Right after leaving Milan, we hit the open roads of Italy and started off our first proper drive in the rickshaw. I think it’s safe to say that this is the most terrified I was on the entire trip. Everything was so new and everyone on the roads was moving much faster than we were so for the first hour or so, it was a slightly bewildering situation (albeit a rather exhilarating one but soon enough, you get into your stride with the rickshaw, especially as you stumble slowly across Italy’s amazing countryside and that in itself, is more than enough fuel to keep you wanting more and more of the road trip! It also helps that it was very sunny and so much fun.
As this is a photo diary, I was gonna just leave it to the photos but I feel a bit of context is required to I apologise in advance for my interjection into the photos! 🙂
Lloyd took the next shift of the driving after leaving Milan… His first time driving a rickshaw too!
I did mention how distracting the countryside was didn’t I? 🙂
We found a restaurant on the way to Cinque Terre…
…which was so rustic/old-school, the menu was not only handwritten but was also only available in Italian. There was some serious guesswork done here with deciding what to eat (until Gabriele helped us out by translating).
We made our way through tiny little villages…
… and colourful countryside farms.
Gabriele decided it would be a good idea to get his skateboard out and hold onto the rickshaw while skating. If the rickshaw is relatively slow, it gets even slower going uphill (seriously, you could probably run faster than it moves) – again, this is another reason to see Italy on a rickshaw as when we did a similar route in the car last time we were here, we drove so quickly past all of this and so to get the chance to stop and see everything slowly felt like something of a luxury!
See what I mean?
This is such a unique way to truly see Italy! More to follow on this very soon of course… 🙂