Back in the UK

On Sunday we rode to the MotoGP. One small road in on which it was pretty easy to filter past the cars and then we parked (for free) only a short distance from the entrance. So far so good. However you have never seen so many people jammed into and queuing for the entrance! Plus once in, finding somewhere to sit was very difficult – we got about a couple of square feet of soil each. Around us the crowd was going berserk – a number were revving chain saws (without the chains) and lots more were letting of flares. The racing was good – as was the view. It then took about an hour to get out of the circuit and we waited another two hours for the traffic to thin – which it never seemed to do – so we set off of for Modena only to find numerous road closures etc. Quite a hassle – especially in the heat.

The hotel in Modena was ace and we had a great meal down the road – this helped get rid of the frustrations and tiredness left from attending Mugello. The following day we went to the Ferrari museum (OK) and rode onto Merano. En route we experienced the most horrendous thunderstorm – that flooded the road – and once there we didn’t find a single hotel at a reasonable payment rate. We did however find a superb Pension with a great restaurant. The following day’s ride was, by and large on superb biker roads – especially the Austrian bit.

Frankly the last couple of days all seemed a bit hard-work – mainly because the roads were all so full of cars and many of the car drivers were dangerous! Our last night was spent in a weird hotel just outside Ypres. On booking.com it looked superb and had great write ups. Once there it proved to be very Gothic, dated and a bit ‘Fawlty Towers’ like. C’est la vie. The last morning proved uneventful and we managed to get an early train form Calais.

The ride from Briancon to Genoa was stunning. Mile after mile of gorgeous alpine twisty roads with scenery to die for. Plus there was the occasional relaxed mileage across Italian plains. Sadly we entered Genoa from the wrong end and had twenty torturous kms of outer dock area suburbs to transverse (very slowly as there was a lot of traffic) before parking up and choosing a city centre hotel to head towards. The Starhotels President. On arrival at this quite grand hotel the snooty manager then said he only had one expensive room with double bed. At this point I explained how I could book a far cheaper room at his hotel with twin beds via “Booking.com” – and showed him. He then gave up the fight and booked us into a very nice room.

Genoa had a very pleasant city centre though we had great difficulty finding a good restaurant. Ultimately “Google maps” found us a self service place which was brimful of locals. We both had a good meal with dessert and in my case 25cl of wine for 10 euro. A steal. Later in the evening I found a small bar in a side street full of locals and a drunken landlord. Before paying the nominal amount for our drinks he insisted I share a cocktail with him – for free!

This morning we took a toll Road to Florence. All went well until we got there. If you’ve never been there I can tell you Florence’s centre (where our hotel is) is a rabbits warren of small cobbled streets. And many of them were being dug up, were closed or were one way (the wrong way). Ultimately we parked the bikes near the river and walked to the hotel. This was just as well as the garage it uses was 700m away.

However the bikes are now parked up, we’ve done a reccee of Florence and bought some provisions for the race tomorrow. Just got to organise dinner.

Andy and I are in Briancon, France. Yesterday we landed in Caen after an uneventful channel crossing and headed for our first stop in Moulins. It was planned as long miles quickly and that’s what we did. Though we stopped for lunch in a small town and eat with the locals. Superb meal and very cheap, plus we now know Colin is French for Hake. The overnight in Moulins was at a grand house near the town centre run as a boutique hotel by its owners. They deserve full marks for their project.

Today we chugged on towards Grenoble. All went well initially and then my satnav lost the plot at Lyon. After an unplanned zap down the toll road we got to Grenoble in early afternoon and rapidly decided it wasn’t worth staying the night in. Unfortunately the heavens opened just as we were cruising down some beautiful alpine “twisties”. So we had to ride a tad cautiously. Eventually we came to Briancon – one of the few towns in this part of the alps that wasn’t closed. The hotel we found is rather like Fawlty Towers, but the receptionist was charming.

Now to bed and tomorrow to Italy!

Three days to go before setting out on the most onerous part of the journey – riding round the M25 to the bleak port of Portsmouth. The rest should be good though.

You can find the full .gpx file which takes you from Caen back to Calais on the GPSDownloads page.

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