Pictures from the 2010 Giro d'Italia: as they say, better late than never...

To your unbelievable joy, the magic moment has finally arrived: the magic moment in which miss Fede, ignoring the fact she has to read the 600 pages of 'Promessi Sposi' before of Wednesday, has finally decided to publish on this blog the pictures she took during this year Giro d'Italia.
For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about,here's a little resume: this year I went to see 3 stages of the Giro live (you can find the description of them on http://fede-myblog92.blogspot.com/2010/06/fangirl-at-giro-part-1-brescia-aprica.html , http://fede-myblog92.blogspot.com/2010/06/fangirl-at-giro-part-2-passo-del-tonale.html and http://fede-myblog92.blogspot.com/2010/06/fangirl-at-giropart-3-verona-verona.html ). Unfortunately, when I wrote those posts my computer had just broken down, so I had to wait a lot before of being able to upload the pictures on the computer. When I finally succeeded in doing that, however, I simply forgot about the pictures. Yesterday however I received the news that Bergamo is going to host a Giro d'Italia stage next year (yayyyy!) and that reminded me of the existence of those pictures, that here I finally publish. Btw, before of enjoying them, here are two random news.
FIRST NEWS: According to Jakob Fuglsang, los Schlecks are heading to Curaçao also this year.
SECOND NEWS: I know what Torri said about cycling yesterday ('all cyclists are doped') and my point of view about this is: in cycling there are many dopers because only in cycling you have such modern tests.

And here we go with the pictures (the quality isn't very good, but I'm not a photographer...)!!!

FIRST DAY: APRICA STAGE
Saying that I went to see the Aprica stage perhaps is an exaggeration, since I actually came across the riders in Edolo, while they were heading to l'Aprica and I was heading to my hotel on Passo del Tonale, by accident.In fact the familiar who had to check the riders' parcours had completely forgotten about this task of theirs, so we were very surprised when we got the news that we couldn't drive towards Tonale before of 6 pm because of the Giro. 'But the Tonale stage is tomorrow!', one of us said. 'Yes, but they're riding here also today', a policeman answered.

My surprise was actually so big that I didn't take any picture of the rider on that day. But still, when I finally got to my hotel, I started to take lots of pictures. That wonderful evening, the atmosphere on Passo del Tonale was cold, quiet and still: probably one of the best evenings of my life (also because bumping into Davide Cassani outside of a hotel doesn't happen everyday...).

SECOND DAY: PASSO DEL TONALE STAGE
On the morning of Tonale's stage, Basso was wearing the Maglia Rosa and he was heading towards his Giro victory. The weather was simply wonderful, although it was pretty cold anyway.That's how the mountains looked with the light:

In the pictures below you can see the arrive village and, under it, the Processo alla Tappa stage. On the afternoon, while walking there, I saw Beppe Conti and Gianni Mura.

Later in the day the weather, as you can see in some of these pictures, got a bit worse, but luckily the sun was shining when the riders started to arrive. Here are the two places where I went to see them: Below instead there are some of the supporters' cartels. The yellow one is dedicated to Savoldelli, who followed the Giro as Rai chronist (and showed to everyone how the Bergamask accent sounds...). The other one instead was dedicated to Simoni, who that day was on a breakaway- the last breakaway of his career.

As you can see, the writing below instead said 'Sorensen'. I swear I didn't write it myself (will someone believe me?) .Obviously, however, that's where I went to take the pictures ;)

Talking about Chris, well, that day I managed to see him very well. And at a certain point, when I screamed 'Go Chris, go go go!' as he was riding past me, I had the feeling that he was watching me and trying to smile at me. It was just a fast feeling, but when I think about it it still gives me goosebumps.Btw, here's a picture of Chris that I took as he rode past me, before of starting a bloody argument with the boy who kept on running behind the riders and ruined all my pictures by doing so (I'm kidding: I was too happy to start bloody arguments- but my pics all got ruined by that guy anyway!!).
As I already mentioned, the quality of the pictures isn't that good. But still, remember that they were taken by a super excited Fangirl!!
Here are Sastre and Vinokourov.
The eventual winner Tschopp.
Linus Gerdemann, Marcel Wyss, and the idiot who ruined almost all my pictures.
The good-looking Laurent Didier (the boy has great eyes, believe me):

Iban Mayoz:
De Greef (yay!):
Ardila Cano:
Miholjevic: Cioni:

Wurf together with other riders:

To miss Sansen's joy, here's a picture of Pozzatolocks taken especially for her:

Petrov:

Stortoni:

THIRD DAY: VERONA-VERONA
Dulcis in fundo, after 2 mountain stages me went to see the ITT in Verona, which was also the last stage of the Giro. There I took a few pictures,some of which actually aren't very nice.
Here's Lastras:
Richie Porte:
Sastre:

The Arena that day:

That's the place where I went to see the riders:
So, these are the pictures. They probably aren't worth the long await, but I think some of you may enjoy them anyway. Hope you liked them and, remember, the Schlecks are heading to Curaçao this winter too!

(Pictures taken by me)