Feb 2009

We woke up and had breakfast before doing a tour of Rome. We took in the main sights (including the Colleseum and the Vatican) in the hot midday sun before heading for the coast.

Stopped for a lazy lunch in Terracina and had a pizza in the sunshine also.

After that we carried on towards Napoli and met up with some friends of friends who showed us fantastic hospitality and real pizza from the home of pizza! We struggled through with our few Italian words (and some Spanish to help things along) and Maria's excellent English.

Tomorrow we're being shown the sights of Napoli in the morning before heading further South in the direction of Catanzaro.

153 miles today

Photos coming soon, honest!

This morning we took a lovely walk around the coast from Riomaggiore to the next town of the Cinque Terre and sat by the sea for a bit.

The walk back up to our bikes to load up was a hot and sweaty effort which we finally completed quite late and headed off towards Pisa. A really slow road with countless traffic lights delayed out progress.

When we arrived in Pisa we managed to ride straight past the leaning tower without noticing it, rode around looking for it for half an hour before parking up for some lunch. We retraced our path afterwards and got some shots of the impressive tower. We were going to. Get a shot of the bikes and the tower, but couldn't get close enough!

Joined the road to Rome after that, briefly very amused by some ladies of the night canvassing on the side of the road opposite a huge army base. We didn't have time to stop, but our overtaking kept them happy!

Toured some main sights of Rome before food, drink, sleep.

290 miles today takes us up to 4705 miles so far!

Despite getting to bed late last night our hosts rose very early and were fresh-faced, us less so, groaning on the floor in the lounge for an hour or so. When we did get up we had a few things we wanted to sort out including updating our sat-nav (Thomas) and putting some more stuff on our iPods, but we failed miserably at all of them. Why won't Apple let you buy and put something onto your iPod with anything other than one computer the &%=@"£s?

So we saw the Duomo di Milano (mighty impressive) and took the main road to Genova on the coast, and saw this fella on the way!

There was a scare shortly after that when I thought I had lost my wallet for a while, but true to form it turned up in another pocket, phew!

We have stopped for the night in Riomaggiore, one of the Cinque Terre villages built on mountanious valleys jutting into the sea. One of the posters in our hotel room says that the area was 'built with fatigue by men', so there you go.

Onwards tomorrow through Pisa to Roma hopefully!

Well, I had ordered two things for my bike to arrive in Antibes while we were there as it was a definite address for a couple of days, but unfortunately neither of them turned up and I finally gave up on them both after a morning chasing them around and asking the post office. That meant we didn't leave until about 2pm and we initially took the coastal road into Nice.

There was a festival on in Nice and the traffic was the worst we have seen so far. Absolutely crawling along and then Ed and I got separated and went different directions for a mile or two. The bikes were getting hot, the radios weren't working, we didn't know where we were going and we just wanted to get on some clear roads. Finally we made it out and Ed pulled over on a coastal road with a stunning view of the rocky coastline and waited for me and 20 minutes later we were on our way!

We stuck to the coastal road as it twisted along the Riviera with shear-drop views down the cliffs to the sea and made its way through Monaco until we had finally had enough of the traffic and decided to head up to the toll motorway. After battling our way up to the motorway we found roadworks and it was down to one lane, but we were paying for it now - AAARRRGH!!!! Finally the road opened up and we opened the motorbikes up a little, just as the friendly Gendermarie were watching us from the other side of the road. They must have understood our frustration though as they let us be (phew!).

As we crossed the border into Italy the view was incredible down the cultivated valleys with Olive-groves and other bushes everywhere, followed next by hundreds and hundreds of greenhouses. We would have taken a photo but we were doing 80mph on a motorway, so.

As we turned inland it got colder and colder and finally the road was lined by snowbanks (!). It was dark too and we just pushed on to Milan to meet up with more friends of ours, Hedley and Jenny. We're eating and drinking at theirs now with a load of their friends and just heading out to see the place.

We got up a little earlier today and went over to our other apartment for breakfast! We set off on the motorbikes for a tour around the local area, but the traffic in Antibes was very heavy. Out of the town there were some lovely hilltop-villages and twisty roads.

We headed up into the mountains a bit and found the Ski resort of Greolieres for an afternoon on the slopes. Ed got a little stuck in the snow and ice and mud in the car park, so I went over to help him out and he coated me in slush!

There were surprisingly long queues for the lifts everywhere as well and then we twigged that it was probably half term and that would explain the traffic on the coast earlier as well. We finished Skiing around 5pm, got changed, grabbed a cuppa and headed back down the mountain into the sunset.

95 miles today which takes our total to around 4000 miles now of the 16000 or so we estimate for the trip (I'll refine those numbers later)