Haroon

So another long but enjoyable day in the saddle.
I for one, 'fully understand' your situation with sign language in Italy. I can still remember my fried cheese dish...

The usage of lighting effects in the photos is too beautiful. Great going.

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AnuragAshok

We found quite a few people who spoke reasonably good english but a vast majority who communicated with sign language and gestures... in all cases, people were patient and smiled a lot.

Assissi is actually very interesting. It is perched atop a hill and the whole freaking town is a monument.

Thanks Aryan. You have been missing from action lately.. I hear that you are busy with your new job. All the best.


I saw and read through your entire blog - funny I missed it earlier as it was very interesting and insightful - wouldve helped me in preparing for what I was going to face.

I guess our route criss crossed the one you took to quite an extent in the Alps and your pictures made me feel that I was there with you!!

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enfro

good pics....more bike photos this time...

Haroon

Thanks Anurag & glad you liked our logs. Indeed the Alps are too addictive and hence I am closely following your trip. Yeah, our route thru the dolomite until Arabba and probably later in Austria towards Villach was close to your route. We had to miss the Grossglockner due to bad weather. Waiting for more.

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Sunny

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.

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MG

What pictures!!

I'm completely at loss of words here.

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Makky

The village looks very creepy!
The photos remind me of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code"!!
Holy Grail, Fibonacci numbers, Numerology!!
Jesus Christ, I am out of this thread!!!

sherry_unicornlover

You are one lucky soul Sunny. or should i say: God's one of the Fav. child.

there are very few people in the world who can see the world like you do.

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cursedcrusader

Umm...now words apart from one.

Have you used any software..if yes..Could you name it.. or they just out from the Canon's Lens?

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enfro

Pics are good sunny. Your street photography has grown by leaps and bounds...like this one from day 8-


The object is nothing special but still the pic has many things, viz. multiple colors, nice toning, pattern of bricks, etc.

But its becoming hard sometimes to understand the motive of these recent xbhp roadtrips road trips. The website said, at the time GIR-I, GAR and GNZR-I, that the motive of these trips was 'to promote biking in India as lifestyle'. The pictures too depicted that motive.
In PowerHunt, lead idea was to 'search the most passionate biker'...

But in the recent raod trips (incld. Great Ireland Roadtrip, GNZR-II, or the current ), there seem to be a shift from 'to promote biking in India as lifestyle' to 'to promote xyz country in India'. May it is just happening or it is intentional but the feeling is there. And if it is really happening then a visitor to xBhp.com though would not mind these lovely pictures bringing to his eyes some of the beautiful places of some of the great countries of the world, may expect loads and loads of pictures related more to bikes, bikers and biking in general rather than loads and loads of pictures of streets, oceans, mountains, statutes,etc.

Ofcourse biking is involved to the core of the projects and xbhp is still providing pictures , but still, i feel proportion of biking related picture has gone down compared to the total.
(I dont know whether i have put my views in entirety but being a regular visitor to the website this is an opinion in general put forward)

These are great




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