A blog about Peter's motorcycle trips to various places in the world ………….
I’ve now sorted the routing to get to the Italian MotoGP (Andy’s already bought race day tickets); booked the ferry to France and have found a hotel to stay at in Florence on Saturday before the race and one in Modena to stay at on the Sunday after the race has finished. Coincidentally – Modena is only a few kilo from the Ferrari factory and has a nearly new Enzo Ferrari museum. Well that’s Monday morning taken care of!
Don’t know what made me think about the Scotland trip I did back in 2015? I think I had seen something about Ullapool on the web and this got me thinking about the ride through torrential rain – in summer – to a town that time had forgotten. Once there we went to the info centre to be told that all the hotels were full. You’ve got to be kidding!! In the end we were sent to the Caladonian Hotel that was staffed almost entirely by newly arrived eastern europeans – which caused a few problems when trying to order anything. After finding quite a good fish restaurant in the evening we returned to the hotel bar for the live entertainment. This was a guy who set his recording gear to play all the instrumental parts and choruses of various songs while playing a guitar and mouth organ himself. Basically a one man band – though not a very good one. However the main entertainment was centred on a rowdy local drunk who kept getting thrown out of the front door before re-appearing back from the toilet. The various groups of far eastern guests all thought this as hilarious as us.
In the morning after a shower in a very cold and bleak bathroom (broken lino on the floor, a chipped bath etc) we went for breakfast: A giant room with trestle tables beckoned (it made 1950’s Butlins look sophisticated). Plus the food was fairly indigestible with certainly the cheapest ingredients money could buy being flavour of the month. Happy days.
PS Just checked on the web and a double room for one night in May is costing £120 ……….. I can book a really classy hotel in Spain or Italy for less than £100. Can anyone tell me how this hotel stays in business?
