Where in the world can you find the Virgin Mary overlooking an amusement park? In Italy, of course! We are now making our way up the eastern coast of Lake Garda, a holiday spot that’s extremely popular in the summer with Italians and Germans. It’s packed with restaurants, luxury campgrounds and all forms of entertainment, including the imaginatively named Gardaland. As we cycled past Gardaland, listening to the screams coming from the rollercoaster, we caught a glimpse of the Virgin Mary herself, in the form of a statue several feet high, keeping watch over the entrance to the park. Perhaps it’s not so unusual to stop and pray before you get flipped upside down on the rides! It’s still not high tourist season here but already the roads are full and it looks like we will have a few busy kilometers ahead of us as we pedal towards Trento and Bolanzo, before turning over the Dolomites towards Cortina d’Ampezzo. Earlier in the day we had a pleasant ride into the city of Brescia, where we admired its many monuments and stopped for a coffee, the first time we’ve done so in Italy. We were put off by the high price of a coffee in France and were surprised to find the cost of a morning cuppa almost back to the lows of Spain. Our cappucini even came with designs in the milk froth: a star for Andrew and a heart for Friedel. Awwwwwwww.