The next morning, we got up late. it was 10 AM and we were already late for breakfast. By the time we were packed and ready to leave, it was already noon. We wanted to take some video shots and more pictures before leaving which we started to do.

I was interrupted by some official calls and for the next one hour, I was forced to be on the phone managing work remotely. Finally, at about 1:15 PM, we bid adieu to Pescocostanzo and started our ride. Today, we were headed for Matera which we had read a lot about.

Matera was a good 450 Kilometers away and we did not have the luxury of taking the inner roads. At the nearest fuel station, Sunny set the GPS to the fastest route which brings the Autostrada into the picture. It was another 80 Kilometers from Pescocostanzo before we reached the Autostrada! the roads kept curving and taking us through inner roads where there was construction work., the progress was slow.

We started coming across farmland where the crop had probably been harvested already and the hay was tightly rolled into huge cylinders! It was too tempting to resist and we stopped for a photo session with these hay stacks.

Shortly into the photo session, A BMW rider stopped and started talking to us. He had been in India (south) way back in 90′s (seems like so long ago the 90′s). He gave us some tips about being careful in Sicily and Napoli and we duly made a video recording of the same for our upcoming production.

Finally we hit the autostrada and it was speed riding thereafter. Nothing spectacular for the next 300 Kilometers except that it was a constant high speed run and we took breaks after every 100 Kilometers at a fuel station.

At each stop, Sunny would duly go into the shop at each one of these and buy some more models of bikes … I could not help but smile at each of these times. There was one notable exception.. Adriatic Sea appeared and stretched into the horizon on our left. The water was a mixed hue of many blues and sea green. We had stopped at one place and took some shots.

We took one wrong turn and started heading towards Napoli…. we realized this after about 8 kilometers and so took a u turn to continue our journey.. Soon thereafter, the road turned and we exited the Autostrada and started towards Matera.. This road felt like the one we take from Chandigarh towards Kalka… detours, construction and roadwork was everywhere and the progress was slow.. The only difference was that the traffic was intense but orderly and people respected rules much more than on our roads!

We finally arrived in Matera and the GPS took us to Hotel Del Campo, our home for the night without any problems.. We had arrived by 7 PM which was early by the trip standards. We dumped our gear into the room and changed. Then we had a long chat with the receptionist who was a kind hearted soul and even offered to bring us to the vista point at 11 PM after his shift got over if we wanted. He also strangely recommended us to take a Guide for the tour of the ancient city which he insisted we would not be able to see on our own. He organized an english speaking one for us and set the time a 7 AM pickup.

We still had some time so we went to eat dinner at a restaurant he had booked a seat for us. We had yummy spicy pizza and pasta and sat there till 10:30 PM. When we returned to the hotel, we realized how tired we were and excused ourselves from the 11PM trip.

Then we sat at our computers and I typed this blog.. Sunny worked on his pictures and all the other things he normally works on each night! We again slept at about 2 AM..

Until tomorrow

then,

how many zero’s would be there in 1 Brazilian ?

Read on and find out…….

I got up late, infact Sunny had to (literally) break open the door of my room to bring me back from my comatose existence  - I had been so tired that it was literally like coming back from the dead. It was 9:30 AM already and we had miles to go. I remembered that I had woken up around 8 AM but had dozed off again and this was probably the best sleep I was having.

Today’s menu of destinations had quite a few choices, and we had to be careful in making a pick. I was still in a daze, still had tunnel vision and with this, I stumbled out of the bed to step outside the room.

I suddenly had a feeling of wind being sucked out of my lungs and literally fell down as in front of me was a sight to behold, I suddenly remembered I was in Castelluccio, a village first settled by the Romans in the 13 century BC.

In front of me, is was a vast valley, stretched as far as the eye could see and the valley was full of flowers – gazillions of them – under a clear blue sky.

It was as if angels had descended in the night and spread the brightest lavender, yellow, red, blue and white flowers in a mesmerizing pattern. If there is such a thing as heaven, then, this is it – this is really it since in our wildest dreams, I cannot imagine heaven to be any different. You might be thinking that I am going overboard, but folks, I am not kidding and am absolutely serious.

I could not think anymore about anything else and rushed to get ready. In precisely 30 minutes I was packed and ready to get out to go. We mounted our bikes and rode the short distance to the Castelluccio Taverna to have our breakfast for which we were late already. It was the best breakfast of all the trip yet and i will remember it for a long time. We sat outside looking at the spectacular scenery and eating and discussing.

We spoke with Barbara, the jovial, polite young Brazilian lady at the Taverna and she showed us the way to go to the valley where we wanted to spend time taking pictures.

She explained to us that the fields below were infact a mix of wild flowers and flowers from Lentils that are grown and harvested in the valley, the valley is an ancient dried up lake bed. This amazing mix was a blessing from nature and the countless flowers we saw below are a protected area to be tread upon carefully and included a fine if the police caught one walking on (in) it.

I finally deduced that the tasty lentil dish (similar to the black dal we have in India) we had had for dinner while watching the second semifinal the previous night was also the local produce and this village.

We mounted the Ducati’s and rode straight away to the fields and indulged ourself in every possible shot that we could think of.

We did not realize that the time was now 1:30 PM and we still had a lot of riding to do. We had taken the pick from the Lonely Planet for highly recommend, Pescocostanzo, a hidden gem in the Abruzzo region of Italy – far away from the tourist trail and we headed for it.

Sunny’s GPS was of course our chosen guide for this. We were not sure if we will be able to complete 250 odd Kilometers of mountain riding having started so late so we refrained from booking a hotel in advance.

The GPS took us through some great mountain scenery and we completely avoided the autostrada though we still had to go via some state highways which are equally good as the autostrada in terms of the available speed. The highway led us to la’ Aquila.

This place had had an earthquake last year and most of the city was under repair or construction. We slowed down and reached a street where the signs of the devastation were still visible. A house had the entire front wall torn away and we could still see stuff lying around in the rooms and the toilet was as if someone still uses it! – This, after 1 year of the quake!!!!!!

Most houses had broken walls and had reinforcements to stop further damage. A lot of buildings were covered from the front, a sure sign that they were being worked upon and resurrected.

We had prayer in our heart and we slowly moved out of la’ Aquila. We reached a regular Italian town called Sulmona. By now it was 5:30 PM and we had not eaten anything since breakfast. In addition, I was very conscious of the time since I wanted to wish Kavita,my wife a happy birthday precisely at 8:30 PM – which is midnight in India. I wanted to finish the ride and reach the destination by then.

Sunny was extremely hungry and his GPS was taking us around in a wild goose chase looking for a restaurant the GPS said was there but was not there. We must have taken some rounds of the town and tempers were beginning to flare. Finally we decided to move on and look on the way. The reason we were running late was also because I had taken atleast one hour at a fuel stop to browse the net using Sunny’s phone to order flower deliveries for Kavita.

Sunny had put a way point on the GPS to a place called Scano. Scano is a town up in the mountains and along the way there are many lakes all beautiful. We stopped at one of the most picturesque one and took shots and videos.

This particular lake had ducks and had an old bridge leading to some sort of a monastery. We took the bikes on this bridge and took some more pictures. The GPS took us all the way to Scano and then to our destination. While riding on, we realized that we had “definitely” seen this part! It turned out that the loop for Scano was not exactly a waypoint but a 20 kilometer loop which had brought us back all the way!!!

We soon arrived in a small village called Costanza. Here Sunny found the only restaurant in the courtyard opposite the church. There were an Australian family staying there and they were a big help in translating to the lady who owned the place that we wanted extra spicy pasta (Sunny) and Pizza (Me). It was already 8 PM and I set the alarm in my phone for 8:30. The Pizza arrived and it was the biggest spicy pizza that I have seen. While I ate, the alarm sounded and I called Kavita at the precisely midnight IST to wish her.

While we ate, Sunny was offered a room at the same place but, first it was too expensive, had no ventilation and was not our destination. We were determined to reach Pescocostanzo and it was still 2o odd Kilometers away. We set off and covered the Km’s in a jiffy. We arrived at a  a sharp turn right towards Pescocostanzo and found that the road suddenly deteriorated. Actually there was no road left, only gravel with large rocks interspersed. Sunny told me to be careful on the Scala and I braked hard. The next 4 kilometers was a steep ascent and a battle with this gravel.

A building appeared but it seemed to be deserted. I was wondering where we had come and whether it was worth it. Sunny went further and asked me to follow as he found more signs of habitation. I followed and as we moved ahead, the habitation grew and we started looking for a hotel.

The first one we found was a B&B which had apparently no way to get in. The second one was full!! We moved on and were amazed.. It was another ancient Italian Village straight from Asterix!! Cobbled roads, beautiful buildings…

Soon we found Hotel San Franceso, a very beautiful boutique hotel in one of these streets and the owner offered a room to us. The hotel was really nice and cozy and the room was loaded with high quality teak woodwork. The beds were comfortable and Internet was good. We dumped our stuff and roamed the streets taking pictures.

At about mid-night, we returned to the room and worked on uploading the Day 4 blog, checking mails and completing a lot of pending work. We finally slept at 3 AM when we could not keep our eyes open any longer.

Until Tomorrow…..

There are some places that hit you like lightning, out of the blue, unexpectedly. The village of Castelluccio nestled in the Apennine mountains of Umbria region, Italy was one of them.

We reached Castelluccio late night when the sky was showing the last shades of blue. We could see a small cluster of lights perched on a hill across a vast empty lifeless valley. This was the village. It started to get chilly even though it was mid summer and we decided to move on after a few customary photos at 6400 ISO.

The village lies at 1452 m, making it the highest settlement in the Apennines. The higher the better for us mountain animals.

Photo: Castelluccio from a distance overlooking Piano Grande at 10 PM

Castelluccio is perhaps the one of the oldest villages in Italy, it was built in 13th century or slightly earlier, and also settled by the Romans.

One of the most striking features in Italy is here, the Piano Grande. It is a vast, upland plain, situated above 4,000ft, ringed by mountains overlooked by this village. In late May and early June it is renowned for its extraordinary floral displays: swathes of wild crocuses one week, narcissi the next, grape hyacinth, wild tulips, poppies, thousands of orchids and rarities such as snakes’ head fritillaries, among many others (Source: Telegraph.co.uk). But we couldn’t see any of these in the night which hid the thousands of flowers in the valley. I will show you the pictures of this area in tomorrow’s blog.

We checked into Taverna Castellucchio, a small hotel and bar. The owner gave us a couple of very grand new rooms inside the main village where we could park our bikes right in front.

This is when I discovered the real jewel the village was. My co-rider, Anurag decided to rest in the room and I decided to take a walk in the village. It was past 12 Am midnight, pitch black outside in the valley but the village was lit up perfectly with streetlights creating an eerie play of shadows with the intriguing elements – the rusted iron railings, the chained wooden dilapidated doors , the spiralling stone footsteps, the cobblestone streets.

All this with not a soul in sight and pin drop silence. No insect cacophony, nothing at all. As I was walking, trying not to break the perfect silence with my steel toes boots, I was wondering if this was a studio setup crafted specifically for me! The stupendously clean alleyways further created doubts if anyone walks here at all!

The atmosphere was very dramatic, reminding me of video games like ‘Painkiller’ and ‘Diablo’ and me playing them with a 1st POV shooting things at sight with my Canon 5D Mark 2 set at insane ISO levels.
I am not good with words, a little better with photos and I can’t really express what tremendous impression that nightwalk through the sinuous and rollercoaster snug empty alleyways had on me but I do sincerely hope that you will include this hidden jewel in Italy in your itinerary…

Now let the photos speak.

UMBRIA

Today we leave Tuscany in the heart of Italy and travel further south to the adjoining Umbria region. We are determined to complete all of Italy and know that we have to maintain a punishing schedule if we are to achieve this feat. While sticking to the Autostrada and just riding like a zombie is probably easy on the kilometers that you clock, our interest is to avoid that and instead take the backroads.

With that in mind, Sunny set the GPS to navigate us in Tuscany and through that to Perugia region in Umbria. But before that, we had to get a high capacity, high speed SD card for the GoPro all weather, HD video CAM that we wanted to mount on the bike to replace the 5D Mark II we were using as a bike CAM. We were playing an expensive game and it could prove too risky if the Canon fell for any reason. We had been asking around in every mobile phone or electronic shop in Florence we came across but were still to find what we were looking for.

The need to get the card was clear and present and so, one more time, we headed for Ponte Vecchio and parked our bike. We were feeling like pro’s in navigating through Florence and it felt good. Sunny quickly disappeared in the narrow lanes while I waited besides the loaded bikes and 30 minutes later he emerged victorious, a big grin and chocolate candy laced his face. It was 12:15 PM already and we wanted to head for Castelluccio which was recommended to us by Palla, an Italian rider on a forum.

Riding out of Florence and passing through the by now customarily beautiful Italian villages, we had done some 40 odd kilometers when we hit the mountains again in the Apennine mountain range.

The Apennines are the long system of mountains and hills that run down the Italian peninsula from the Cadibona Pass to the tip of Calabria and continue on the island of Sicily. The range is about 1,245 miles (2,000 km) long; it is only about 20 miles (32 km) wide at either end but about 120 miles (190 km) wide in the Central Apennines, east of Rome, where the “Great Rock of Italy” (Gran Sasso d’Italia) provides the highest Apennine peak (9,554 ft [2,912 m]) and the only glacier on the peninsula, Calderone, the southernmost in Europe.

“We wander, our lives turned upside down by an endlessly frenetic tour de force”

Some images like below are extracted from the GoPro full HD riding video, so they are not actually photos. The GoPro takes much decent photos in the dedicated photomode:

Weather was nice, roads beckoning and the twists and turns as good as they get.. Offer these to a die-hard rider and he will forget everything else! we were so excited and remained so till the light in the fuel gauge lit up! We were running in reserve in the middle of the Apennines and had forgotten to tank up!!!!!! We were in constant touch on our Scala riders and stopped on the way to scratch our heads. Sunny asked his TOM TOM where the nearest gas station was and it said promptly – 32 Kilometers away!! Here we were in the mountains, running in reserve and the constant gear shifting consuming fuel faster than normal. We decided that we will save fuel by rolling the bikes in neutral on descents and keeping the revs below 2500 on ascents. Not knowing any better we moved thus.

While we were descending, we saw a small cafe in the middle of nowhere and we came to an immediate halt, hungry (us and our bikes) and kinda clueless. We asked the owner about Benzina and he immediately showed us all 10 of his fingers.. A little decrypting made both of smile again. The nearest gas station was only another 10 KM away and we were descending so we will make it without the need to push the bikes uphill – the dread gave way to extreme hunger and we ordered a big sandwich made of – Pomodoro and Cheese ! We also had Redbull to charge up!

While we were at it, Sunny and I spread the till now sealed box of GoPro and sifted through the contents till we figured out how to set it up on the bikes. I worked on the mounting gear while Sunny worked on the Camera and its controls. The front cowl (even though it is small) was coming in the way on the Monster, the Streetfighter gave a clear view so the GoPro went on the Streetfighter. While we were at it, a rider on a BMW S1000RR rode in and parked alongside to rest and we smiled and counted our blessings as in front of us was the newly crowned “Best Liter Class Superbike” in the world today! and the rider spoke english !!!! We photographed the bike and interviewed Henry and we video recorded it. The bike is a gorgeous piece of machine with an Inline-4 with ABS, Traction Control and a lot many other goodies. I was proud that my Ducati Streetfighter 1100S also had all these features and secretly smiled. I would have given anything to test ride the Beemer but refrained from asking. A good 20 to 30 minutes later, Henry pulled away and we mounted our bikes too. We still had some rolling to do!!!

You can read more about the the BMW S1000RR and our experience on the First Impression on xBhp here:

http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/first-impressions/13763-bmw-s1000rr-xbhps-first-glance.html

The GoPro was started and I learnt from Sunny which buttons to press while riding the bike to make the Camera work the way we wanted. The Ducati Streetfighter’s console starts showing the kilometers done for a fuel trip. When the bike hits reserve, the odometer’s display changes to Fuel Trip display to keep the rider informed the amount of distance he has already done on reserve.. When my FuelTrip gauge hit 11.9 the benzina station rolled into sight and we were happy again. We gave the thirsty beasts a tummy full of gas and moved on.

We were less than half way through to our destination which we called over the phone and were lucky to find a room. We had refrained to book earlier since we were not sure if we will be able to reach it since we had started at noon and we had 300+ Kilometers of riding to do in the mountains.

We came across an opening near a village which overlooked at a valley. The scene was too tempting to resist and we stopped our bikes to setup our photo studio here.

Contended with our efforts, we set off again. Crossing the meadow that we had just shot, the mountain road gave way to a state highway.

While the AutoStrada in Italy is marked by green signage, the state highway system is marked with blue boards. These are non – toll roads but offer equally good riding comfort. Here we rode on for another 40 kilometers and turned right towards Perugia. Ever since we had started from Florence, regardless of where we were, all signage pointed towards Rome and after such a long time, it continues… All roads do lead to Rome!. Soon, in the distance a cluster of buildings, old and tightly packed appeared.

From the GPS, Sunny identified it as Assisi, a good 12 kilometers away. Assisi is a small medieval town of about 25,000 people perched on a hill in Umbria, the heart of Italy. Famous as the birthplace of St. Francis, Assisi holds religious, historical, and artistic significance. We had to cover Assisi and it was on our route.

We rode into a town just outside Assisi, called Santa Maria Angeli and parked our bikes right in the huge courtyard in front of the town’s majestic Cathedral. A photo session followed and then we mounted our bikes to reach Assisi.

We shot the town, rode around it and headed back towards our final destination. It was 6 PM and we had a fair bit of ground to cover to be in time for the second Semi Final between Spain and Germany, which promised to be a cracker. In the first round of the tournament, I had predicted a final between Spain and Holland and I was very close to realizing my goal and did not want to miss it.

Riding continuously for about 100 odd kilometers, In the distant horizon, far away perched on a mountain, appeared Castelluccio.

A village located at a height of approximately 1480 meters making it the highest village in this mountain range. It was twilight and the scene was mesmerizing. It was as if a scene straight from Harry Potter was playing in front of our eyes. With our jaws dropped, we stopped and absorbed it for what seemed like an eternity.

Then, Sunny took out his camera and I rode on to the place while Sunny stayed put. A ride of 4 KM later I arrived and waited patiently for Sunny which he duly did after some 30 minutes!!!

We checked in at 9:30 PM. We were led to the village and then to a room which would rival any in the best 5 stars that I have seen, they were brand new, with all possible amenities and all material in the room was top class. The Castelluccio Tavern indeed is exclusive and spectacular – Highly recommended for any traveller.

We dumped our stuff and I rushed to watch what was left of the match. The score was 0-0 and I saw my favorite team fire their first goal. I was delighted and ate my lentil soup with a drink admits this joy.. I was on a high and it was deja-vu all along, euphoric and very very tired, I walked back towards the room which was some 100 meters away in the village.

This village in the night was quite, pin drop silence, and we felt that we were transported into the roman era, Pure Magic – the witchery was spellbinding and the scene made good pictures. So, we shot and we shot as long as we could and could do it no more and it was time to rest for me.

After I retired for the night, Sunny went for a Night Photo Walk in the village. This will appear as a separate subsection of the day 10 blog and will elaborate what a mesmerizing place Castelluccio di Norcia is.

Good night folks and as usual, until Tomorrow!!!

We are nearing the middle of the trip in terms of the time spent and there is so much to see, so many layers to uncover, so many miles to go each day and so much to write about, it must be a jumbled up mix of all these, tinged with the feeling of peering into the unknown excitement that is playing tricks inside me.

I am up and ready, Sunny is still sleeping and I wake him up. It is 9:30 AM and we have to have our morning breakfast. Today, in addition to completing a lot of work on the pictures and the blog and uploading the Day 3 travelogue on the forum, we have to visit the city of Florence again to savor the sights it has to offer. We go for our breakfast and spend sometime trying to decide how to attack Florence. We read a lot of information and end up getting confused about which place to see first and in what order as everything sounds interesting and it becomes quite complicated for us to start shortlisting. We then decide to give the TomTom a chance and duly set the GPS to take us to the touristic places of Interest from the menu. It is already 2 PM IST ( Italian Standard Time ) by the time we complete  the upload and manage to leave.

This GPS is a dud in my view and keeps taking us to weird places, gardens, institute of engineering architecture which is a decrepit building (in Italian ofcourse) and all kind of places which offer us bikers no insight nor food for our hungry camera’s. Soon we get tired and hungry and decide to start from Ponte Vecchip again as I had read that Florence old city is very small and can be covered on foot in any direction in about 30 minutes of non-stop walking, in addition, as the city is flat (being in a valley), it is quite easy on the legs. We therefore asked the GPS to bring us to our origin of previous night’s walk. By now the GPS was confused as hell and the bugger seemed to have gone mad. So we decided to stop near a seemingly monument looking place, park in a designated two wheeler parking by the road and cover things on foot.

While walking this Ducati showed up.

As we were walking, the huge dome of the Cathedral of Florence appeared between two streets. We were familiar with it as we had seen it form the Piazza Michelangelo the previous evening.

This cathedral, called the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore was built around 1296 and it was not completed until 170 years later with several generations involved in its completion. What they came up with was magnificent. It is said that for 150 years while the structure’s construction lasted, they had no idea of how to build the dome of the building and when actually build and finished, it was the biggest octagonal dome built ever. We had approached this building from behind and as we moved toward it, a huge wall of green and grayish marble appeared..

We had yet no idea what was to be revealed in front of our eyes. The narrow alley that had approached from soon gave way to a huge courtyard and the Cathedral’s walls kept going in either direction. We naturally turned right and as we came to the front of the building, we could see the baptistry standing tall, but overshadowed by the cathedral itself, in front. Impressed, we turned around and saw a facade most beautiful, intricately designed in whitest of white, flawless marble standing tall in front of us.

We were mesmerized and were clicking frantically from all possible view points! We took videos, we photographed the facade with a zoom, without a zoom, with fisheye, with 85mm, with ultra wide and so on and so forth.. For us time flew away and we did not realize when it was 6 PM  !!!!

We walked around Florence for another hour and a half and then rode back towards the Piazza Michelangelo as the light was now beginning to become perfect for capturing the city as a whole from the splendid view that it had offered.

At the Piazza Michelangelo, we clicked and filmed again till Sunny started feeling intensely hungry. I was quite content with the fried rice I had had at an Italian Chinese joint with Sunny just when we had arrived in Florence and parked our bikes so I decided to give the dinner a miss.

We stayed here until 8:30 PM. The first semi final match between Holland and Uruguay had already started and I watched the first 30 minutes of it here on a small TV screen in a small shop. It was almost 9 PM and Sunny wanted to fine-tune the route for the rest of the roadtrip. So we headed back to the hotel and while I spent time to finish viewing the match and seeing Holland win. We spent another 3-4 hours on our computers…

Until Tomorrow….

We were under no pressure to leave Bologna since this route was to be done leisurely and also carefully. A kind soul had warned us on day one at the Ducati factory about this route. It was AutoStrada all the way and the traffic was supposed to be awful with lots of mad truck drivers around. We had shrugged our shoulders since the fella did not know where we come from – who can beat an Indian who is challenged by a TATA truck on our highways! nevertheless, we had this at the back of our mind.

We got up around 8 and I think our body clock has adjusted to getting up at this time since even if the alarm is set to later, we are up before 8, got ready and went for breakfast by 9:30. The hotel did not allow us a late checkout which we wanted so that we could complete the Trip Day 2 blog and upload it before leaving and so we hurried back to the room and packed and paired Sunny’s brand new Cardo Scala Rider G4 with mine which I had bought during my earlier trip in the US. We met at the lobby at 12 noon, all packed and ready. The shopping we had done earlier in Milan came in handy and wiser from our first leg, we reduced the stuff to be carried considerably by leaving every ounce that we considered extra in the suitcase that was to be left behind at the hotel. For starters, I do not have to carry the Lowepro Computracker on my shoulder anymore (what a relief) and now I have a tail bag which holds all my camera gear plus important papers. The side panniers were also considerably lightened. Sunny similarly also reduced his load.

We spread our computer gear in the reception area of the hotel and prepped the day 2 blog. There is a lot of work involved and goes in to prep and review even a day’s blog. the text is reviewed (I complete all the text at the end of the day in order not to forget anything), pictures are prepared and processed after a selection from the lot that we take, then it takes at-least 1 minute to insert a picture on the blog using the automatic tool. A lot of time goes in sorting them and placing them in contextually the correct place (There were about 70 pictures in Venice day 2 blog for example, each carefully selected, prepared and linked). We managed to complete this only by 4 PM even though we had wanted to do so by 3. We have to be sure of the quality of what we post and therefore there is a lag between the day of the trip and the update of it on the blog, after all, we are so used to the bouquets coming our way that we cannot take a change that they become brickbats if the quality falls.

We put on our helmets and tested the ScalaRider communication and boy what a delightful feeling we had. As we rolled out, we were able to constantly communicate with each other. This thing works even when two riders are 1.5 kilometers away!!!! This thing is designed to connect to the mobile phone to route incoming calls to your helmet, work as an intercom between upto 4 riders, plays FM radio and also MP3 music in full stereo. Kudos to the folks at Cardo for coming up with such a brilliant device. We avoided many wrong turns, abrupt halts and kind of constantly chattered away about almost everything on the road and the trip – I strongly recommended this device for the hardcore touring xBhp fraternity. It makes life so simple in group riding and also allows to be in touch on the phone as we go. We did not take any pictures on the way as AutoStrada is kind of boring place to click !

after about 60 kilometers, the bikes signaled that they were hungry and we realized that so were we! Well, about 1.5 Km away, we found a gas station at Roncobilaccio Ovrest and stopped to give the bikes a hearty fill of benzina. Then Sunny went and got some stuff to eat that we gladly did and started again towards Florence which was another 60 Kilometers away. It rained on the way twice and we crossed many tunnels along the way. We kept cruising within the speed limits all along chatting away to glory on our Scala. At approximately 7 PM, we rolled into our B&B l’Artentiere with Sunny’s TomTom working OK for a change.

After checking in, we discovered that the Aircon in the room we were given was pathetic. We were sweating and the damn thing refused to cool us down. On top of it, we were having a nightmare in connecting to the Internet and so we kept complaining like hell to Edward, a Sri Lankan who runs this place and he agreed to change our room. After moving our stuff to the new room we headed out to savor the beautiful sights of Florence!

We decided to cover Piazza Michelangelo which is on a hill on the south bank of the Arno River, just east of the center of Florence.

Designed in 1869 by Poggi, it offers a great view of the city which a beautiful bronze statue of Michelangelo lords over. It was twilight and this place and we clicked a lot of pictures to take advantage of this light.

Once satisfied, we decided to have dinner at a road side cafe just besides the piazza. I had a delectable Spaghetti with tomato base and a liberal sprinkling of cherry tomatoes whereas, Sunny had a large Pizza. We then turned and headed east on Viale Michelangelo, a tree lined, twisting and turning road offering perfect curves to ride on a bike, specially for bending and leaning! We loved this part of the ride. We headed for Ponte Vecchio – An old bridge and parked our bikes at a designated parking just besides this bridge.

For the benefit of folks planning to visit Italy in general and Florence in particular on motorbikes, I will provide here information that is not available on another place on the Internet. There is loads of information available on parking / entry time restrictions and fines and cameras and different systems of parking in this city which are all true for people visiting by cars! Bikes can go practically anywhere, even in the city center and there is no parking fee anywhere, no sticker required. Just be careful not to enter roads designated for pedestrians and one way streets, after this life is easy (for bikers). You ofcourse will need to be careful about speed limits and respect the speed limit signs and specially the radar signs posted for your benefit – if you don’t, you will be surprised when the fine arrives. So guys, those contemplating to drive down here, save your money on car rentals and hire a bike instead, you will enjoy the sights and sounds better and also save a lot of walking and money!!

We took are camera gear in hand, ready to shoot and shoot we did. The bridge is amazing and so are the shops that line it. We walked on and Sunny kept taking panning shots of people riding vespa scooters (Some of them are classic!) as we walked, soon we reached Piazza della Signoria.

This was lurking on a right turn one block away from the Ponte Vecchio and into an L Shaped courtyard called Palazzo Vecchio. From 14th century, Palazzo Vecchio has a fortress from Roman times and a huge tower to see the enemy from afar and this square is also shared with many other Florentine landmarks such as Loggia della Signoria, the Uffizi Gallery, the Palace of the Tribunale della Mercanzia, and the Uguccioni Palace (facade probably by Raphael). Located in front of the Palazzo Vecchio is the Palace of the Assicurazioni Generali. Just besides the Palazzo Vecchio is a huge statue of David done by Michelangelo.

For the benefit of the discerning readers, I encourage you to read about these places on wikipedia or on other websites specializing on Italy, it’s rich history, cultural diversity etc., as I am not a history buff and would be doing a lot of copy paste which will defeat the purpose of this blog, which is essentially a travelogue.

We spent a good 1 1/2 hour or more trying to capture as much of this important landmark and then decided to call it a day. It took us another 30 odd minutes to reach our bikes and after taking more panning shots of scooters passing by we made a small photo shoot with the Streetfighter.

Close to midnight, we started for our digs, which was just a few minutes away. We spent more time at the computer and slept at approx. 5AM IST!!

Until tomorrow….

The weather of the city was a stark contrast to the Alps. It was hot and dry. Still I (Anurag stayed put at the hotel to rest and catch up with writing the blogs) decided to head out to see some of the city, especially the center.

But before that a brief background of the city. Bologna is one of the most developed cities in Italy, with big flyovers, cloverleaf roads with neverending bends and swamky cars and bikes. It hasnt got that small village charm of course, the one which we all desire for.

Bologna often ranks as one of the top cities, in terms of quality of life in Italy. It is also home to the oldest university in the Western world, University of Bologna which was founded in 1088.

In total, there are some 38 kilometres of arcades in the city’s historical center (over 45 km in the city proper), which make it possible to walk for long distances sheltered from rain, snow, or hot summer sun. The Portico of San Luca, one of the longest in the world (3.5 km, 666 arcades) connects the Porta Saragozza (one of the twelve gates of the ancient walls built in the Middle Ages, which circled a 7.5 km part of the city) with the San Luca Sanctuary, on Colle della Guardia, over the city (289 m.). I paid a visit to the Sanctuary of San Luca from where one can see a panorama of the city. The heat and sun was almost the same as it would be in Rajasthan – Deja Vu for us!

Photos below: Sanctuary of San Luca

Bologna also has a curious social and architectural phenomenon in the Middle Ages. Weathly families used to construct tall towers to mark their social status as well as to keep a guard on the ground below. Estimates have kept the count of the towers to be around 80-100 in total spread over a period of time.

The two famous towers existing in the center of Bologna (both of them leaning) are the Asinelli and Garisenda. Both of them names after the families who probably built them. probbaly because of the lack of proper paperwork which shows this. Public is only allowed to climb the taller (Asinelli) tower at 97.2 metres ASL because the smaller one has too much lean! I had to pay 2 euros for the entry and had to climb almost 500 steps to reach the top with a couple of breath-breaks.

Photo below: Climbing the taller Asinelli tower.

From the top I enjoyed a fantastic panoramic view of the city. With the 100-400mm it was a delight to shoot all this big and small below. (Photos below)

So today was our so called break from everyday riding, however the heat took its toll and I were dead tired by the time we returned.

Photos below: Via Rizzoli in the center

Photo below: A handicraft for sale in a shop in Bologna

Photo below: Cycles, even mangled ones are a popular mode of transport in the city center

Photo below: Cozy narrow lanes play host to huge buses and small vehicles like bicycles too. It is a bit like seeing our own small lanes in India but much much cleaner and quieter.

The Ducati Monster in one of the many kilometres

We hit the same road again and soon passed Ronco, the Swiss village we had been to the previous evening. The road was narrow but fast and slowly climbed till we hit another mountain pass. Passo della Novena which is a mountain pass at an altitude of around 2600+ meters and we were here already at 9:30 AM. As soon as we reached the top, we saw many bikers parked with their wonderful bikes. Ducati’s had started appearing in goof numbers and there were Moto Guzzi’s, Yammy’s, Honda’s and gladly no Harley Davidsons!! We went crazy video graphing and photographing them.

There was another glacier here and after a good satisfying shooting session on roads surrounded by Snow, we started our descent towards the Swiss town of Brig.

<< Passo Novena>>

I am sure folks back home are tired of my saying beautiful, astounding and picturesque again and again but what can I do, my job is to document the trip and I can only state facts. The road to Brig travels along the top of a mountain range and it is one helluva ride.

From Brig, we turned left and turned towards the Samplon Pass. Unlike the other passes, Samplon is at a relatively lower altitude and so there are no glaciers and snow but it was beautiful nevertheless. There is a huge bridge we have to cross joining two mountains. This bridge provides a very good view of the Swiss countryside and so we stopped at a parking site after crossing the bridge. Sunny wanted to capture the scene and so we picked up the camera gear and walked back alongside the bridge back about 250 meters. It was quite hot and I was sweating profusely (I also had my helmet and backpack on since we could not leave that stuff by the roadside un-attended). Samplon is the final outpost in Switzerland and has a Swiss Chalet perched beautifully below the bridge as we enter Italy via Issele which is the border.

The road is also lined with in-numerable tunnels some of which are 4-5 kilometers long and others are narrow but short. We crossed the Samplon at about 12:30 and the border at approx 1 PM. This time, we had no issues being checked at either of the outpost and rode straight on. The traffic was heavy (from Swiss/Italian standards, however unlike the madness of Delhi roads, so relatively comfortable for us) but disciplined and we kept going. Soon we hit a highway and from thereon the speed was a good and steady 120 Kmph. The road was leading us towards Milan and Genoa and many Kilometers and many Tunnels later we stopped about 70 Kilometers from Milan to get fuel and rehydration as the heat and humidity had returned.

<<The last view of Switzerland from the Samplon Pass Bridge>>

<< Swiss Chalet as viewed from the Samplon Bridge>>

<< We stopped at a small Swiss Village – It was like a doll house>>

<< The water Hydrant in this Swiss Village – the level of development and facilities in villages is very high>>

Then again it was straight to Milan where we planned to stop to get some biking gear. We found Union Bikes (a large biking shop in the Milan City Center) at about 3:30 PM and spent a lot of time buying tank bags, HD Video Camera’s, Stickers, backpacks, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.. The bikes were loaded by now and every corniche and nook and cranny was stuffed with something or the other. It was difficult for me even to climb and sit on the Ducati with my additional backpack on which also had our Tripod tied on top of it. We still had about 190 Kilometers to go but it was the AutoStrada we were taking so there was no worry. The only problem was the heat.

As usual, as soon as we got out of Milan, the TomTom took us on the wrong Autostrada towards Genoa (back to where we came from) and so we had to do a U turn after some Km’s and exited this one and went towards the correct one this time. It was a high speed ride in the typical Italian fashion. The fast lane is marked at 110 km/h, middle one is marked at 90 km/h and the outermost is marked at 60Km/h, but the Italians drive anywhere between 140 to 250 Km/h on the fast lane and I don’t think anyone is slower than 100 on the one marked 60!!

On the way, the fuel light came up again and we stopped at about 6 PM to get a sandwich and a drink which were badly needed. This was the first morsel since the breakfast of the morning. We hit the Autostrada again and Bologna was still 100 KM away which we reached by about 8 PM and 15 minutes later we were in the reception of Hotel Ramada. This is also the hotel where we had stowed our suitcases before setting out for Venice. The first leg of the trip was coming to an end and we had touched home base.

What followed at the hotel reception was hilarious. We unloaded the bikes and reached the reception and gave our particulars to the clerk and he kept looking confused. After a lot of questioning and answering between us including sign language, it turned out that we had completely lost track of dates and time, gotten mixed up with the dates and had arrived in Bologna a day earlier than scheduled!!! The confused clerk was not sure how to help us but nevertheless he did. We decided to stop for the next day here as well and complete the blog and pictures and take some rest as the first leg was grueling in terms of rides most of which was in the Alps requiring a lot of concentration and physical exertion .

Signing out Until tomorrow.

Packed and ready to go, we started from the hotel at 11:15 AM and stopped every 250 meters for the next kilometer to take pictures and video of of our descent. We had booked a hotel 610 kilometers away (Hotel St. Nicholas – Near Mont Blanc) and it was to be a long ride. Similar to our ascent, we descended 35 hairpin bends on steep slopes to hit the plains.

We rode along narrow village lanes till we hit straight roads (not expressway) and passed through many a tunnels from a few hundred meters long to some of which going on for Kilometers.

We reached the town of Tirano at 12:35. Tirano is in Lombadia – a wine growing region. This year for me seems to be a trip to the best wine growing regions of the world. In March this year, I rode through California’s Napa and Sonoma Valley, Later in April, I drove through Bordeaux – one of France’s best wine growing region and now through Italy’s Lombardy.. Folks, it is turning out to be a wine tread for me.

After Tirano, we were passing through Cosio Valtellino where Sunny spotted a Canon shop and we stopped to buy memory cards and some other Camera’s stuff that we thought we were short of – but they did not have any of the things we wanted to buy. This store is family run and Mr. Magoni was so happy to see the Ducati’s that he started chatting us up. When he found out about our trip, he mentioned that his son is a fan of Ducati. He went inside and got us a lot of Ducati picture post cards that were made in his store.

His son, Andrea is a biker too and suggested a very picturesque route to us from there to Mont Blanc. We sat together on his PC and googled the route which he printed for us. It was still 400 + Kilometers away and we were not sure if we will be able to make it but we decided to give it a try. As we stepped out, we saw that the neighboring shop was a Chinese restaurant and we decided to take this opportunity to have a quick Chinese lunch (this time, for the first time in the trip at proper lunch time). The meal was delectable.

It was already 3:15 PM and we had fed our new route into the GPS so we set off. Just a couple of kilometers down, we could not find the road that the GPS was asking us to take and so we went back and forth to see if the damn thing would recalculate something. This Tom Tom device seems to be crap, at quite a few places it misleads us and makes us take wrong turns. xBhpians, even the GPS maps of a European country seem to be offtrack! After a lot of going down the wrong alley’s, we stopped in an Italian village and re-programmed the device and started off again. The route took us from Chiavenna in Sondrio which to what turned out to be another ascent on wild twisting roads. We went on this time not knowing where we were and soon landed up at another huge pristine lake with blue / green water. We promptly stopped and had a photo session.

We had stopped just before this lake, high up in the mountains – without knowing that it existed. It 4:50 PM and we realized that we will not be able to get to Mont Blanc in time. We had also been riding am to pm since the 28th and so decided to cancel the room reservation at Hotel St. Nicholas. At this altitude there was still signal in my mobile (sunny had exhausted the credit in his) and the reservation had to be cancelled before 6 PM to avoid a charge.

As soon as we mounted and rode 50 meters, Lake Montespluga lake appeared and so we stopped again twice for a photo shoot. We want to serve a visual treat to our friends in xBhp and do not want to leave any opportunity for the same.

After the photo shoot, we then crossed the village of Montespluga we started our descent and another photo shoot later, we crossed the Italian border into SWITZERLAND!!! We had taken a narrow offbeat path to reach here and boy, aren’t we glad we did it.

Sunny wanted to stop into the no man’s land between Italy and Switzerland to take pictures of the beautiful road winding down into the horizon from where we were but I persuaded him to desist from doing so as we were yet to cross the Swiss check post. A few hundred meters of Descent and we were at Swiss customs cum border control. We were duly stopped and our papers examined. the Cowl of my Streetfighter dutifully popped open at first try as I tried to fish out the bike’s registration papers that the Swiss border guards wanted to examine!!!! Grrrr —- it had given me so much trouble and had made me leave the panniers on the bike and carry all my underwear and other wares to the hotel rooms in hand!! After a thorough check, and general discussion about Laxmi Mittal who these border guards seemed to have frisked too (We are now that much closer to Laxmi Mittal since we were examined by the same border guards – I suddenly remembered the theory of 6 degrees of separation) and about Delhi and Taj Mahal in Agra where one of the guard had been and a lot of kisses and hugs later, we started our descent into Switzerland.

As we moved in, we realized that we did not have the pass to ride on the swiss motorway’s. One of the guards at the border had offered to make us buy a sticker each at 45 Swiss Francs each but we thought we could avoid the expressway’s and ride along on side roads. Sunny programmed the GPS accordingly but it turned out that the GPS kept making us ride on the service road besides the expressway and we kept zig-zagging under the expressway to both sides!! we were slow and no way in hell we were to reach anywhere if we continued like that. We stopped at a petrol pump at Solugen and duly armed our bikes with the coveted stickers and having rehydrated ourselves, set off again turning left.

Something about Switzerland – As we entered this country, the beauty of this place struck us. The cleanliness was awesome and it was as if, when the Swiss sleep, someone gets busy with a giant machine cleaning the whole country up, not just the roads and the pavements and the houses etc.. but also the mountains, the trees, the leaves and the rivers and the snow !!!

Well we rode along the swiss motorways setting course towards San Bernardino for about a 100+ kilometers and took the road towards a place called Glunngen. It was still 70 kilometers away and the road was narrow and winding climbing into the mountains. We realized that we would not be able to reach before nightfall so at a place called Ronco, we decided to stop. It was 8 PM already. We saw a sign with a hotel and went there but this beautiful hotel in a small village of a few hundred people, perched on a hill overlooking a mountain stream flowing in full majesty had no vacancy. The people at this hotel suggested that we go back 11 kilometers to the village of Airolo which was bigger than Ronco and would have more hotels and thus possibility of getting rooms. We retraced our steps and the first two hotels on the main street of Airolo were full too. We went higher up into the village and the third hotel was also full but the lady in the reception found us rooms in a Hotel Motto which was anyways the last option left.  As we stepped out, we saw a beautiful sunset.

At 9:30 PM we checked in and I watched the soccer match between Ghana and Uruguay sitting outside the hotel overlooking the courtyard where a village volley ball being played. It was festive atmosphere and it seemed that the entire village had gathered in a small square and was making merry, playing, singing, dancing, eating an Argentinian meal and watching the match on a large TV screen. With these memories, I decided go to call it a day and go to sleep.

We got up early and after a lousy breakfast, were out of the hotel at 10:24 AM after a brief photo shoot in the garage of the hotel! We rode for about 20 Kilometers and reached Cortina di Ampezzo. The ride was a descent for a few kilometers and then again an ascent at an incline of about 10%. On way, we passed a few tunnels

<<The shots above were taken shot from the 5D Mark II at 130+ in a tunnel in low conditions>>

Alps seem to be a haven for bikers and there were bikers in zipping around in both directions and all are tourers since locals of the area seemed to be riding scooters and could be clearly differentiated by the luggage. This is a perfect riding territory and the scenery is exquisite – It is as if someone has made a painting! (I cant help repeating this but it is simply bloody astounding to see this and my job is to convey the true feeling with simple bits of text unlike Sunny who had monopolized both the camera’s and who can do it much more beautifully with the pictures)

I think now I know where all the Italian master painters got their inspiration from. These are the kind of roads full of scenic beauty and riding pleasure we yearn for back home in India and what draws riders from so many nationalities all over Europe to this heaven. We noticed a lot of Germans (Identified because at least one bike in a group would be flying the German flag and also because all number plates display a symbol identifying the country it is from (I – Italia, D – Deutschland, F – France etc.. )) along the way. All along the Alps, we also found that most hotels, Cafe’s, Restaurants displaying a sign outside welcoming bikers. Roads with signs asking bikers specifically to see if their velocitada is OK.

Cortina was a small town and had something to do with Winter Olympics. There was a huge wooden construction as we entered the town with the five olympic rings and this beautiful scene was duly captured in pictures for your viewing pleasure.

We continued to ride and by now I realized that the bike was responding quite well and I was riding it quite smoothly on the twists and turns. At one place though, I became overconfident and the bike taught me a lesson I will not forget! If there were any other bike, I think it would have been a sure crash!. What happened was that I got distracted by oncoming bikes and in my enthusiasm of waving them GodSpeed, didn’t slow down enough on a curve and realized that I was going off the road into the side, my heart pounding and a surge of adrenalin pumping through my veins,  I braked hard. The bike remained straight and even in the soft mud stopped in a straight line without going off balance. Just to point out that I was fortunate that we were in a Valley right now and there was not treacherous fall on the side and thanks heavens for that. The ABS and Traction Control in the bike had kicked in and we were erect and stationary (and me relieved). Hats off to you Ducati – this is a lovely bike and I am by now deeply in love with it. (psst – Sunny was ahead of me and is still not aware of this!!!!!).

I shrugged off this minor mishap and caught up with him in a jiffy. We came across a forest and a lake called Sextner Dolimiten (and stopped at both the places to catch them in our Camera’s. with the mind numbing beauty captured  we ended up spending a good 30-40 minutes in each place.

Moving further, we passed one village after another, each one beautiful – the kind an kindergarten child would happily draw out for his / her parent – they were exactly as we used to imagine a village to look like when we were children, you see, villages in Europe are unlike what we have back home. While ours are completely neglected and mostly left to their own device, these are clean, very well developed and offer a very high quality of life. We had covered approx. 150 kilometers when we came across our first small roadside castle. It was a combination of a kind of church and castle – Remember that Italy is die-hard catholic and religion is an important mix of all things Italian. We veered off the road and took pictures.

By now, the good weather had given way to heat and humidity and we were again sweating albeit not as bad as during the first two days. It was time to enter the Autostrada again and so we did. A fast ride on the expressway saw us adding another 150 odd km’s to the odo in a jiffy. A few Italians are crazy drivers can sometime rival the mad Indians prowling our roads in India (However the vast majority are sane). if the sign says speed is 110, you will find an Italian driving at 170! At one time, I was riding at about 140 K’s and was in the main lane having just overtaken a vehicle in the middle lane, when suddenly a Jeep like vehicle overtook me very closely and disappeared into the horizon! That driver could have hit me if I had veered even slightly to the left and was probably driving at about 250 Km/h!!! Sunny was behind me and his handlebar mounted cam was recording so this moment is well captured!  (And I am still alive to give you the rest of the daily feed)

We exited the Autostrada and started towards Stelvio Pass (Passo del Stelvio). It was still a 100 Kilometers away and the high speed ride continued for a while till we started hitting the regular mountain roads. The plains started giving way to the hills but even at that time it was difficult to realize what we were in for since the mountain was still not visible. This mount is at the border of Switzerland and Italy with both countries sharing a side. It was now 5 PM and we were hungry but did not want to stop till we came to a nice place and a nice place we did come to! There was a beautiful hotel right in the middle of the road with a huge mountain as the backdrop. We were stopped dead in our tracks and parked our bikes, went in and sat in the back of the property with the most magnificent view yet of the trip. A Snow covered peak dead center about a kilometer away! We ate spaghetti at leisure  while sunny emptied the memory cards (we realize that we are desperately short of memory in our memory cards which is a total of about 20 Gigs). Then we took pictures to capture the moment and of course for you. The lady in the hotel told us that we were still 1 hour away from the peak and it was already 6:25 PM. A Steep ascent followed to the peak and the roadside had big chunks of snow. It started to drizzle and we were many twists away. We went on one hairpin (180 degrees bend, a steep 30 degree or so climb and and another endless bend – a total of 41 turns) after another till we reached the 40th turn – 1 before the last. Here we stopped and had a photo session in the rain.

We had planned to ride another 70 odd kilometers to Bormeo where we wanted to call it a day but as soon as we reached the highest point besides the glacier, we saw a hotel which tempted us to stay put. It was about 7:30 PM and we wanted to use the remaining light to photograph our steeds and the beautiful snow clad peaks. We were lucky to find rooms and checked in. Hotel Stelvio Stilfserjoch located at 2760 meters is probably the worlds best located hotels (natural location) and while has old badly maintained rooms, it has has wonderful and warm hearted owners. We hurried for dinner which the italians eat early (8-9PM the restaurants are closed). The peak reminded us of a street in Laddakh with small shops selling wares and even a hotel called Tibet  just besides.

After dinner we rushed to the bikes to embark on a photo tour but found that it was raining and light was fast fading. We eagerly waited and as soon as the rain became a drizzle, we set out towards the head of the glacier just near the ski lift. The ski lift takes skiing fraternity to 3450 meter high for a wonderful skiing session (The hotel is also close by just 100 meter away from the Ski Lift). The temperature was at 6 degrees but the wind and rain made it feel like below zero. In this clime, we shot to our hearts content and returned after dark to complete this blog, process pictures and finally sleep around mid-night.

Until tomorrow…..