Italy by Motorcycle

Prague To Sicily And Back, May, 2000

Friday, May 5th

19,218 kilometers on the bike---we'll see what she reads when we get back. All systems go and the target stop for tonight is Innsbruck, a bit on the optimistic side, but it would give us a good jump over the Alps tomorrow. For once in our lives, everything packed in the Givi bags and nothing bungied down

Saturday, May 6th

Waking early at the foot of the Alps at a little picturebook town called Kufstein with an obligatory castle on a rock in the center of the town. Highway day yesterday at 110-120 kph for something over 600 kilometers. Rain caught us twice in southern Germany. Good day though and we opted not to stay at Innsbruck, choosing instead to save those snowy mountains that confronted us for daylight riding tomorrow. Florence is the target. This is a lovely little hotel and the bike is safely in their garage. Eight o'clock dinner and gratefully to bed. 7AM wakeup call this morning---bright and beautiful outside and we'll see what the day brings.

Sunday, May 7th

What yesterday brought was a quick change from sunny to rain as we drove into the Alps and the day was spent in hard riding through beautiful but mostly obscured mountain roads. It seems we are destined for rain on our motorcycle trips to Italy. By afternoon the country has turned to Italian farmland, then becomes rolling hills once more as we approach Florence. Our favorite campground is there, lovely and friendly as ever, overlooking the city. We set up by 7:30 and walk up to the statue of David on a promenade overviewing the city and have panini from a vendor, then fall gratefully asleep. But that was yesterday and Sunday morning we are awakened by church bells and the soothing but unwelcome sound of rain pattering on the tent. Is this to follow us, like an intruder upon our trip? It lets up and like optimists we head out for Rome with the raingear stowed. Not for long. Soon enough we are beside the autostrada and changing to full gear. Rome is not all that far---300 kilometers and we are there by 4:30, then lost for an hour before we call Elvia to come find us. Home with her at last and Fabiana is there for dinner which lasts around the table until 11:30.

Monday, May 8th

Rome welcomes us with sunshine. Elvia takes us to the train, which takes us to the metro, which takes us to the Colosseum. From there we wander Rome to the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. A lovely luncheon off the main streets. Babes on bikes everywhere and the most sensual shoes and clothes imaginable. Tomorrow we will visit the Pope.

Tuesday, May 9th

Vatican day and nothing can be said of the Vatican but excess. Too many notes as they said of Mozart---more than the eye or the emotion can control. It's all quite exhausting ---did the Pieta, the Sistine Ceiling and all that lies between. My third time and last I hope. Even so, the Pieta always makes the emotion rise. Dinner at Fabiana's flat and ice cream after at a neighborhood gelateria. She lives in a wonderfully human scaled section of Rome in what was once a nunnery, each small apartment made up of the old nun's chambers.

Wednesday, May 10th

We would have been away for Sicily but there's a gasoline strike on until Friday and we are trapped. Yet, if one must be trapped, what better place than with Elvia. A day of rest and lying about, recovery and peace.

Thursday, May 11th

Laundry first thing and then into Rome for a last look. In this case the primary goal is my favorite of all the antiquities---the Pantheon. It is to me what Jefferson's home is---a building of perfect architectural proportion and inspires a similar awe. A beautiful luncheon as always. There must be no ordinary restaurants in Italy---I have yet to find one. A small, out of the way and quite ordinary looking place near the Tiber where we have a most memorable meal. Seems a shame to leave now that I no longer become lost on the way back to Elvia's home. But tomorrow there will be gas and we leave in the morning for Naples.

Friday, May 12th

Gone a week and a lovely week it has been, no matter we're a few days behind schedule. We're off in leisurely fashion about 11 and ride to the ocean, then turn left. It's interesting for about 20 minutes, but turns to incredibly ugly strip towns along the beach and we turn inland to better, more direct roads. At Naples about 5:30 and the Friday afternoon traffic is like Los Angeles, a rush hour of wild Italian drivers and we elect to skip Naples and stay at Pompeii. A lovely small city with an extremely beautiful church complex in Baroque style that centers the six block long tourist strip. We splurge on a hotel and have our first ordinary meal since coming to Italy. Fried mozzarella, because this area is where mozzarella is made and a local red wine that is carbonated and undrinkable. Hard to imagine a reason for carbonating what might be good wine. But the stroll around town is pleasant and the hotel comfortable. A lemon ice and pastry restores us. Tomorrow the ruins and on the road south.

Saturday, May 13th

The choice was well made to take the autostrada down the boot, saving any coastline dawdling for the return if there's time. Sicily is the goal and we stop somewhat short at Pizzo, a lovely coastal town for the night. The hotel, an excellent choice in all other respects, is directly on the square and doesn't quiet until 3AM. The harbor lies below us, a medieval fort offering protection. Sicily lies but a hundred kilometers below that.

Sunday, May 14th

The day dawns brilliantly sunlit. Cruising the autostrada and cutting long curves down the road to Sicily, we are easily at the ferry by one o'clock and expectations are high. Mid afternoon on the road to Palermo the skies turn dark and our old friend rain comes to meet us. Late in the afternoon the Sicilian autostrada ends and we wind along the coast. Thus far, southern Italy has been a disappointment---no more pretty than the north and the towns are poor with but few exceptions. The people retain their friendliness. We seem to be well before season and the hotels are easily booked and well under the posted rates. The dollar is also exceptionally high at near 2100 lire and we book a room with private bath at a beach resort at $25. The reason we are here in San Stefano is the ceramics. We seem to have stumbled into a center for the most amazingly beautiful ceramic manufacture quite by accident. With our e-commerce in mind we have made Monday appointments with several manufacturers to discuss how we might use their product and at what price. So Monday will be mostly spent here and then we head toward Palermo.

Monday, May 15th

We awaken to thunder. It must be the rainy season on Sicily or else rain just has a way of following our motorcycle trips. But we suit up and stop by our ceramic contacts and both are willing to deal at 50% discount, but it's apparent another visit will be necessary eventually and before getting product in the pipeline. We motor down the coastal highway in sunshine and at most it's only slightly picturesque. I much prefer the north. We come into Palermo about five, check out a hotel and find it expensive, the city too big and we have had enough of cities anyway, setting ourselves on the road to Trapani. The country west of Palermo opens into rich, rolling farmland and vineyards, quite the most lovely we've seen. Trapani is large, Baroque and quite beautiful but strangely devoid of nightlife, at least in the old section where we are staying. We find a great hotel for $30. I must admit we've had wonderful luck with hotels this early before the season. Probably why the nightlife has not yet begun but it's wonderful to not be crowded with tourists. I guess tomorrow we'll head down the south coast through Marsala toward Syracuse.

Tuesday, May 16th

We awaken after a good sleep and find the 'bath down the hall' spotlessly clean with plenty of hot water. Marsala turns out to be not much of a town, heavily commercial, but we stop to walk around a bit and buy strawberries to eat on the street. I say 'buy,' but the little old man selling them won't take money and wishes us happiness with a toothless grin. A half block down we pause in the doorway of a shop under reconstruction, admire it and the young lady to whom we give a thumbs-up comes out into the street with a beaming smile and kisses Misha on both cheeks. Can't beat Marsala for friendliness. The coast to Agrigenta is boring and poor---much like the Yucatan peninsula with one desolate beach town after another and late in the afternoon we turn inland as we did above Naples and find the Sicily we have come to see. Winding roads up into mountain pastureland and vineyards, sheep and goatherds with their flocks and attendant dogs. Pretty small towns perched on mountaintops, the occasional columned ruin on a hillside. We stay at Emma, pleased at last with Sicily and glad to have come.

Wednesday, May 17th (my sixty-fifth birthday)

A supposedly momentous occasion, turning sixty-five in the center of Sicily, but birthdays have never held much importance to me and this one passes without fanfare. The day is sunny and bright, all mountain roads from one pretty little town to the next, every turn offering flowers and vistas off across the countryside. Only a couple hundred kilometers covered---almost all at 30-40 mph and a thoroughly delightful day. We'll catch the ferry to the mainland in the morning and try to make Rome by Friday night to spend a quiet Saturday before Cararra and home. Overnight in Malazzo on the coast not far from Messina.

Thursday, May 18th

A flat-out cruiser day of some 500 kilometers on the autostrada to Salerno. The gas plazas along the autostrada in Italy are quite extraordinary, with very good fresh panina and almost always interesting local goods and foods. Very fair prices as well, a far cry toward the better from the relentless fast-food joints of American highways. At one, we find wonderfully colorful and creative pasta for sale. Ribbons, bows and small hats, multi-colored and beautiful---one's only problem would be to create a sauce that wouldn't mask the beauty of the pasta itself. Alas, traveling by motorcycle there's no room for such attractions. We buy a small, slim bottle of lemon liquor for Fabiana's birthday present and find a place to tuck it. I had given the bad driver's award to Czechs, but am afraid I must amend the choice in favor of Italians. They are brutally unmindful of any courtesy or respect for the lines painted on highways. Small cars give us sufficient room without fail---it's the Mercedes and Lancias and BMWs that flash past my left leg at 160 kph with absolutely no reason except a curious need to be assholes. We hold a respectable 110 kph and they carom off our port side as though we were a pinball obstacle. About five in the afternoon we pull off at a rest stop and set the hammock overlooking an agricultural valley below. An hour snooze and we're off once more, greatly refreshed by the break. Salerno about nine, where we find an adequate three star hotel and are recommended to a superb Italian restaurant. A stroll back to the hotel through mostly quiet streets and bed.

Friday, May 19th

Awakened at 7:45 by pounding on the ceiling, which I rage off in bare feet and jeans to quiet. A workman, pounding tiles out of the floor above our room is astonished by this half naked English speaker, but gives it up until precisely 9AM, an agreeable time. We stop about noon in Naples and it's an agony of traffic and cobbled roads, sometimes inching the bike ahead and then fighting cars and scooter traffic for available road. But Naples is a magnificent city set in the hills above the Mediterranean and not a place to live, but a great short visit. The ride to Rome is extremely windy and the bike is blown around enough to make it seem like more than the actual 300 kilometers. We're at Axa about 7:30 and coming out of a store in town where we've stopped for wine, strawberries and cheese when we run into Elvia picking up a few things in anticipation of our visit. Franchesco is home when we get there and we talk and eat and drink until eleven.

Saturday, May 20th

Again we take the opportunity for laundry, laze about most of the day and pay an afternoon visit to Ostia Antica. Fabiana's birthday celebration tonight and Franchesco is expected again, this time with his wife. And the party goes well, our opportunity to meet Peter, Fabiana's Hungarian boyfriend as well. I like him immediately, his philosophy of life being in my view, very sound, as he has constructed for himself a method of survival that allows much of the living of life. He may be perfect for Fabiana. Our late night discussion is of the marketing of her art, which is quite extraordinary. She suffers, or has been taught to suffer the self doubts that plague so many in the arts.

Sunday, May 21st

We leave at noon for Cararra, but make good time on the autostrada and are there in time to find a hotel and dinner. Hotel Michelangelo, an eclectic place run by its 75 year old Cararran owner, a man who is himself an artist and has seen much of the world. The place is overpriced, but we find our connection to him to be invaluable to visiting the quarries and workshops. The rooms are large and clean, filled with junk antiques and original art of widely varying quality and there is plenty of hot water, so I am happy.

Monday, May 22nd

Our aged host sends his Director off with Misha for various kinds of information that turns out to include a guide to the first quarry yard. We follow him on the motorcycle and in true Italian fashion, he's bloody difficult to keep up with, but we arrive in one piece. There we are received elegantly and directed where and how to find the various quarries by motorcycle. Our tour is self directed up through the steep mountain roads, avoiding descending trucks loaded with monumental chunks of marble. It's all quite breathtaking. In the afternoon our hotelier directs us to the studio of Carlo Nicoli, the most well known of the fabricators, whose carvers transform artists' maquettes into fabulous sculpture of any dimension. The list of international artists with whom the Nicoli Studio has worked is legend. Full sized reproductions of Moses, David, and the Pieta are not beyond their ability and, with the exception of air tools, they carve in the same tradition as in Michelangelo's day. We have a generous audience with Carlo in his splendid office and are charmed for an hour. By the end of the day we and the bike are well covered in marble dust. I am a sucker for any kind of construction and this is the most incredible example of deconstruction I have seen in my lifetime. The absolute highlight of the trip.

Tuesday, May 23rd

We head out to cover the territory necessary to support Misha's novel. We'll have to be out of here early tomorrow, as it's a stretch to be home by Thursday. It turns out to be a wonderful day for Misha as she collects the information she needs while I grump around, bored and hungry. Late in the afternoon life smoothes out with a lovely drive in the mountains, but a worrisome noise develops in the area of the bike transmission that we are unable to identify. Sounds like a bearing, a steady metallic click and I'm unwilling to put her on the road at high speed without finding the cause. S, that will undoubtedly delay our morning departure while we check in at Yamaha. Hopes are it won't be expensive or take long. Big question.

Wednesday, May 24th

Our luck holds and the marvelous hotelier makes a call to Mr. Calamari at the Yamaha dealership, who agrees to look at the bike although his schedule is full. Very enthusiastic fellow. Checks the bike over and takes it for a trial ride, then tells us it's nothing more than a long trip with a full (almost over) load and there's no problem to worry about. Big relief. No charge. Big smile and wishes us well on the return. So we get away about noon and drive hard all day, reaching our little hotel in Kufstein about eight. 600 kilometers and perfectly beautiful through the Alps, which were shrouded in rain on our drive down. Good dinner, good rest.

Thursday, May 25th

Off and running at nine, Munich by lunch and into the Czech Republic at nine minutes after two. Pilsen, then Prague, then the run home, arriving by seven. Off to our favorite little restaurant in the woods for a good meal and then back to check the e-mail and see what's been goin' on since we left, particularly with Paul and his arrival. Drat! The modem has failed while we've been gone, probably a power surge and we're e-mail less. Disaster, or so it seems at ten o'clock at night. Nothing for it but to go to bed and get into Prague tomorrow to get caught up at Terminal Bar. So it goes, but the trip was delightful, the bike is safely and happily in the basement garage and we are both well and happy.

Not all that bad a way to be.