The end of July 2019 finds me on a beautiful morning over Italian soil at the village of Laterina South of Florence. More than happy that I'd spend a long riding day under nice weather I take a short breakfast and then load my bike. There finds me the beautiful daughter of the landlord as she walks to her car to drive to work. Her envy of the contrast between our different driving purposes doesn't prevent her from offering her best smile as she stops to say goodbye. Absolutely welcome gesture before 430+km on (as usual) non toll roads. Now it's time to ride through Tuscany's beauties. The latter is hands down a joy and images can speak for themselves even when they are blurry (due to engine's vibrations) like this one on the SP119 before Meleto:
As I take the SP67 I can't resist picturing those little clouds who keep the day not too hot for me:
At the border of Tuscany and Liguria I see a truck stopped in the middle of the road. Having no clue why I try to overtake him and then I see a sign in Italian (which I don't speak) reading something looking like "road closed". Since there is Vara river on the side I assume that a bridge had some problem and Italians are more sensitive about them after Genova's bridge tragedy. While I was thinking how I could work myself out of it with no other signs of any help in sight a family arrives in a car so I approach the driver for help. To my surprise he is a fluent English speaker (you know how rare this is in Italy) and tells me "I have no idea what's going on but let me call my father who's waiting us for lunch". Fortunately I just had a short of lunch on my bike otherwise I'd be drooling picturing an Italian Sunday table full of goodies waiting for a hungry family. He calls his father indeed and I can hear him through the car's bluetooth repeating "Porca miseria!" numerous times. With my poor Italian I can understand that he is doing a verbal Harakiri for not telling them in advance about the closed road and the whole scene starts looking like a Woody Allen's film almost cracking me up. At the same time the kids in the backseat had already gone into LOL mode so I can't help it anymore. By the end of the call the fluent English speaker Italian has the necessary instructions from his self-whipped Dad so he tells me to follow him till he will nod at me to split ways. Nice scene to have an Italian family waving at you at a roundabout while they go South and you go North trying to find a free hand to answer their kind gestures.
Later on the SS1 before Mattarana I find another incident on the road but this one doesn't cost me anytime:
Actually this part of the SS1 is really nice as you can see:
After all these plus some sweet winding mountainous roads in the last km which I totally enjoyed on my warmed up tires I arrived at my next destination at a village on the border of Savona and Imberia.
Here's the video of the ride:
I was just looking for accommodation not too far from Nice but turned out I had booked a place at an Enduro nest run by Enrica, a master of this kind. She wasn't there but I am welcomed to the bikes and the bar of her lovely place by a cool and helpful Portuguese guy. At night I don't hesitate to fall like a brick tired on my bed.
Next morning a nice breakfast is waiting for me here:
At this point I want to thank the chickens of this BnB for the delicious eggs they provide:
Unfortunately the same opinion about my breakfast was shared by the local wasps which didn't allow me to enjoy it in peace as I'd like, needless to say they didn't allow pictures of it without photobombing it either.
I hit the road early in the morning for Nice France with a happy stomach and nice weather. I'm not that far from my next destination but I expect heavy traffic so I decide to have enough time in my hnds since my appointment at Nice doesn't allow any delays - my host there has a flight to catch. Since I am up in the mountain the first traffic I find is the local herd having it's morning walk (watch video below). The next kilometres are quite nice in sweet winding roads and parts fully covered by trees as I roll down the SP23:
All good fun till I hit the coastline and it's touristic heavy traffic which was even heavier than Iexpected. Not that I had the wishful thinking of crossing San Remo and Ventimiglia on flying speeds at the end of July but still hoped it'd be better. Fortunately the queue at the French border doesn't delay me as much as it looked like at first and there I take the chance to call Catherine, my host at Nice, and describe her the situation. I thought she speaks English from the messages we previously exchanged but now she tells me on the phone she can't really understand me cause she doesn't really speak English. I fail to censor the F word even though I am talking to the epitome of French kindness (that's Catherine) but try to convey her a message of "No worries, I'll do my best to be on time".
With the possibility of arriving late at Nice I start to drive in a more Greek way. I hate to do that - no fun passing my side panniers through the car mirrors with a tolerance of a cigarette paper for many tens of km but if I have to I can do it.
You can watch parts of the ride here:
I make it to Nice finally, anxious but fortunately not too late. Sweetheart Catherine, had already called her friend Stephan to take her to the airport so she could have some extra time to wait for me to arrive. I couldn't have a better welcome from both of them. They even made a diagram of the area around the apartment with the points of interest. Hats off to the French people for their manners - not an old urban legend, it's a culture that's still alive. Though they have no time to spare they never show any signs of being in a rush and both keep thinking about helpful tips to share before they leave me. Catherine's apartment is ideal for me: Comfy, only a few steps away from the water, generously offering me an everyday view like this:
Finally I had some real chance to relax. After a couple of days being pushed to get from A to B, not always under the best circumstances, now my desires would be the only ones to dictate my pace. As soon as I do the necessary but time consuming cleaning of myself and my gear I go to the local supermarket to buy some first much needed things. Super glad to see there that my beloved blue Chimay beer was offered for only 1.5 euros - that's less than half of the price in Greece.
I take a walk around in the afternoon to the local beach in order to finish nicely a day that made the next ones look quite promising:
See you on part 3 ;)