Un video olvidado

Ahora estamos en pleno invierno y yo me recuerda el sol español cuando me topé con este montaje de (principalmente) fotos de mi viaje que me olvide de subirlas.

Taormina to Cefalù

Our ride skirted the north of Etna and took us through some lava fields then into wonderful open country, characterised by huge broad valleys. The road was in fair condition and had dozens of stupendous sweepers that made for  tremendously enjoyable riding.

Two sights along the way held our attention. The first was a stop at a castle carved into a rock formation in the small town of Sperlinga and the second the town of Gangi which we viewed from a little distance. It presents the most extraordinary sight, being built on a steep sided hill and completely covering the hill, leaving the surrounding countryside and hills more or less bare of habitation. It resembled some fanciful paintings I have seen, a kind of cross between sci-fi and childish whimsy.

We had a great view of Gangi from our lunch stop where we were treated to a fabulous meal. At quite short notice, the restaurant produced a magnificent set of anti pasti dishes that pretty well filled everybody's belly to bursting point although somehow, we also found room for barbecued sausages and the best ice cream of the trip.

Arriving at the coast after dropping down from the inland hills, we were greeted by the spectacle of a a sea of white horses driven by a strong wind that carried salt spray and the scent of seaweed ashore. We followed the coast a few miles before arriving at our very pleasant hotel which fortunately was sheltered from the wind by a small headland, allowing us to enjoy the tranquil setting of a garden right by the sea.

Mount Etna

We spent two nights in Taormina which allowed for a rest day for those who wanted to explore the town or simply to have time off the bikes. On this occasion however, most people opted to ride to Mount Etna and then to take the cable car and buses to the top where special guides take parties to nearby fumaroles designated as safe to approach.

Mary and I had done this trip the year before but I did elect to ride up the mountain and enjoy the picnic lunch the guides prepared for us in the car park where one catches the cable cars up the mountain. The roads were enjoyable with nice views, dominated by glimpses of the higher slopes of Etna as we got climbed higher. Our route took us first to the northern slopes of Etna for the ride and views, then round to the south to reach the cable car station.

As we climbed the slopes of the mountain, the temperature dropped quite considerably and as usual, atop the mountain, it was darned cold with a strong wind, according to the folk who went up - just like last year!

Messina to Taormina

After disembarking from the ferry in Messina, we fought the traffic for a while (it could have been and was usually a lot thicker than we encountered on this occasion, according to Domenico, our guide) before heading out along a section of autostrada along the north coast. We then cut inland over the mountains and enjoyed a marvellous stretch of road with both tight twisties and some nice sweepers, accompanied all the time by splendid views over the countryside.

We stopped to have a look at a part of the gorge of Alcantara where a river has cut its way through beds of lava flows. Domenico said this was just a 100 steps down from the road  - it was 250. Going down was not too bad, coming back up was a different story as the temperature had risen to around 30 deg. and there was plenty of sun.

Our hotel was not in Taormina itself, but a few kilometres north and we spent a couple of nights there. My shots of Taormina at the end of the video include a couple I took last year when my wife Mary and I stayed in the town for a short holiday.

I am happy to say that the video below does reasonable justice to the route.

Maratea to Sicily

Our route from Maratea to Sicily involved a stopover at Tropea before catching a ferry from Villa San Giovanni to Messina in Sicily. Tropea is a nice old town built on steep cliffs of what appears to be some of the softest sandstone I have seen. There is a church apparently built out of the same stuff atop a squat sea stack - Isola Bella that, judging by its clean lines must have been built fairly recently.

Calabria is a very poor part of Italy and not much frequented by tourists but Tropea must be the most touristy one in the region I think.

The coastal roads from Maratea to Tropea and then on to the ferry port were not very interesting for a biker and generally, the views didn't equal those to be found further north or in the hills. However, just above the town of Maratea is an enormous statue of Christ the Redeemer, similar to the Corcovado in Rio de Janeiro.

The video below covers the journey from Maratea to Sicily and the start of the more interesting roads we found there.

Rome to Maratea

This video covers the part of the trip from Rome to Maratea, via the Amalfi coast. The coastal road was very crowded and it was a delight to get off into the hills behind Maratea for some proper riding.

Lack of money in the region means that the roads are not receiving the maintenance they need and one has to be careful of broken/uneven road surfaces and gravel.

Back Home and now to work!

Having failed miserably to keep up this blog while travelling, I shall try to impose some order on my large numbers of photos and videos to illustrate the essence of the journey in the next week or so.

I had a good time, met some nice people and was especially happy to see my good friends from the USA (Brian and Shira) again.

Riding in Sicily was great fun and the countryside was magnificent - definitely a lot nicer than Calabria was in my opinion and well worth a tour in its own right. One could easily spend ten days exploring Sicily on a bike and I would not be surprised if I returned to do just that at some point.

The view from my window in the hotel on my last morning in Sicily - Etna smoking gently.

Gangi

Sunrise in Sicily

Suffering in Siicily

Finally some truly great roads!

Now in Sicily having ridden down the coats from Tropea to the ferry for a 30 minute crossing to Messina. Fortunately a very calm sea as the bikes weren't strapped down at all on the surprisingly large vessel.

From Messina, we followed the north coast westwards for a while then cut south over the mountains on a spectacular twisty mountain road. With the GS in Dynamic mode,  suspension set to hard, it was blast, bootscraping in the turns on really nicely surfaced road - all the more surprising, given the generally appalling state of most of the roads we have seen in the relatively poverty stricken south of Italy.

Blogging is made very hard given lack of internet at speeds capable of sending photos and more particularly lack of time and energy. After a long day's riding, by the time I have showered and changed, and had, dinner there is no time left, unless I am to shun my companions completely which of course isn't the point of touring. It was easier in Spain this year when I fixed my own schedule and most of the places I stayed had good internet.

We are now in Taormina and today will visit Mount Etna. I think I have been getting some decent video and i n due course will be able to post this when I am home and have edited it.

--
Chris

Views from Tropea

View from a lunch stop

View up the hillside from hotel in Maratea

Guide's blog

One of our tour guides is posting a blog of the tour with many more pictures than I am managing. It is here www.worldtourer.com (Rome to Sicily RTS 1303)

In Maratea

We are staying in a very nice hotel, overlooking the sea and this morning we had a gorgeous view from a rooftop terrace.

Around 10am we left on a ride with our guide, Domenico, just 5 bikes in total but a perfect number for our ride through the mountains behind the coast. The roads were very twisty and often badly broken so it was a challenging ride but great fun as long as you avoided the bumps, fallen chestnuts and gravel. One of our number fell victim to the gravel but fortunately it was only his pride that was hurt - plus a few scratches on the bike of course.

The scenery was magnificent for the most part and I hope to show some when I sort out the video I took. The wifi here is just too slow to do much with it.

Pompei to Maratea

Leaving Pompei, we passed through a couple of small towns on our way to the Amalfi coast road. These were bursting at the seams with crazy Italian drivers who seem to invent their own rules of the road as it suits them. Signs and white paint there are aplenty but treated at best as mere suggestions. They don't even mark the field of play for it turns out that the sidewalk is a fine place to drive/ride and park too.  The wrong side of the road - what's a wrong side? Everything is fine as long as you don't blink, he who hesitates is lost in this state of automotive anarchy. Mad Max would do just fine.

The  Amalfi coast is indeed utterly spectacular but of course the traffic, nose to tail in both directions makes it hard to enjoy it properly.

More later...

Rome to Pompei

Leaving Rome on a motorcycle was an experience that one should suffer as few times as possible. The traffic was horrendous and it seemed that the only way to survive and make progress was to ride like a Roman, after all, ¨When in Rome...¨ and all that.

Riding the latest water cooled BMW GS 1200 makes that relatively easy. The engine is marvellous with great acceleration, easy to wheelie off the throttle in first as I discovered when I gave it the sort of handful that I would normally give my GSA for a brisk take off.

We stopped for a while in Castel Gandolfo, summer home of the Pope and where the recently retired pope is staying I think. However, neither came to shake our hands so after a coffee and a brief look at the pretty lake, we headed off once again. The weather was a mix of heavy showers and sunshine, mainly rain at first but brighter in the afternoon.

Another coffee stop at Roca Massima to shelter from the rain, then on to an excellent lunch at Sperlunga, where the rain cleared and we stayed mostly dry until we arrived in Pompei.

The roads we have ridden so far have been somewhat disappointing with quite a lot of traffic and rain often obscuring the scenic stuff in the hills. There was also a very slow rider in my group who held us up a lot. I shall try to avoid him today!

I only brought my ipad on this trip so video may be a problem and given the weather only a couple of photos were taken on this leg. I will post them when I figure out how to do it!
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Piazza Navona Rome

After the morning's storm, the weather improved!

Watching the world go by

In piazza Navona

One night - three hotels

After a smooth flight to Rome, the fun started with a hair raising taxi ride to the centre. The Fiat taxi resembled a bread van but the driver who probably had a few years on me(!) plainly thought it was a Ferrari and proceeded to demonstrate that his best friends were all policemen. How else can you get away with doing 160 kph in a zone marked at 80kph?

He dropped me at the hotel where doormen took my bags to reception and then, upon presenting my pre-paid hotel voucher, I was informed that it was for a different hotel. Fortunately it was only a couple of hundred yards up the street, my bags were very heavy and even though they have wheels, I don't relish moving them very far. The correct hotel had no doormen but lots of stairs up from the street, so puffing and panting after hauling my bags up the stairs, I again presented my hotel voucher.

"Ah" says the receptionist, "we are putting you in another hotel".  At this, I felt slighly faint but it was explained that some people had fallen ill and weren't able to leave their hotel room, so the hotel ws having to relocate people checking in. Another taxi ride and I finially checked into the hotel "Principessa Isabella" which had nothing going for it apart, fortunately, from my room which was very nice.

I found dinner at an excellent restaurant called "Cesarina" , just around the corner and then slept like a log until daylight woke me this morning.  I took a walk from thge hotel to the Via Veneto where I planned to get a coffee but was thwarted by a thunderstorm that soaked me to the skin in about 30 seconds. I stopped to buy an umbrella from one of the itinerant africans selling them at the rain-inflated price of €5. PLainly he had been standing with them too long in the rain because in a very short time, the rusty stem broke and I was left with a heap of spokes.

Back at the  hotel, I managed to dry out somewhat before grabbing a taxi and moving hotels to the one where the tour is due to start - the ESH hotel which the sign on the door translates as "Executive Style Hotel" - who knew?

Test from iphone

By mail

I am off to Italy next month to ride on an Edelweiss tour from Rome to, and through, Sicily and I plan to leave my laptop at home so I am just reminding myself how to make a post with photo from my phone.

Voy a Italia el próximo mes para dar una vuelta desde Roma a y a través de Sicilia. Así que, quise comprobar el método hacer un puesto por email desde mi móvil.

Portugal

Aquí tienes un video del norte de Portugal. Por desgracia había varios problemas con la cámara y la película está irregular en unas partes.

El río es el Douro

Riding to Ronda

The back roads of Spain are great. Traffic is light to non-existent and there is usually great countryside to see. The drawback for a solo traveller is that should he require any assistance, help may be a long time coming - especially in the absence of a mobile phone signal. I was always conscious of this whenever I turned on to the mountain roads but took comfort from the fact that my Yellowbrick satellite tracker could send text messages even in the absence of a phone signal. Most of all, I was very careful to avoid situations where there was any possibility of dropping the bike. This meant however, passing up a lot of great photo opportunities in spots where parking the bike was difficult - typically a steeply sloping gravelled area at the side of the road where my boots couldn't get a proper grip. It was doubly annoying on these occasions when the helmetcam refused to work properly. However, I do have some footage of nice back roads as in this area of Andalucía, for example.

Un trozo de Andalucia.

Tengo muchos videoclips pero había varios problemas con mi cámara de casco, la mayoría no tiene ni fecha, ni hora correcta. Así que, es difícil saber donde los videoclips se sacaron. Por lo tanto, no hay alguna cronología en estos vídeos - sólo una impresión del sitio.

I had many problems with my helmet camera and even the clips I did succeed in taking had no correct dates or times. Thus, it has not been possible to create videos with a timeline - I just have an idea of where they were taken.

A Tour of the Town

My Garmin was hopeless in towns. It was constantly losing satellite connectivity and trying to send me the wrong way up one streets. I am not entirely sure where this video clip was filmed, it might have been Plasencia - in any case it is pretty typical of the many towns I got lost in with streets that look as though they are for pedestrians only but which are also used by vehicles.

I am sure I did use pedestrian only streets at times but no-one seemed to mind.


Mi Garmin estaba casi inútil en ciudades. Siempre perdía la conexión con el satélite y tratando de enviarme al revés en las calles de sentido único. No estoy totalmente seguro donde fue filmado este video clip que podría haber sido Plasencia - en cualquier caso es bastante típico de los muchos pueblos en cuales me perdí, con calles que parecen como si fueran peatonales pero que también son utilizadas por vehículos.
Estoy seguro usó sólo peatonales a veces pero nadie parecía importarles.

Back Home

Cloud greeted me when I awoke in Abbeville yesterday and stayed with me all the way to the tunnel and there it was on the English side too..

I may have lost the sun but I found something just as good.

And as you can see, I am already dressed for cleaning the bike!

I covered a total of 5957 miles, call it 6000 miles and somewhat to my surprise, I only needed to top up with a total of 3/4 litre of oil in that distance. When the bike was new, it used nearly a litre per thousand miles. The bike computer says fuel consumption is now averaging 50 mpg which is also better than I was getting - of course the kind of riding has been different from the UK miles I cover, so I may find fuel consumption increases again.

The bike is also overdue its 18,000 mile service by 3,000 miles... still apart from a couple of headlamp failures it has given me no problems at all during the journey.

As I said a few days ago, I will be back with some video and other stuff when I have sorted out and edited the many pictures and video clips I have taken. Meanwhile my sincere thanks to all those who took time to comment on my ramblings and also to those who may have been reading them anyway. In particular, I should like to say a special thank you to my Spanish friends  - it was you who helped me learn enough of your beautiful language to make this trip so much more than just looking at beautiful buildings and countryside and your friendship has enriched my life.

Mercedes and Antonio

Juan David and Elena

Mercedes and Francisco

Chinon , Abbeville

Sunday dawned bright and clear in Cahors and as the hotel only served a typical French breakfast (coffee and and a croissant), I was soon on my way.

My plan for moving north was simple and for the most part has worked reasonably well. It was to pick towns on the Michelin map which have a green box around the name (meaning it has some sights/interest etc), on a northerly trajectory and then to set the Garmin to avoid highways and toll roads and to navigate from one to the other. My Garmin has been steadily losing her marbles for the last few days, taking an age to recalculate, repeatedly cycling through recalculations and so on, plus the voice has been going potty pronouncing the same place or road name in different ways  - all of them wrong! However, provided I didn't ask the thing to calculate more than a 30 mile section it worked well enough.

The weather was flawless all day with bright sunshine and temperatures up to 26 degrees. I stopped and had a look around a lovely town called Sarlat-la-Canéda which although unashamedly touristy, does it in a nice way with no tackiness and the old buildings were splendid on this sunny morning. Wikipedia says of it "Sarlat has remained preserved and is one of the towns most representative of 14th century France" also "Sarlat is one of the most attractive and alluring towns in southwestern France". Definitely true in my book.

Then it was on through the back roads of some of the prettiest parts of rural France, the Dordogne and Perigord regions, to Chinon located on a tributary to the Loire, where I decided I had ridden enough for the day.

I picked my hotel for the night using Tripadvisor which ranks it as number 1 in Chinon. What a fantastic place the Hotel Diderot is! I cannot commend it highly enough. Beautifully situated to see the town, it is a 14th century building built around a courtyard. The family who own/run it were all very welcoming and friendly people, the room and breakfast were superb. Breakfast was miles better than the standard French offering and featured some wonderful home-made preserves. At the owner's suggestion, I mixed some soft local cheese with crumbled walnuts and honey to spread on my toast - fantastic!

Joan of Arc trampling a foe in the dust

That's my bike in the rose arbour!

This Monday morning, well fortified by my breakfast at Hotel Diderot, I again set off in sunshine, following the same route finding method as yesterday. Along the way I came upon a chap who was pushing his motorscooter along the road and working up a fine sweat doing it. I stopped to see if there was any help I could give him but we failed to get the engine started and he wasn't too keen on the idea of a tow. However, he was delighted that I had stopped to help and we spent a while chatting. He told me that he had once been to Scotland to hunt birds in December (I guess Grouse shooting but we couldn't find a word in French that seemed to quite match that). When I proposed again the idea of a tow, he said he only had another 5km to go and that it was good exercise!

As I got further north, the countryside became less interesting, much flatter and with huge fields of wheat, barley and rape (that had finished flowering). These crops were so high and the roads continued to be fairly twisty, so riding became rather a chore as the crops easily hid cars and small vans coming in the opposite direction. The road surfaces also deteriorated to the point where they reminded me of the washboard I had encountered in the Sierra de Demanda - really teeth rattling stuff.

It might have been the Sierra or this bit of French road but the dreaded LampF warning light came up to show me my headlamp had failed again. Upon inspection, it appeared that the screw holding the retaining clip had vibrated loose, allowing the bulb to move backward where its heat had melted the plastic clip. Fixing this took a quite while and I decided then to abandon the back roads and to move quickly north on the autoroutes. I made it as far as Abbeville where discretion suggested I stop as I was getting pretty tired. Still after 300 miles of, at times quite difficult, riding, it is hardly surprising.

So this is the last night of my journey. I will be taking the Eurotunnel train from Calais in the morning and all being well, should be back home by lunchtime. It has been great fun but I am also missing Mary and the family so I have that to look forward to. Also, to hearing from my granddaughter Kate about her adventures in South America - she already got back this morning.

Cahors

292 miles today but it feels as though I travelled much further. I left Cadaqués in glorious sunshine and by 09:30 when I got onto the autoroute headed for Narbonne, the temperature was 25 degrees. The ride to Narbonne was a tremendous battle with an extremely strong sidewind blowing west to east that had me using most of a lane as I was battered back and forth across it as gusts hit me. I was very glad then to leave the autorute and head into the hills which protected me somewhat from the blast which also diminished in strength as I rode north west. Unfortunately, a few miles from Narbonne and the sunny weather had completely disappeared to be replaced by low cloud.

I soon found myself in thick cloud/mist, navigating greasy hairpin bends and with my visor constantly being covered inside and out by the wretched mist, it was not easy riding. All the splendid views that the route should have provided were completely invisible.  I was heading for a little town called Ambialet which I had seen in photographs and it had looked very picturesque as it is located in a hairpin bend of the Tarn river which when seen from above is a tremendous sight. Unfortunately, I could hardly make out the sign for the viewpoint, let alone the view but I descended the gorge into the village for a bite to eat and a hot drink.

I stopped at a little café where they were busy mopping the terrace where rain had left huge puddles.  They seemed surprised to see a customer and were somewhat taken aback when I requested food but they provided me with a nice quiche and a salad willingly enough. The half dozen people or so were the owner, his wife and a few friends and when, inevitably, I mentioned that I was disappointed not to have seen the view, they looked very glum and  told me they had only had a couple of days of sun in the last 6 weeks. It was hurting business, the crops and they were understandably very fed up. Still they were quite charming to me and offered all sorts of suggestions of places where I might go to find the sun. Unfortunately, they were all around the coast of the Mediterranean,  so not really a lot of use to me on the way to England.

I dropped out of the hills as soon as I was able and after humming and haa-ing, I headed for Cahors in weather that improved considerably, to the extent of offering a couple of sunny periods. I found a pretty decent hotel called the Terminus and appropriately, near the railway station. The hotel is not much to look at but the room is clean and comfortable enough, I was able put the bike in a lock up garage and it turned out that the restaurant is truly excellent.

I got some reasonable headcam footage leaving Cadaqués, my last sight of the Pyrenees (sob..) but that will have to wait for a faster wifi link than I have here; so just one photo today, of a little place called Lisle sur Tarn.

Delhi belly,three countries, and my last day in Spain

I was awakened this morning at about 05:00 by fierce stomach cramps and an urgent need to visit the bathroom, a journey repeated umpteen times until the Immodium had kicked in. When I checked out the girl at the desk asked how I had liked the stay at this Parador. I said it was OK apart from the dinner which had done something nasty to my insides. She didn't seem overly concerned and didn't take up my suggestion to discount the meal which made me feel easier about having stolen a toilet roll in case of emergencies!

Before making this trip, I had read unflattering descriptions of Andorra together with the advice that it wasn't worth visiting. I should have taken that advice, it is a real dump and that is being polite. Approaching from the south as I did, you pass through customs almost immediately upon leaving La Seu D'Urgell and then into a conurbation of flats, shops and streets that seems to go on for miles - it does in fact! I don't know why but Andorra has an enormous number of petrol stations, it seems that every half mile or so, there is another and not just one, they seem to build them four at a time, all selling different brands. I reckon that in terms of petrol stations per capita Andorra must come first in the world easily. They also score highly in the ski lifts per capita rankings. Anywhere there is a hillside there is a ski lift. some seem to be built in back yards and can't be much more than a 100 yards long. The "development" of the hills to install all these lifts and to make runs has destroyed the natural beauty of what would be a lovely area. The picture below is the very best bit of Andorra about a kilometre from the border with France. That is a large ski resort in the valley below.

I passed into France in a somewhat confused state, I had thought I was going back into Spain ( I blame the funny tummy) and couldn't understand why the road signs were suddenly in French and why there were notices about the Tour de France here and there. Once I realised what was going on, I quite enjoyed the descent from the 2408 metre/7900 feet pass as the countryside immediately looked much nicer.

Back in Spain, I took the N152 from Puigcerdà over the Collada de Toses and on to Ripoll. It is a fabulous road with stunning scenery and superb bends for the biker. At Ripoll, I again joined the N260 and followed it all the way (with one short detour to a more scenic area), to Cadaqués on the Mediterranean which is where I am spending my last night in Spain. 

The knowledge that this was my last day in this wonderful country, on this trip, has been in the back of my mind all day and I have felt quite sad about it. However, needless to say I 'll be back!

I'll continue this blog until I get home and then there will be (after some delay), some video to add to it and perhaps some postscripts once I have had time to digest the experience.

Now to figure out a way home - made more complicated than need be as my Garmin seems to be on its last legs. It keeps losing satellite signal, especially in towns, switches itself off sporadically and has no idea of the one way systems in use in any of the towns I have been through for the last week or so. Back to paper maps and a compass I think!

La Seu D'Urgell

I had a great ride along the N260 from Sabiñánigo in perfect weather. I was again following the German motorcycle club (ADAC) suggested route.  The N260 is a long road and passes through a wide variety of terrain in terms of the views from the road and also the variety of curves and straight sections it offers. There is also a good deal of variation in the condition of the road which varies from brand new, where sections have been renewed, to pretty awful in places where the recent bad weather has taken its toll. At points there are big gaps in the armco which has been bent and ruptured where rockfalls must have carried it away at some time (either that or damn great big trucks!).

There were plenty of road crews out and at one point I was held up for a good half hour waiting to pass one section under repair. Of course the work has to be done but to a motorcyclist an unwelcome side effect is the horrible tarry bits that get picked up and flung onto the bike, clothes etc, as well as making the tyres slippery for a mile or two.

After crossing the collado de Espina, I turned north on the N230 towards Vielha and the Val d'Aran. I wasn't sure I would get through here as the Val d'Aran was hit very hard a week or so ago when the snow melted and flooded the villages with mud etc. However, I was able to pass through the 5 km long tunnel and then turn south again on the C28 towards Sort. This is a magnificent stretch of road and one highlight was passing over the Port de la Bonaigua at 2072 metres/6800 feet at which point I had snow below me as well as above. At Sort, I turned east to La Seu d'Urgell where I am yet again keeping the paradores in business.

The last couple of days have seen many more tourists around than I have seen all month up to now. I guess the combination of good weather and the popular region explain it. Among them have been a lot of bikers too. Again, until now, I have seen very few but there are plenty around now, although I have seen only one UK group judging by the plates.

At Port de la Bonaigua

Llavorsi

I take childish delight in revving the engine in tunnels...

I was glad to see this type of road protection - much better for the biker than armco!

Torla

Torla

A very friendly spanish biker who pointed out various places he recommended I visit. Of course I had no time to fit them in, unfortunately.