Dolomites!

Ok, so I'm here now and it's fucking magical. I'm three days in and utterly fucked...
Some things I have learned:

1. OH MY GOD it's stunningly beautifully majestically spectacular out here. Round every mountain there is another mountain that somehow managed to look even more incredible than the last.
   
2. It's steep. So steep. Deploy the compact indeed - those 7-8% gradients on the Alpine HCs are a mere bagatelle by comparison.
   
3. The roads go up, and the roads go down, but nothing else. Assuming you bang it down the descents like a grinning loon, the only place to recover is stopping for an espresso and gelato.
   
4. You must stop for espresso and gelato regularly, for both are wonderful things.
   
5. But probably don't go for three in a row mid-afternoon, because sleep is then hard.
   
6. It's really touristy. Guess it's peak Italian/Austrian holiday time, but this means there's a lot of traffic on the roads, especially mid to late afternoon. Annoying.
   
7. The drivers aren't great. Don't leave you much room, overtake when there's oncoming traffic, and oncoming traffic overtakes in your path, ignoring you. Motorbikes and coaches cut apexes even if you're halfway round the bend.
   
8. You can fill your bidons from pretty much every water fountain that exists. It's ace, and I know this is a bit pathetic but the whole asking to fill your bottle in a bar thing when you don't know the language is a real anxiety. It's bad enough in England.
   
9. It's cheap! Compared to the French and Swiss Alps, eating and drinking on the road is almost free. And the coffee's so much better.
   
10. I will come back here again. And again.