May 2009

When last we crossed from France to Spain in 2006 we spent most of our day walking our heavily loaded bicycles up the Pyranees only to reach the top at the end of the day as the wind started to whip and the rain started to fall...Crossing from Perpignan to Spain this time was wonderful! A short climb through the Pyranees Orientals in the sunshine and we found ourselves looking at the Spanish border. We stopped, had one last French sandwhich, and crossed.

Spain met us with warm sunshine, a long downhill, and a number of prostitutes lining the highway as we coasted down from our Pyranean adventure! But as it goes, soon we found ourselves riding against a strong head wind that slowed us down considerably and once again pushing ourselves over hills under a strong sun, the dry heat forced us to make an effort of strong will in order to continue riding. The prostitues appeared to be cheering for us as we made it to the top of each hill, most likely they were just soliciting another weary traveller, and we did not stop to find out! Arriving in Figueres we stopped for a rest at the Dali Museum, the place of his birth, and had a great time exploring Dali´s earliest works and those towards the end of his life in 1989. From Figueres we went to Gerona.

Gerona is a large city with many cobble stone alley ways lined with shops. We found oursevles without much assistance as it was the middle of Siesta. After a cold beer and some tapas we began to seach for a place to stay for the night, no campsites once again, and for the first time since the journey began we were LOST. not until after 10 pm did we finally find a hotel room for the night which we gratefully accepted and went to bed.

Gerona to just outside Barcelona was around 65 miles of solid riding and today we will explore the city of Barcelona and take a much needed day of rest.

After a much needed day off exploring Aix in Provence we took to the road once again. We decided since we are running a bit behind schedule to skip Avignon and simply go straight across to Arles. Shortly into the ride to Arles we felt the benefit of our day off...stronger legs and we enjoyed a nice ride to Arles. Arles itself is a beautiful old city with a Roman Coliseum which is in various stages of preservation and restoration but largely intact. We actually managed to find a campsite in Arles, where we met an Italian musicologist, hitching his way across France with only his rucksack and guitar, on his way to St. Marie de la Mer to experience the music of the annual Gypsy pilgrimage to Saint Sarah the Black (the unmentioned daughter of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene). Allen freestyled a blues tune since named the Bicycle Blues and we were off to sleep and off to parts unknown.

Leaving Arles we took a wrong turn and ended up on the right road through the Camargue, a national wetlands area, which was flat as a pancake and reminded us somewhat of what Minnesota might look like, had either of us ever been there. The Camargue promised to be the home of flocks of Pink Flamingos, however, for a good part of the ride the only flamingo we saw was a 30 foot tall steel scuplture whcih we assumed represented the now extinct pink flamingos of the Camargue...and then we saw them, real life wild flocks of pink flamingos in their natural habitat, quite a beautiful sight. The pink flamingo is an intelligent bird that does not like to be photographed, we stopped close to a flock to take a picture and they promptly began walking away while turning their backs on us, like we haven´t had that experience before...

The ride through the Camargue was made easier by imagining that we were being chased by a mythical beast that lived inside the depths of the Camargue and was just waiting for the Gods to release it and have the two of us for lunch. Thankfully the only blood that was lost in the Camargue was from the Mosquitoes at our campsite in Vic di Gardiole just outside of Montpellier. The campsite was hot and muggy, and the conditions made it impossible to sleep. Oh Well, back on the bikes again.

The road to Narbonne took us through the last vestiges of the the flat, wind at our backs, land of the Camargue. We arrive late into Narbonne and, despite being teased with a sign promising campsites at the entrance to the city, found none, and ended up in a hotel once again. Leaving Narbonne was no easier than finding a place to stay there as we experienced our first mechanical difficulties of the trip. Allen had been complaining that his rear brake wasn´t working properly, so we decided to seek out a bicycle shop in Narbonne before leaving, they were closed, and so we sat down to figure it out ourselves when we noticed that it wasn´t the brake at all! Actually, Allen´s rear wheel had practically exploded, four broken spokes which had been blown for who knows how long had rendered the wheel, in the words of one bicycle shop that we found that was actually open, DEAD! Nothing that 250 Euros and an entirely new wheel set couldn´t fix, and by 4:30 p.m. we were finally on the road, after a brief stop at KFC! Despite our mechanical troubles and our late start we managed to make the entire trip to Perpignan, some forty five miles, thanks to a mostly downhill grade, some sunshine, and a little help from our friends the Camino Angels!

Once again, NO CAMPSITE IN PERPIGNAN, but it was our last night in france!

First, please forgive any spelling or punctuation mistakes, the French decided that it was a good idea to change the placement of letters on the keyboard and trying to learn it is slow going...

From our night in Antibes we awoke to the sun shining once more and so enjoyed a beautiful ride along the beaches of Cannes sticking to the coast as we road to St. Raphael. Along the way you pass small bays of emerald green and saphire blue water rolling into red rock cliffs and beaches, and every climb is rewarded with yet another gorgeous view of the next little town, the next little cove, the next little piece of the simple life, it was spectacular! St. Raphael itself was a happening little beach town where we found our first French campsite, after riding in circles around the town, finding the tourist office, and being told that we had to ride back the way we came 5km, but the site itself overlooked to ocean and was grass rather than the hard rocky ground of the Italian campsites! The coast route was as it had been through Italy, mostly even when you average the ups and downs, but with short downs so it takes a toll on the legs, so this day wasn't much mileage.

From St. Raphael we decided to turn to the interior and leave the coast, though it had treated us so well, we were looking for something different, aa different landscape, and we were rewarded by one giant vineyard in the interior. literally it seems as if the entire area we covered over the next few days was vineyard, and indeed we stopped and picked up some of the local fruit of the vine to enjoy along the way...it's cheap, damn tasty, and flows freely! The ride from St. Raphael quickly turned into a set of long rolling climbs and descents on which we realized that the power we tried to demand from our legs just simply wasn't there. Spinning at a decent pace was no problem, but when the call for that something extra came to climb the next hill, the body simply didn't respond, and yet, we made 60 miles to St. Maximine where we were yet again left with staying in the hotel as the only campsite in the area we had passed 12 miles previously! It was Allen's birthday so a hotel and a nice meal eatten in the shadow of the medieval church were in order!

The next day's ride took us to Aix en Provence, again on tired legs we made 20 miles and decided to stop and even take a day off. Aix en Provence seems to be a younger city with lots to entertain and we are enjoying its exploration...

We didnt quite reach France on Thursday, rather we made it just short of Ventimiglia as we spent our morning in Albenga doing laundry and other errands. Ventimiglia provided one of the quietest campsites yet as well as so,e conversation with a couple from Missouri who had quit their jobs and were traveling around Europe. A quiet canpsite that is until around 3am when it began to pour down rain on our tents. This has happened one other night and was over by the morning, but this was not our luck on this occassion! By 5am Nathans tent had collapsed when the stake pulled out of the wet ground and Allens tent had an inch of standing water inside and it was still raining...we finally got up around seven and pulled all of our gear into the only dry place, the bathroom, and were packing up when it finally stopped raining. No more rain fell on us until we reached our end of the ride in Antibes France at which point we were forced to take the only room left in town (thank you Cannes Film Festival) at a price much outside our budgets.

Now the rain while it bookended our day was not the story of the day, rather leaving Italy and crossing into France at Menton where, despite Duvals best guess we did not trade our bikes for a car, but rather picked up a nice downhill ride into Monte Carlo and Monaco where we stopped to catch our bearings. Climbing out of Monte Carlo we found beautiful cycling tracks leading through Nice where we stopped for lunch as the sun made an appearance and tasted our first really good beer of the trip, Leffe, a Belgian Style Abbey Ale, and may I just say GOODBYE Peroni and Moretti! More cycling track our of Nice all the way to Antibes, a beautiful ride!

Today on through Cannes and likely into the interior in search of some good French wine!

Our day in Cinque Terre provided a much needed day of rest and recovery for our bodies and as it turns out, some mental preparation for what lay ahead of us in the next day's ride. In the train station on the way to Cinque Terre we met two Americans from Connecticut with whom we sat on the train ride from Sestri Levante to Riomagiorre, the furthest of the five towns, and had long discussions about anything and everything, including our newest obsession, the whereabouts of Gene Wilder, we were just glad to be speaking English rather than the bastardized form of Italian that we have developed in learning to feed and house ourselves. Immediately off the train and a 20 minute hike later and we found ourselves in a small tavern in Manarola where a native Hawaiian served us a sampler of the local fare including native Ligurian Pesto and Anchovies which melted in your mouth, and the local wine grown along terraced vineyards along the cliff's edge, all of which left us needing a nap on the beach, so we promptly went to the first town Monterrosso and found a beach where we collapsed on the sand. Not long into our naps we were approached by a Thai Masseuse and for 10 Euro we enjoyed 20 minutes massages (just the feet and legs thank you). We caught the last train from Cinque Terre back to Sestri and passed out in our hotel preparing for the next day's ride.

The ups and downs of which we speak began very early in the ride out of Sestri Levante, we would climb for an hour, decend for twenty minutes, coast along the next ocean front resort town and then start the process all over again, which was all at once thrilling and exhausting...that is until we reached Genova...the only way to summarize the ride through Genova is a short poem, with appoligies to Johnny Cash...

Genova may you rot and burn in hell
May your walls fall and may I live to tell
May all the world forget you ever stood
And may all the world regret you did no good!

Seriously though, a larger mass of mindless motors moving in many directions through tunnels, up hills, onto middle of the city freeways, and speeding past us has not been encountered on this trip, not even Rome or the Autostrada compared! By the time we reached out next campsite just out of Genova we were exhausted, but were rewarded with an amazing meal at the campsite.

By the way, if you are looking for a campsite in Italy, find the place where the railroad tracks and autostrada meet and somewhere in the vacinity you will find it.

The next day after Genova we were rewarded, or so we thought with a coast road which had very minimal climbing, and a fast ride until we hit the village of Noli Ligurie. In Noli we started looking for lunch but were running a bit late and so everything was closed until one chef volunteered to open his kitchen to us and he prepared massive quantities of pasta for us, by far the best meal we have had so far! Little did we know that we would need every carb in that bowl for what lay ahead. Soon after Noli, the coast road was closed, no explanation, no way around or through, just closed, so we returned to Noli for what turned out to be a 600 foot elevation gain climb in a little over a mile and a half!!! OUCH! but we were soon at the top enoying a fast ridgeline ride to Finale Ligure and on to Albenga where we spent last night.

So now on to the Italian/French Border...

hmm, by the way, if you ever get the chance to go on a journey of your own making, make sure to try the Basil liquor while listening to DeJango Reindhart style guitar in a small cafe near the ocean, watch the SMART CARS speed by cuz they are everywhere, no one here drives anything else.

After a late start out of Pisa we made our way to the coast and were rewarded with cycling tracks running through small Italian beach towns lined with beach side resorts where the who's who come to play on the Italian Riviera. The cycling tracks allowed us to make quick work of a fifty mile day and we soon found ourselves going through a small tunnel and coming out in the town of Lerici where we stopped at an information booth looking for the local camping sites. The quickest way we were told to find the camping was to go down to the water, find a certain street, climb back up a sizeable hill, and then we would find directions to three campsites...the first two were closed! The third site took us what felt like most of the way back to Pisa along the cliff side towns that you see in the pictures in our gallery, but we soon found the campsite on the hill. After pushing up the campside road and carrying our bikes down some stairs, were were rewarded with the most beautiful campsite view yet, and we decided that the effort of getting there was well worth it. In looking for the campsite we met an English couple, also looking for the mysterious campsite, who had cycled from Bilbao, Spain and were headed to Moscow via Italy and Greece, then to pick up the Transiberian Railroad to the coast to catch a ship to Japan. We exchanged information about the various routes we each were about to cover and shared a tin of cookies before settling in for the night. It was here that we first began to realize the work that lay ahead of us in the next day's ride to Sestri Levante.

Sestri Levante

"Men will learn the truth going through mountains" Ancient Taoist Saying

From the moment we set out from Lerici we were riding uphill. At times less steep, at times more challenging. push up and up and around the bend and up and up, and on it goes... And keeps going. Reminisicent of the Pyranees Mountains these hills are some of the most spectacular we have ever seen. The view of the sea spans the horizen, the sky is blue with no clouds, the motorcycles fly by us at speeds you can only imagine. Italians love their motorcycles and to go as fast as they can, there does not appear to be any enforcement against it.
We stopped now and again to refuel on water, cafe latte, salty chips, chocolate, and an occasional candy bar, this helped a little but not as much as the sheer perservance and determination that miralcously always seemed available to us whenever needed. Where does this come from? Finally we found ourselves at the ridgeline and then at the top of the mountain headed down towards the sea at Sestri Levantae.

Today we are being tourists, catching the train to Cinque Terre and staying in a hotel with real beds and a bathroom complete with shower and toilet seat...tomorrow on to Genova.

You guessed it, the primary image of your favorite Italian restaurant, the leaning tower of Pisa!

After riding out of the Internet cafe in Follonica we made it only about 10 more miles to the lovely campsite at Torre Moze which we have renamed simply...house of bugs...we are still tending to the numerous mosquito bites that we took as our memories of Torre Moze, oh and the train that went by every three hours and made you feel like you were sleeping on the launching pad of the space shuttle itself! What began as a sleepy ride out of Torre Moze continued on another beautiful Italian sun-filled day to the outskirts of Livorno where we were greeted by a tunnel, now most of the tunnels we have been through thus far have been very short maybe a few hundred meters at most, we missed the little sign at the start of this tunnel into Livorno which read simply...2200mt...(a reference here to our previous entries about the Italian racers...drivers I mean...) and enough said on that topic (we do after all have a Greek Father and Jewish Mother respectively) But as you can tell we are safe and sound and writing once again!

Yesterday was a short 30 miles through Livorno along the beach to Pisa

What can I say about Pisa? A landmark, a place where everyone comes from all over the world to take a photo of themselves pretending to be holding up the tower. Its very funny to see all of these people acting like that. Its a great town full of restaurants, bars, and nightlife. We camped in the center of town, a site fully equipped with hot showers, a pool, bar, and market. What else do you need? Being here, camping each night, makes it clear to me that simplicity, to be surrounded by nature, is the best medicine. Today we head out towards Cinque Terre.

And one last thing, we finally found a bowl of pasta. Belissimo!

In the midst of our fourth day of riding, we finally find ourselves in a town with an internet spot, and one with a view of the Isle of Elba (place of Napolean's exile) at that. Napolean would be proud of our progress thus far! Sunday May 3rd saw us riding out of Rome along the walls of Vatican City and onto the first part of the Via Aurelia, the road we will follow well into France. The traffic on the ride out of Rome gave us our first taste of Italian drivers, fast yet respectful, giving us a wide berth but never letting a foot off the gas! Slowly we made our way out of the city and onto some quiet roads with some short climbs through some beautiful countryside meandering our way through the Roman foothills towards the sea. The first views of the Mediteranean were spectacular and as soon as we reached Ladispoli, our destination for the night, Nathan was quick to take a dip in the Med...cold still...but refreshing after a long ride.

May 4th

Slept at a campground in Ladispoli, let me describe this unusal place to you. It was a tent city, a place where Italian families come to vacation, fully equipped with kitchens, campers, Awnings, and front yards. Children rode their ATVs across the beach while the sun set. Nathan went for an ice cold swim, the first dip in the Mediterrean. Ah, refreshing!
The only problem we have not been able to find a decent Italian dinner for the life of us, no pasta, just cold sandwiches, and anchivoi pizza which Nathan hates and Allen loves.
Waking up we had a cafe, a pastry, and began an amazing ride along the Italian Coastline, we cycled down tree lined roads under the warm sun, stopped and ran with our bathing suits into the Ocean, and on we road another 30 miles to our resting point at Marina di Montalto.

Montalto must be one rockin' beach town...during Italian holliday season...in May, however, we were lucky to find one bar open to serve us dinner, hamburgers at that...still looking for that amazing Italian food! The campsite, however, was a beautiful resting place underneath a canopy of pine trees, which later that night would provide some shelter from a brief rain, the only adverse weather we have encountered thus far...knock on wood...

Cinco de Mayo

It seems as if Italy was made for cycling, today like the last few days we found ourselves on long, beautiful, and quiet paths stretching for miles under the beautiful Italian sunshine. Things are so much different from the adversities we faced as we road across Spain last time, another day older and perhaps a bit luckier we are sailing smoothly along...AND THEN...

THE HIGHWAY...

So again, let me say that Italian drivers, even the semi-truck drivers are very respectful of our space, giving us as much as can reasonably be expected, but they NEVER let off the gas pedal! Today, every effort was made to get off of the highway (the E80 / SS1) but this desire only led us to out of the way dead ends or multi-kilometer delays that in the end weren't worth the effort, and soon we settled into the E80 until we finally reached the butcher shop in Alberese.

PATIENCE is the name of the game at the butcher shop in Alberese. We waited almost an hour just to buy some cheese and sausages, all the while listening to the bells tolling in the church next door. Alberese is known for the quality of the food, and later that night we had the treat of cooking for ourselves high quality steak and rissoto. We were exhausted by the time we left the butcher shop and with several miles to go before a campground, we decided to practice our Italian and asked a farmer if they had a room available. Lucky for us but not for our budgets, the farmer woman smiled and said

50 Euros please.

We had a good night and slept, and were greeted by a little dog on our front porch in the morning.

May 6,

Another beautiful day under the Italian sunshine though as we sit in the internet cafe in Follonica the skys have grown overcast, only a brief bit of highway today and the rest on relatively quiet roads. Today was the first real climbing we have experienced, but only a taste of what lies ahead, and now, like Napolean, it is time to make our escape...On to San Vincenzo