The big question when travelling over seas is whether to bring your own bike or to rent! We’ve done both but the past few trips we’ve brought our own.

If your going for a month it makes more sense financially to bring your own bike and it’s nice to have your bike that is fitted for you! So we made the investment in good bike boxes to not only protect the bikes but easier to transport them.

This will be our third trip taking our bikes. Always interesting and few stories to be told as every thing doesn’t always go as planned.

First you have to disassemble and pack the bike in the box. Then the bike box has to get on the plane out of St. John’s. Security doesn’t have a scanner big enough for the box to fit through so it has to be opened. Not so bad with our bike boxes as they zip open. Not so much with a card board box. You always say a prayer that the bike will arrive at the final destination. Especially important this trip as our trip starts the day after we arrive.

For this trip we were originally going to get a bus that went directly from Milan airport to Bolzano. It would of been a bit of a wait at the airport but it would of been a direct bus to Bolzano. The thought of dragging a bike box off and on trains made the decision easy to take the bus. Our plans changed with the death of my mom and we would only have one night in Bolzano so we opted to get the train which would get us in at 5:20 pm instead of 9:30.

And the fun began. Smooth ride with space on the train from milan airport to milan central station but a different story from milan to Verona. I booked first class because it said extra luggage but there wasn’t. This train was not a regional train and didn’t have space for bikes. I should of known that. Fortunately the train employee who was super nice and accommodating said as long as it didn’t block the door it was okay. He was a cyclist so I think he was making an exception! The train from Verona to Bolzano was heaven! A whole section just for bikes. One more trip for the bikes was the bus to our final destination – Hotel Post Gries. Fortunately the bus had space for the bikes. Thank God it wasn’t too busy as it would of been a bit of a nightmare

After two days of travel we arrived in beautiful Bolzano where we were met by the lovely Sarah! Bolzano is surrounded by mountains and vine yards! A great place for Sarah to be spending a year!