake as usually she is a little sleep-monger worse than I am. Dragged myself out of bed as seriously, I am in Italy, not much to complain about in life at the moment.

There were 2 rides: some of us wanted to go with couple riders from Tinkoff, Tyler Hamilton and Jorg Jakcshe and the rest of us opted for a 2 ish hour spin to Pisa and back. I think the other ride involved climbs and 3ish hours...nay nay for me on that today, i'm all about the spinning and tourist snapshots up until race time pretty much.The awesome tree covered sections of road seem to be everywhere around here.....



Ride was great, straightforward and easy going, Tina, Ali, Sarah, myself and Jim.Did the tourist thing at the tower of Pisa (sorry Mum, did not go in, we were on a ride..maybe a special trip). One can purchase fake Rolex's for a Euro if desired ...pretty standard shops and people trying to sell things to tourists around the tower...but, thats to be expected. The main thing that hit me ws how small the tower is...i thought it would be taller for some reason.
The others are heading into the town of Lucca (the old part that is enclosed entirely by a wall built to keep the Romans out back in the day). I am trying to take care of a cold that started coming on the day we flew here so I am resting. Sarah promised to take good pics so I will update that later.