Italy ti amo!

Hi everyone!

Greetings from Helsinki, yes im back and its been a while I wrote but now I feel like writing and actually have the time. When your cycling, there isnt any extra time to write blogs since for me at least it takes one whole day to write and add pictures. Beware, this is a long post and lots of rambling, grap a cappucino or a pale ale and take a good position.

Im really happy at the moment, I feel different then a year ago when I came back. Now theres somekind of a trust inside of me, like a trust in the universe that everything will always figure itself out. I also really like the person who is looking back from the mirror, during this summer I discovered some things about me, qualities I allready kind of knew that exist but I couldnt really see them or feel them in my body. Now I understand that I am a really independent person and strong, I dont like to be helped easily and excepting help especially from people that are more close to me is really hard, giving the control of a situation to someone else is hard. Its a lot easier when a stranger wants to help but when its someone I allready know then its different. I remember going to the beach with a friend and before that I wanted to buy flowers for his mother since after the beach everything would be closed, he started to ask around to find the shop and it wasnt really working out (we only had like 10 min time) and we got further from the ferry to the beach, the further we got the more anxious I got because all this time I had managed by myself using Googlemaps to find supermarkets, Cafes etc. and I knew how to find a flower shop like this but my friend insisted he would find the shop, in the end he did but it was the wierdest place ever, actually im pretty sure it was a coverup shop for unleagel business, I mean, who sells fake flowers in a flower shop and the few real flowers were half dead, it was also the intuitive feeling I felt near sales person, like there was something bad in the air. We went back to the harbour and even thou at that moment I felt kind of mad at my friend, I knew he just helped me a lot and it has nothing to do with the flowers.

I really like intuition and listening to it, feeling it in your body and feeling other peoples emotions in myself. I remember cycling to the border of Hungary and Slovenia, there was only like 10 km left and Komoot toulk me to forest route which had kind of bad asphalt with holes and cracks, it was in the middle of nowhere. Suddenly there was a super steap hill, I think its around 20% elevation at least and the road was slippery because of the humidity in the forest. Next to the hill there was all these small abandond cottages AND from one of them (it was totally destroid and not goog for living, like really bad!!) I could here music playing and not just any music but this really old, excactly the kind of music that plays in horror movies or old dracula movies and right in that instant all the bugs and flies in the world attacked me (not exaggerating) but even wierder then the music coming from the shack was the feeling I had in that place, it was like something evil, like death was there, something dark crawled inside of me. In that instant I turned around and chose another road but wasnt able to shake the feeling and still this day im not sure if it was my imagination or a real intuition that something bad exist in this place or something bad happened there, because I believe that all the history in this world, everything that was, still exists and can be felt.

Anyways, last time I wrote from Ljubljana. From there I started heading to the Slovenian Alps and oh boy, I have never seen anything so beautiful, mountains all the way everywhere. Its hard to imagine that suddenly you are 800m above the sea level and you still have another 800m to go, when I started climbing Vrsic mountain from Kranjska Gora and asked for directions because there was no signs. There was a man walking, hes answear was "yes its this way but do you understand that we are now at 800m and that is 1600 m highest point" he repeated it twice and used hes umbrella as an effect pointing it toward the road. I knew what I wanted and I told him yes, this is where i want to go. Maybe he looked at my luggage and figured that since im a woman, i cant do it, but i did, with a huge smile.

On the right I slept for one night (10e) and left went for a small hike, since cycling just isnt enough :D

Probably highlight of the journey :)

 

After going up, theres of course a downhill and it was harder then I thought because it was impossible just to role down and enjoy the speed since I had more then 15kg with me and my brakes were terrible, so I had to really use all my power and pull the brakes as hard as I could and stop every 1km or so. I cycled  from Kranjska Gora to Kobarid in two days because I wanted to saviour the scenary and sleep at the mountains (note: quite difficult to find a wild camp spot). Here is the route and where I slept at the mountains, two camping places and one mountain cabin, alltogether around 30 euros.

It was all like a dream, physically hard but mentally I was happy like a child with a lollipop. When I got up to Vrsic I shouted something like "hell yeah" because the feeling was just overwhelming, before the top I had to stop like three times because it kept getting really heavy, but I was determined to get up cycling and not pushing the bike! For me Slovenia probably was the best part and Kobarid was like the icing on the cake, even thought about staying there for couple of weeks and exploring the area because its a paradise, there is a possibility for all sort of nature activities and relaxing. 

Napoleons bridge

Kiwi tree

Went swimming in Soca river

Slap Kojak, most famous (touristic) waterfall in the area

I might go back someday soon and I highly recommend it, its easy to access from Lubljana or Italy with a car so from Finland for example take a flight to Lubljana and rent a car, cycle there or maybe even a buss. In Trenta I actually met with a great cyclist gang from Italy, they have been cycling together for 40 years and every year  they choose one destination where they cycle, this year it was Wien (maybe next year Lapland ;). They arrived late to the camping area and I had a good laugh looking at them getting organised with tents, since they are Italian...its a hustle :D Mario even pitched it upside down at one point I think. They of course saw my bicycle and realised im a solocyclists.

"your with a bicycle, from Finland, alone, wou wou"
 "everybody, look at this, shes from Finland" :D

 

In the morning they invited me to have breakfast with them and of course I wanted to. It was crackers and jam with coffee and tea, I was thinking about making a porridge for myself :D When they saw my banana, they thought it was too healthy! This is the point when my Italian language lessons started and even thou I didint learn to speak, I understand better now then before, in italy I had several discussions in the cafes, at the streets, crocery stores with the other person speaking only Italian and me English, Italian, Spanish and google dictionary :D While having breakfast, we discussed about cycling and I told about my project and they got really excited, even offered to host me when they get back to Italy. Most of the guys live between Padova and Venice which wasnt on my route since I didint want to cycle in Venice area but I changed my route since I wanted to spend more time with them, its crazy how cyclists connect with each other so easily and how all of us have this silent understanding about helping each other and I also think its an Italian thing, they are very helpful. Back to Kobarid where I cycled to the coast of Italy, a small town next to Montfalcone. I was hosted by a lovely family who does a lot of volunteering aswell, thank you Antonella and Francesco. After that I spend one night at a beach watching the blood moon.

This beach is at Bibionne, which is 120km to Venice. Cycling to Venice was hell because of the heat, I left the beach at 8:30 but it was allready too late since it was at least +30 degrees and water gets hot instantly and you dont feel like eating anything, but the route was quite beautiful with the last 10km of beach line and for lunch I had a big bowl of mysli with fresh fruits. In Venice (not the island, but a city next to it) I had a lovely host Andrea, thank you for having me :)

After Andrea I met with Alessio who is one of the Italian cyclists I met in Trento, we spend one really nice (and touristic) day in the island of Venice walking around. Venice is beautiful I cant deny that, but its way too crowded to actually enjoy the beauty, I recommend to go during spring or fall when its not so touristic. I spend four nights with Alessio and hes family and learned about Italy, fell in love with Italy. There are a lot of problems inside the country with the current political situation and the culture still being old fashioned and a bit machista but there is a lot of love and kindness AND so delicious food with fresh ingridients and no, it wasnt hard to eat as a vegan ;)

Average salary is a lot lower then in Finland and the employment rate is high, there are many reasons for that, one being that young people dont get good jobs and the elderly employees want to hold on to their old ways and they dont provide new opportunities for the young people (this is what I heard). I dont know if the youngsters actually are even really demanding more or are they just kind of settling to what they get, I dont know. I feel like Italy is cut in half, other half is really persistant, knows their human rights and pursues their dreams and acts. The other half is a bit unactive and just settles to what they are given, is a bit lazy and easily persuaided to think in a nationalist way and blame someone else for their lazyness. A lot of people say that Italy is sinking at the moment because of the refuge situation, they (Spain and Greece) hafty take more refugees then the countries economy can handle anymore (Italy is not the richect country and has a lot of corruption) and rest of the European Union is just closing their eyes not giving a shit (sorry for my language but its not good), including Finland. Now Italy closed their borders and there are hundreads of refuges in the sea just waiting to get in somewhere (they are sent to Spain) to actually live and survive, STAY ALIVE. Sorry for the caps look, but its furiating how unbalanced the living situations are in this world. The current Italian government is of course using the situation and turning the whole refugee crise into a possibility to race their racist head and many Italians are now blindly following the goverment and turning into nationalists, turning against the people who need help because they are too lazy to read what is really going on and to realise that the government is just using them as puppets just like Perussuomalaiset in Finland, but luckily there are a lot of organisations who work against this nationalist ideal because "Siamo tutti imigranti" (i really want a shirt like this).

We are all immigrants

Ok, enough of that for now. Next we can talk about trafficking in women and prostitution in Italy, happy subjects in this post :D After resting five days and been treated like a queen, it was time to move and head to Bologna where I was meeting with the organisation Vitetrasformate @www.vitetrasformate.org which is located in a church/activity center. I met with lovely Cristhina and we pretty much talked the whole day about everything, she is really smart and experienced on the situation that Italy is facing and the women are facing.

Cristhina at the office

Vitetrasformate is a small Christian based organisation that is operated by two amazing women focused on reaching victims of sexual exploitation on the streets, they seek to meet the physical, relational and emotional needs of the women through practical help, friendship building, and networking with social services to provide exit strategies (this means that they are the link between social service, police, safe houses etc), all this is under the leadership and partnership of the local churches. Their team is made of volunteers which includes people from various local churches in Bologna, they have a leadership team, "lanterns", drivers, and a prayer team (when they go to the streets, there is always two men, two women in the car and two at the office in case of security). Idea is to tell the women on the streets (mainly from Benin city Nigeria and Romania) that they have another option and they can get help and a safe place, but since most of them are afraid of their madams and the mafia, of someone hurting their family members at their home country, they stay quiet and keep on working. A lot of the girls end up in the streets by their family member, who "sell" them to the mafia, trick them to leave their home country and earn money so that the family in Nigeria could live better, for me this is an absurd idea. Who would send their own daughter or sister to another country to being exploited sexually everyday (sorry for my personal opinions and language, but sometimes its better to say how it is). 

Main room at the building where Vitetrasformate is located

Play room for children

Trafficking in women is a really complex problem that starts with deep cultural differences and lack of education, lack of equal rights for women and lack of jobs for women because of poverty or resources. Poverty then again starts from globalisation (climate change, time-space progress, capitalism), from colonisation, wars and constant exploitation by the North. If we wanted to prevent trafficking it would start from the origin country by providing education and information for the girls, when the girls arrive f.ex. to Italy its pretty much too late allready for them since they are being tracked all the way from Africa to Italy (they are an item of business, investment), all the girls go first to a refugee camp which could be a possible place to try prevent them going to prostitution but since they are tracked by the mafia then they are gone a day later. Cristhina told me that they were able to help one woman at the camp but its been really hard for her since she cant do nothing at the camp, its just waiting for a permit to stay, waiting for the documents and all she would like to do is to work, these refugee camps are like hell for many because its like they are in hold for life, just hafty wait for a long time (years) and a lot of them starts criminal activities because they dont have money and they dont even get toiletries from the refugee camp. Most of the women who arrive to Italy just want to get their documents sorted out, work a normal job and leave Italy to other countries in Europe since theres nothing in Italy. This woman that is still waiting, she is educated in Africa as an engineer so shes smart and thats probably why she was able to say no to the traffickers, I really hope she makes it trough and is able to live a normal life. Vitetrasfromate could help her and give her a place to live but she cant leave the camp because if she leaves then her document process stops.

When Vitetrasformate goes to the streets in Bologna (twice a month), they usually meet around 10-15 girls depending on the night, lately the streets have been more empty because some of the young Romanian girls are moved indoors to receive the customers. Cristhina told me that they never want to put the girls in danger so they park their car a bit further from the street and walk up to the girls, ask if its ok and if they can talk, if the girls say no then they leave them be but if they agree to talk then the volunteers offer help, give small gifts (to show that they dont want anything in return) to build trust, tell about their work and basically try to listen and be there for the girls. Sometimes the girls receive a phone call and then the volunteers hafty leave immeaditly, some member of the mafia is always looking out, always controlling the girls and sometimes they might even walk up when the volunteers of Vitetrasformate are talking to the girls, asking what they are doing, maybe even try to intimitate a little. The organisation never takes the girls in the office because it would be a huge safety risk.

I cant emphasize enough how priviliged we are to be born in the North and yet so blind to it and so ungrateful.

In Italy there arent a lot of safe houses for women and its a huge problem, Vitetrasformate is opening a safe house soon with the help of private donours mostly from USA since the government of Italy isnt able to help enough. In Bologna there is a lot of services for women and antitrafficking work which is very unique in the country. Vitetrasformate would like to collaborate more with the other organisations in the area but in Italy its all about connections and who you know and they are not been really welcomed since they are a small organisation (under the law they are a association and it takes years to be aproved as an NGO), but they do have connections with other Christian organisations in Italy and are connected with organisations in other parts of Europe (like now with FinnWID- naiset kehitystyössä ry). Some women have actually arrived in Finland from Italy in the hopes of getting a safe place to live and a living permit, however Finland (as amazing it sounds) keeps sending these women back to Italy under the Dublin law which means that where the person arrived first in EU is the place where they can be send back and in these cases it means Italy, even though these women are certainly a risk group of ending back to the streets for exploitation. Some of the women (like Toisenlaisia tarinoita Itohan Okundye) have children and are still been send back to nothing, no real job, education, income or knowledge of the culture and language. We need to change the law because it doesnt work, for me it feels like EU is eating its own toe, its unhumane and unfair for the countries that are in the South and the whole concept of EU is really elitist like "hey now that we have colonised, slawed and ruined these countries in the South then lets create this huge bubble to keep the people out from our front porch". 

Ok, im getting out of control. Back to Vitetreasformate, its a small organisation that is slowly growing, in my eyes they are really brave and strong to actually face the realities of trafficking in women all the time in front of their eyes and helping all the women in the streets even thou it also puts them in danger and affects their health. I remember after interviewing Cristhina, I felt a little scared because everything was more real now and since their office is next to the refugee center I could see a lot of the African man just hanging around and I dont mean they are all criminals but it made the situation more real. The streets Cristhina told me about, they were there and I was walking them so it wasnt like I read about it somewhere, I was inside the story. Hopefully soon ill be able to see the origin, Africa. In Bologna I was hosted by Nicole who started a brand called True Story which aims to provide meaningful jobs to women. Each women’s cooperative receives training and employment in crafting original hand-made garments (which are made from recycling clothes) while their direct investment micro-enterprise model allows a community of women to work and grow together through creative workshops, listening circles and a unique personal growth journey guided by a research-based storytelling and arts curriculum. This is amazing since Cristhina works with the women on the streets and Nicole could offer them a possibility to work and learn about the clothing business and most important help the women in the origin country.

Art work at the center

Library at the center

Book store

I bought these book covers that are made by an Nigerian woman, she even has own brand allready

Leaving Bologna

When arriving Italy, I felt tired of looking for a place to sleep everynight and wanted to have one place to rest for a while to stay put. I tried to find a place in a Buddhist monestary but was out of luck so I asked in Facebook if someone knows an organic farm in Italy where I could work for two weeks in exchange for bed and food. Luckily a friend of mine knew a friend who knew a friend in Lucca (40km from Pisa) and I got a place at Agriculture farm Nico, this made me really happy and Im gratefull to everybody who was involved in organising this. From Bologna I cycled to Suviana lake, I checked that there was a camping area and planned to sleep there. This was a super hard day because of the heat and it was pretty much climbing all the way, it was around 8pm when I arrived to the lake exhausted and walked into the camping which looked like it had a lot of space. This is where it got wierd because the reception told me they are full and I of course saw that there was plenty of places for a small tunnel tent, at first I thought it was a language barrier so I asked help from an Italian customer but the answear was same and I still dont understand that if an exhausted solo cyclist with a small tunnel tent needs a place to sleep then why couldnt they take me. I left furious and cursing the man, problem was that it was a mountain, so in order to get to the beach (which was crowded with italian tourists) id hafty go down a steep downhill in the forest. I continued cycling thinking to set my tent in someones backyard when I saw a road going down on the left, so I followed it and ended up to a forest with a lot of tents and people and it wasnt a camping place. I walked up to the people and asked like hey who are you and can I also camp here, it turned out they were scouts and happy to help me. I felt blessed, such a great punch of people. They had running water, cold shower, tent kitchen and even a toilet in the forest, woaw.

Rocchetta Mattei on the way

There are wild turtles in Italy

Alvar Aalto designed a chuch here

Thank you!

Next day I started heading to Lucca but since it was so freaking hot I decided to cycle to Pistoia 30 km and take the train to Lucca, from Lucca I cycled to Orbicciano which is around 17km. This was a good decission since even cycling only 40km or so I was totally destroid when arriving to Nico, but it was all worth it since its such a nice place and the family is super friendly, full of life not to speak of the scenary and surrounding area with mountains. They have a house on top of a hill which accomodates customers in two rooms and one apartment all year around, one room is for Woofers (european work and travel system) and half of the house is for the family, they have four children and all girls. The fields are about 17 km from the house at Lucca (beautiful historical city), its all biodynamically produced and tomatoes are their biggest thing, Frederico (father) is even the president of "Tomato association", pretty cool! If you could be president, what would it be?

Basket tomato

Yes, its an eggplant :)

Plums

These fellows were everywhere

La famiglia, from the left: Tidag, Yse (8months), Frederico (father), Elena (mother), Chloe, Anais and David (Woofer)

I like this family and their values on how to live your life and how to raise the children. Frederico is really sympathic and warm, friendly and caring but he has to work six days a week from 6am to 8pm so he doesnt get to see the children so much. Elena is a powerbank and full of life, she takes care of the children everyday and entertains the guests, cooks for the guests and makes sure everything runs smoothly, Elena is a real Italian mamacita but with a modern twist of reggae soul (her cooking is to die for). They both are very adventurous and love the nautre so they go a lot hiking in the mountains with the children and use the surrounding areas, from Orbicello its around 40 km to the sea, 17 km to the city and 30 km to the mountains (or less) so its perfect. I highly recommend staying with them for couple of nights and its really easy since Pisa airport is only 40 km. I spend two weeks at the house and my main tasks were to help with cooking and serving lunch/dinner, making tomato sause and marmalade, looking after the children and helping with small things. I dreamt of working at the fields more to see how it works but it didint happen, maybe because I was there only for two weeks or there wasnt enough work for everybody. Elena needs a lot of help around the house which I was happy to do of course. In the last picture you can see David on the right, we worked together and shared the room together which was really nice, he is Swedish but working in Norway, very positive and easy going person. 

Making some tomato sauce Italian style

Peach marmelade

Wanna know how tomato sauce is made, ill tell you! Grab some delicious and ripe basket tomatoes, cut them in pieces, boil in a big pot maybe add some salt (every 5 min stir and squeeze the tomatoes softly with a wooden spoon), boil until the tomatoes have given a lot of juice (so that they are allmost covered). Pour the tomatoes in to a big strainer (place the strainer in a sink) and let be for a while (role them around softly for couple of times to get the extra fluid out). Take a food mill, place a pot under it and start adding the tomatoes to the mill, little by little you will have a fresh tomato sauce <3 If you want to save the sauce for later or you have a lot of it then place it into a jar with a lid, add salt, close the lid and put all the jars into a big pot, fill the pot with water so that the it goes maybe 3cm over the lids. Boil the water for an hour or so, dry the jars, make sure the lids are tight and place to dry place. 

On the first week we went for a hike with Frederico and hes brother, Chloe, Tidag, David and Philip. It was one of the best days on my journey, we hiked up to Grotta del Vento (around 1800 m). There is a small mountain cabbin where its possible to buy coffee, food and snack, we also had (of course) red wine, fruits, bread and tomato with us (others ate cheese and ham). This is when I learned the meaning of Dolce Vita <3 Being up the mountains felt like the Googlemaps I had been looking at for months now, was actually there in front of me live and I could see it in my mind, visualize it like 3D.

Lot of blueberries here

Happy face

After the hike we went for a swim at nearby river and I dont have a picture but I made a really painful face splash trying to jump head first in the water, Frederico has a great picture of the jump and if your reading this then please remember to send it! :D Wednesday is a pizza day so when we arrived back to Orbicciano it was time to make pizza!! I love Italy.

Elena made the dough and Frederico baked the pizza

 

On the second week me and David had couple of days free, more like three I think. David went for an island near Corsica and thanks to Frederico who knows a lot of people in the area I went to an abandoned village in the mountains called Cole de Luca, next to Grotta del Vento. There used to live like six families or so and after the parents died, none of the children were interested on maintaining the houses. Paolo and Lisandro are two amazing men with kind hearts who bought part of the village and started to restore the houses, now one of the houses is ready to live in (theres still work with painting, stairs and small stuff) with working water and electricity. Both of them work in Lucca and whenever they have a holiday they go and restore the village, plan is that in couple of years they have two to three houses ready. Catch is that its not possible to get into the village with a car since the road ends maybe one or two kilometers before, this is also the beauty of the place. It is possible to get quite near with a tractor or a jeep but thats a new investment. Cole de Luca is like a haven for peace and nature and I definetely want to go back here, maybe someday even rent a room and write about my travels or people, life. Have aperitivies everyday and listen to the mountains, look at the stars.

Love.

Two weeks went by fast at Orbicciano and I could have staid for couple of weeks more at least to harvest wine grapes, now is the time for white wine and rose, soon red wine. However as always, money makes me nervous, or the lack of it. Now that im back I realise that it would have been fine, maybe next year Ill go and harvest the grapes and stay at Cole de Luca, waking up to the mountains is definetely something to pursue, how to get that and finance your living is the question!

From Lucca I toulk the train to Rome because I wanted to have some time also there and didint honestly have the motivation to cycle anymore, which is hard to say outloud but necessary to accept being a strong headed woman on a mission. I had two hosts in Rome, first was Claudia whom we had really interesting talks about everything and her boyfriend even offered me a job at hes hostel, but Rome is not my kind of city. The city has a lot of beauty but its lost under all the tourism, wish I could have seen it in a hundread years ago, now its just distressing. Claudia reminded me a lot of a friend in Helsinki and it was sometimes even wierd because they have this same way of being, it felt as if my friend was there. Next was Marcello who works at Red Cross and was really kind for me, I am happy for his new relationship and hope it lasts, having someone to love you in this world is important. Marcello offered to drive me to the trainstation at 4:30 am, which im really grateful for. Other option was to sleep at the airport and dissemble Toivo there and it felt ok too (which was a strugle since I couldnt get the pedals off and neither could Marcello). While staying at Marcellos there was also Nadia who is a traveller from Belarus and it was nice to have company since I wasnt up to seeing the touristic sights in Rome.

Found a beautiful park a bit outside the city area

Pyramid in the middle of Rome

Its never nice to put a bicycle in a box

Again, it feels like I was travelling for years even though it was only nine weeks, but so much happens in that time and its all out of my routined life. A lot of surprises, living in the moment and just taking it all as it comes, meeting strangers that become your friends instantly because your feelings just float like a free river and your heart is so much more open then usually however those feelings dont always last with everyone because the situations where you meet is so unique. That is important to regocnise and bring that realisation to your life no matter where you are, life is a constant river of changes and its not healthy to force anything, hold on to something that cant be, because its not there anymore. Its really hard to understand because in the other hand it means that whenever you make an emotional bond with someone its not the same anymore tomorrow. When do you know a feeling is true if feelings are just a creation of our minds. Thats a mindfuck.

People, go and travel, get out of your comfort zone whatever it might mean to you (its dfferent for all of us), SMILE to strangers in the streets, INTERACT with strangers in the streets and you will see a change in your self and in the world, SHARE AND CARE.

If you see me somewhere, crap my hand and walk with me a while (or offer me a job, preferably something to do with humanrights and coordinating).

Some random statistics:

- I cycled about 2300 km
- Average day 70 km
- Average speed 18 km/h
- Luggage 16 kg
- Bicycle alumium Trek Crossrip with discbrakes and 20 gears.
- Woke up normally around 8 am and found a place to sleep around 7pm
- Breakfast was normally muesli with water and a cup of instant espresso or bread with avokado, lunch something quick from supermarket, dinner was pasta or rice with tofu or lentils. Snacks were nuts, raisins, protein/fruit bars, chocolate, cookies, crisps or something salty (when it started to be hot everyday).
- Most of my warmshower hosts were men and its really interesting, this is something I would like to write about "all the great men I met on my journey"
- Highest point 1611 m at Vrsic, Slovenia
- Normally cycled around 3 days and then 2 days or 1 day of rest but it depends on the country because a lot of the capitals are only two days apart from each other so I might have had like 2 days of cycling and two days off, 3 days of cycling and 1 day off.
- Animals encountered were wildboars (behind a fence luckily), deers, foxes, nothing too dangerous
-  0 flat tires
- No dangerous situations, that i know off
- Most beautiful country in my opinion was Slovenia, the nature is amazing and theres really clean everywhere since they only have 2,2 milj. inhabitants
- Top experiences was Berlin, Dresden, Danube river, Slovenian alps, Italian food and people, Cole de Luca, Orbicciano, Caligano, Venice with Alessio, Grotta del Vento.


Best experience was and is always the people you meet, thank you all and remember that my home is your home.


Love and Hope
Laura
Riding for Hope