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First week of the Christmas trip

Saturday 18.12.2010

Traveltime: 10:15 - 16:45
Distance: 481km
Route: Ulm – Füssen - Innsbruck - Garda
Temperature: Around -10C in Ulm, at some point a bit warmer and bit colder
Weather: Snowfall, partly cloudy, cloudy, sunny

Purpose of the first day was to reach Garda, or at least get somewhere (depending of the weather).

After putting numerous layers of clothes, knee protectors, upper body protector, neoprene mask etc I started to feel like ready to hit the snowy and cold road.

At the time of start, temperature was -10C and snow was coming down... Well, this would keep me awake due to high focus needed all day on slippery roads.

Road towards south from Ulm was in quite good shape. Only couple of times rear tire felt a bit loose, but nothing special happened during the ride to alps.

Fernpass had quite much snow (heavy snowfall during Friday evening), but road was ok. Only couple times I had to slow and follow car tire tracks.

In Brenner valley I started wondering in what kind of condition Italian roads will be. Have they used enough salt? After reaching Italian side I noticed road was well maintained.

Temperature varied quite much in Brenner, but as I approached my destination for the day, temperature just felt colder and colder.

Garda (town) was covered with snow! Christmas street looked really winter wonderland due to snow everywhere and red nose italians :)

Hotel which I normally use in here was closed, so I had to search another hotel. Luckily I find another hotel from nearby and it also had garage for the bikes!

Surprisingly I did not see any other bikes on the road today :D

Later tonight I will enjoy some good italian pizza and cold beer.

Tomorrow is also going to be quite boring long motorway day. I have plan to ride as many kilometers in these first days as possible (before getting dark). Where will I get tomorrow? At least temperature should get higher tomorrow afternoon.

 

 

Sunday 19.12.2010

Traveltime: 08:45 - 17:45
Distance: about 778km
Route: Garda - Verona - Modena - Bologna - Firenze - Orte - Rome - Naples - Salerno - Amalfi
Temperature: Everything from the minus temperatures in the morning to about +10C in Amalfi
Weather: Snow, sunny, cloudy, rain

Today was day to move as much as possible towards south. Few things stick in to my mind from today (even almost whole day was boring motorway ride).

Day started with extremely light italian breakfast, something that looked like a bread (but mainly contained air) and something on top of it (ham and cheese). After this light breakfast several layers of clothes on and nose towards today´s challenges.

Few snow flakes from the sky wished me a good ride towards warmer climate.

Firstly I took few smaller roads close to Verona and then I started loooooong motorway ride. Ride was quite boring and cool until Firenze.

Seemed like Firenze had quite much snow last night (well, maybe 20cm). Under one bridge I almost hit snowbank, luckily car in front of me threw quite big blast of snow to the air and I had enough time to react and swerve around the snow.

Few kilometers after this traffic stopped completely. I passed all cars from the middle and was quite surprised when I saw the reason for the queu. Police car was riding in the middle of the road, both doors open. They also stopped completely when we reached one tunnel. Roadservice guys were traing to drop long icickles from the ceiling. After about 15 minutes of waiting we were allowed to continue again.

After around 100km south from Firenze all snow was finally gone... Warm south...Bs... Also Rome had been covered with snow (yesterday I read from newspaper that even waterfountains in Rome had frozen).

I knew I reached Naples when old stinky trash started to smell and whole valley was covered in blue smoke. Around the area of Naples I also noticed that air started (finally) to get warmer.

Just before reaching Salerno, I took exit and started to follow really small and extremely curvy road. My next target was to find nice hotel close to shore. I cannot say how the sceneary is because I arrived to this area when it was already dark (but I will give some comment tomorrow). I followed this road all the way Amalfi, where I found quite nice hotel.

Dinner in Amalfi and few photos.

At the moment I do not have any idea which road I will take tomorrow, but I think I will figure it out still tonight.

 

Monday 20.12.2010

Traveltime: 09:00 - 17:45
Distance: about 532km
Route: Amalfi - Salerno - Rende - Paola - Amantea - Villa S. Giovanni - Messina - Taormina
Temperature: Warm, cool
Weather: partly cloudy, cloudy, sunny

After I checked the temperature from my balcony, I decided to leave several layers of clothin off. After 15 minutes I had to stop and remove even more layers... When I started the day, I put medium temperature gloves and hood, I needed to change these to summer version at the same time.

Curvy road which I mentioned yesterday was really nice also during the daytime. Unfortunately there was also much more traffic, so I could not enjoy this road as I would have wanted. Road has been cut to really steep hillside. This area is deffenitely worth visitin if you are in this area. I had not planned this to my route, but one friend in Ulm recommended this place (thanks Dennis).

From Salerno I joined nicely flowing traffic in motorway. Not too much traffic, so sout-italian driving style was not a problem (some say that traffic in Italy is mess. I want to highlight here that traffic in northern Italy is quite ok, trafic in southern Italy is more "flexible").

A3-motorway is in good shape all the way until Lagonegro or Lauria (A3 does not have any road tolls!), after this quite much road construction is ongoing. I guess these roadworks will still take several years. Traffic was quite ok now, but I guess during summer this is really a nighmare.

I have never realised how much mountains are in Italy. Basically all roads what I have used have been on mountains (expect farming area in northern Italy). Today´s highest point was 1015m and snow on the side of the road...

Close to Rende, I decided to get off from motorway for awhile. I took smaller road 107 towards Paola. After Paola I got reminder of southern Italian driving style... I was planning to pass one car in front of me when suddenly really small car in front of us decided that he needs to make full stop exactly right now... Car in front of me slammed his breaks and I do not know how I was able to brake so fast... Well, I even did not touched the car :) I must admit that my heartrate was quite high for a moment...

After reaching Villa S. Giovanni, I stopped to buy ticket for a ferry (10€). I do not know why, but my experience in Italy has been that there is not clear signs to guide you to the ferry... Well, I found it this time without a problem.

20 minutes in a ferry and then seemed like everyone tried to get out from the ferry at the same time, cars, trucks and me... Welcome to Sicily!

Originally I planned to stay this one night in Messina, but could not find hotel while cruising around, so I decided to head more south. At this point I must say that there is a difference between southern-italian and sicilian driving style... Sicilians bend traffic rules even more... But, I guess it will take one day and then I get used to this style, have to just drive like locals.

I found hotel from Taormina. Arrived here (again) after sunset.

Tomorrow´s plan start to be quite clear, route is not yet planned (I guess I plan it while riding tomorrow). My plan for tomorrow is to find camping site (if there are any open ones). So, tomorrow I cannot (most propably) publish update. But I will try to do it then on Wednesday.

 

Tuesday 21.12.2010

Traveltime: 10:00 - about 15:00
Distance: 157km
Route: Taormina - Round the Etna
Temperature: Warm, cooler up in the mountain
Weather: Sunny, partly cloudy

Yesterday I forgot to mention that I saw first bikes on the road. Also I forgot to mention that hotel was really quiet and peacefull (I guess mainly due to retired people from US and Germany.

Target for today was to go around Etna and then get to camping site well before dark.

Even smaller roads around Etna are in good shape. All (which I rode) were paved, but due to winter (???) conditions, there was salt on the roads.

I shoot some photos and then decided to find my way to higher. On a one road I had to turn back due to ice covered road.

Close to the skilifts I stopped for a cup of coffee. Locals were looking at my direction and I guess they were wondering "what the hell he is doing here with the bike" (I was at that point over 2000m high)...

I decided to take lift up, even there was some clouds and ticket was (my opinion) outreagously expensive (27.5€ for ticket!!!). Sun was shining up in the top of the mountain (well still 600m below the crater), so I just sat there and admired these dark lava fields.

After getting back down, I pointed front wheel towards camping ground (which I located from the internet yesterday evening). Reason why I picked this site was because their homepage said they have WiFi. Camping area was easy to find (with coordinates).

Hmmmm... it is not actually tourist season... I was only customer in the whole camping area... :) Next thing I realised was that internet is not working. Well, I thought that one evening without internet is not so bad thing afterall.

 

 

Wednesday 22.12.2010

Traveltime: 11:00 - 13:15
Distance: 89km
Route: Taormina - Catania - Siracusa
Temperature: Maybe 15C
Weather: Partly cloudy, cloudy, couple drops of water

Yesterday I started sleeping around 1800 and slept till around 0930 this morning... So loooong sleep :)

Plan was today was to make a short ride to Siracusa and then walk around the town.

Finding hotel was again a piece of cake and I was able to find also garage for the bike.

 

Thursday 23.12.2010

Traveltime: 10:00 - 16:15
Distance: 246km
Route: Siracuse - Pachino - Pozzallo - Palazzolo - Noto - Pozzallo
Temperature: 15-20C
Weather: Cloudy and few drops of rain

I do not remember when was the last time that italian breakfast tasted so good as today. Bread was excellent and also coffee was absolutely amazing.

For the first thing in the morning I had planned to visit old (roman or greek) theater but as soon as I got to the location, I noticed that they were closed... darn... You never know what is the schedule/opening times in italy! I also heard that old fortress in Siracuse is open only in the morning.

Next thing what I planned was to visit southernmost point of Sicily. In any case I was already really close to this place. It was easy to find just by following GPS instructions. While I was approaching this area, whole scenery was covered with greenhouses, they were absolutely everywhere! Southernmost point was not really exiting eather, just a parking place and basically that was it. Well, now I can say "been there, done that".

After this (not so) exiting morning, I headed towards Pozzallo. I wanted to find hotel already early enough so that I could go a bit inland to look around. In one hotel, receptionist said that manager was not in at that point, so he could not tell me the price of the room? I told him that I will come back after few hours and then headed towards north.

I think the most memorable point of today and most propably in the whole trip (by this point of trip) was 1m high stonefences (started almost immediately north from Pozzallo). I am talkin in plural because these stonefences were absolutely everywhere, hill after hill, valley after valley... All roads had these fences, all fields were surrounded by these fences... I guess sicilian have had lot of stones in their fields...

I found interesting looking place from the map, Cava d´ispica. I guess it ment caves. When I got there, of course with my luck, this place was also closed... I understood that this place is one of Unesco´s World heritage sites. Back-up was Akrai theater a bit more north, close to Palazzolo. Roads to Palazzolo were really nice, narrow and curvy.

For my surprice, this place was actually open! I even got 50% discount from the ticket because they did not had enough money to give back from 20€ :) I walked around this old greek theater for 20 minutes. These guys have some old history around here!

Next thing was to get back to Pozzallo. Selected "fastest route" from GPS and started following the route. I was laughing inside my helmet by thinking that this map data must have been done by italian Giuseppe just before lunch time... This "fastest route" went on a really tiny gravel road, but I was not in a hurry, so I just enjoyed this time.

When I got back to Pozzallo and to the hotel, I was surprised that manager was 70-80 years old grandmother who actually spoke few words of english :)

I had expected that hotel prices would have been a bit lower at this time of the year and far away from tourist places, but no... This hotel costs 60€.

Today was the first day when I have not seen any snow :)

Schedule for tomorrow is already clear for the first half of the day, but I do not tell you yet what it´s going to be :)

 

Friday 24.12.2010

Traveltime: Around one hour on a bike
Distance: Estimation 20-30km
Route: Pozzallo - Malta - short trip to southern shore - Sliema
Temperature: Around 20C
Weather: Sunny, cloudy, few drops of water

Merry Christmas to everyone from Malta!!!

Now I have reached my Christmas trip destination. I will go around Malta now on Saturday and Sunday. On early Monda morning I will start my return trip back to north.

This morning I got maybe the worst italian breakfast I have ever had (in Italy). Couply dry breads (nothing on top) and only a bitter espresso...

After this so called "breakfast" I pushed my bike away from the garage just to notice that someone had almost completely blocked exit with his/her car... Luckily there was narrow path available next to the wall, but I had to remove both bags from the bike and still I almost scratched couple of cars...

Yesterday evening I got phonecall from the ferrycompany that they had postponed departure for two hours due to bad weather. This was ok for me, because I was able to sleep few hours longer.

Ferryterminal was only few kilometers away from the Pozzallo, so I got there well in time. No long queues here either (good things for travelling outside of the touristseason). Virtuferries had best bike tying system I have ever seen in any boat, anywhere (few photos below). I also read that this newest Virtuferries katamarin is fifth biggest commercially used katamarin.

After I got to Malta, I decided to go practice left side traffic to somewhere a bit less crowded area. So I took a small detour from via the southern shore. I did not hit anybody, so not too bad practice (let´s see what tomorrow has in store for me)...

I found my hotel easily (this time I prebooked rooms via internet). Price for three nights is 75€ (total). Hotel looked really good, recently renovated. Biggest shock was when I opened my room door, my room was massive! Livingroom, dining area, big bedroom... Everything in excellent condition and all this only for 75€!!!

Before dinner, I walked around a bit, tomorrow and Sunday I will have more time to go around this small island.

Network did not work yesterday at all and also today there was some problems, so this update comes quite late. Hopefully tomorrow I do not have network issues anymore.

 

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