Fri 29th Montecatini terne (near Florence) DAY 6

An exciting day in some ways and also quite uneventful. We decided to go very much cross-country today and that meant not many actual miles (223) but a lot of hours (about 9!) riding. We motorway'd round Genova having decided cities and towns were boring and quite scary for riding (too fast basically). After negotiating the way round Genova we headed up into the mountains and 'did' three passes of about 2,000 metres each. This might seem nothing but it was a day of end-to-end hairpin bends (er...probably about 200 in each pass) and having to deal with both very steep uphill and down hill versions. We had some stunning views and scenery but it was just too dangerous to stop and take photos. The roads were narrow and one had to be VERY careful to leave enough room for on-coming traffic most of whom needed the whole road to cope with their speed - mostly extremely fast.

Debbie and bike - on top of the world

We did manage to stop a couple of times and once it was possible to take this pic which looks rather ordinary although we were on top of the whole world.

We do have a couple of great moments from today. It seems that in Italy there are about as many two wheeled vehicles as four and at every traffic light about 8-14 bikes get ready for the 'who-can-reach-the-other-side-first' competition. This is NOT restricted to the two wheelers, however, but is ALWAYS won by them.....well.....except us on at least a couple of occasions. There is a really great sound when the lights go green of all the aforementioned two-wheelers gunning their engines. To me it is better then the start of Richard Strauss's 'Don Juan' but Debbie thinks it sounds like 'Night on a Bare Mountain' by Mussorgsky. If you don't know what I'm saying then get onto Spoitify and check it out!

Riding a motorbike in Italy seems to me to be one big competition.... at every possible stage, be it in the mountains round hairpin bends or first thing in the morning after a meagre Italian breakfast, trying to get out of the town and into the mountains one has to be the fastest, bravest and, most of all, FIRST and in FRONT.
To the right a pic by Debbie of US in full swing - today we hardly had any straighter roads than this and mostly MUCH more bendy - none were wider - and one had to be really mindful there'd likely be a very fast person coming round the bend on the wrong side of the road!


We touched down a few times today on very tight corners but only the centre-standf and not the exhaust pipes! I hope you can just about see Debbie and me in the wing mirror (bottom right of last pic!)
Looking forward to meeting Joanne in Macerata tomorrow but we KNOW our Rigoletto performance has been cancelled 'cos of rubbish weather so we're hoping to eat ourselves silly instead. Long journey cross country so I hope we make it in time.