Well, you asked for it... :lol: .
This is
a lot of pictures, but I had a hard time selecting them out of 1.5GB of JPEG files... :blink:
We left on July 1 headed for the seaport of Savona, that lies on the Med coast a mere 60 miles from the French Riviera. There we boarded a ship bound for Bastia, on the French island of Corsica.
Bright and early (7 AM) the next day we headed inland through Corsica's rugged landscape.
The island is mostly rocks and pine forests, with many streams running to the sea and lots of old stone bridges.
We reached the West coast of Corsica north of Ajaccio (Napoleon's birthplace) and enjoyed a wonderful fast ride down D81, a state highway with the finest surface I've ever seen. A layer of my ContiMotion tires rests there forever. Could not have picked a better place.
Corsica's only a small island and we soon found ourselves at its southernmost tip (Bonifacio) waiting for a car-ferry bound for the Italian island of Sardinia, that's just a beer and an hour away.
We slept on Sardinia's North coast and hit the road early the next AM. We were going to ride the island's West coast, all the way down to its capital Cagliari. We hit an old favorite, Highway SP105, a spectacular 25-mile stretch of road corkscrewing its way along the coast. It's a classic haunt for bikers but that morning we only came across 3 bikes that proudly flew the flag of the Czech Republic. These guys had come all the way from Prague to ride here.
We rolled on South with an eye on the time. We were supposed to make a ferry-boat leaving Cagliari at 7PM bound for Palermo in Sicily.
Temps reached 100F as we barreled down the island N-S highway but we finally rode into the harbor at 5.30 PM with plenty of time to spare.
Our ship sailed into the night bound for Sicily and we entered Palermo harbor at 9AM on Saturday July 4.
One of our Forum buddies was waiting for us on the jetty and he promptly took us to a downtown bar for our second breakfast. Sicilian pastries are incredibly rich and filling, but local folks are not used to having their offers refused -- ya know what I'm saying, goombah?
We then proceeded to a farmhouse along the coast where we'd booked accommodation (what is known as
Agriturismo) where we spent two days doing virtually nothing between meals, except maybe drinking and splashing around in the swimming pool.
Oh yeah, we did go into Palermo and strolled around the flea market, where Catholic paraphernalia shared a stall with sexy photos from the early 1900s.
By the way, this is us: (from left) myself, my riding buddy Hook and our Sicilian friend Leonardo.
But the road beckoned and we had to leave. Next thing we knew, we were riding through lush mountains headed for Mount Etna, an active 10,000 ft volcano that looms over the Southern coast of Sicily. Below you see Etna and the town of Randazzo on its Northern slopes.
Holy moly, what an incredible scenery. Scraping pegs through lava fields on one of the most beautiful roads on this island. Too bad it's only 13 miles long.
We explored some (apparently) inactive craters at elevation 6,000 and reluctantly headed back.
Our destination was the Alcantara river that flows along the mountain's North side and forms beautiful gorges.
Next to it, the town of Motta Camastra sits atop a bluff and would be the perfect setting for a Mario Puzo novel.
Our Sicilian stay ended the following morning. We crossed the Messina Straits into the toe of Italy and climbed it for 200 miles. Then we headed East to the
Apulia coast (Italy's heel) and reached the baroque city of Lecce in the early evening.
We strolled around the old town and enjoyed the evening breeze that offered some respite from the day's suffocating heat.
The setting sun was a fiery globe. More of the same tomorrow, we thought.
With that in mind we left early and rode up the Eastern Italian coastline. Flat land, lots of traffic and many speed traps.
3 hours of that crap and we'd had enough. At Vasto, we turned inland and started climbing into the mountains that form Italy's backbone.
This here is the village of Cerro al Volturno. From there we headed further NW into the Abruzzi National Park.
We initially wanted to visit the city of L'Aquila, recently hit by a severe earthquake, but the G8 Meeting was taking place there at the time of our trip, so the city was off-limits to us. We rode through the Abruzzi National Park and enjoyed the fact that every LEO in a 300-mile radius was keeping the world's leaders safe and was not, for a change, pointing a laser beam at us.
We were now about 60 miles inland from Rome and determined to stay away from the low ground. Too hot and too busy.
At elevation 2,000 ft we found an
agriturismo that promised cool air and wholesome food.
For 50 Euro apiece we had a huge room each, a delicious meal based on fresh mushrooms and a country breakfast the next day.
Man, we were now just 350 miles from home. But fortunately there were plenty of mountains in between.
So we ended up climbing Mount Terminillo, the closest ski resort for Roman skiers. In July there was hardly a soul up there and the temperature was a balmy 50F.
We rode on and climbed up the Parco dei Monti Sibillini to reach the plateau of Castelluccio. At elevation 5,000+ this green bowl was originally a mountain lake that dried up eons ago and is now a beautifully colorful and gentle landscape.
We were soon in the heart of Umbria, near the town of Assisi. We pressed on and rode into Tuscany.
We were getting closer to home but still had a few mountain passes to negotiate. One more night to the West of Florence, then we broke a small record: 100 miles of backroad twisties without a straightaway worth mentioning, like a homegrown Tail of the Dragon with potholes, cracks and lunatic truckers thrown in.
By the time we hit the slab for the final stretch home, I said a silent thanks for my Throttlemeister.
This was a helluva good tour! Not a drop of rain over 2,300 miles. We called it the Three Islands Tour but we ended up throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. Well, you know how we FJR pilots are...
Stef
