The beginning of August's second week finds me West of Milano making breakfast from the goodies I picked yesterday at the local supermarket. Good job Italians, perfetto prodoti! However, my thoughts are rather focused on touring the Lake Maggiore part of which belongs to Switzerland.
I leave Milano's heat behind and head North while the weather starts to become cloudy, a very welcome change that would spare me some sweat. First km are nothing exciting except an Italian changing lanes without blinking with his phone in one hand trying to send me where Jimi Hendrix is.
As I get close to the lake near Ispra everything looks much more scenic and pleasant. More than enough to ignore the rather heavy traffic and enjoy all these beautiful towns by the lake. I've already done most of the East coast of the lake when I cross the border to Switzerland at Zenna. Suddenly, my phone becomes alive as my provider didn't give me any signal in Italy. Don't ask me why, they try to cut all corners possible and I try not to remember it. Fortunately I had places ahead beautiful enough to not bother with a phone flooded by notifications of unread messages and missed calls.
I ride up to Locarno where I make my first stop. It's one of the biggest cities by the lake and entering Locarno required a fight with the unbearable traffic. If I had a car I'd still be queuing on the road. I overtake idle cars for several km till I arrive at the center and take some pictures:
Summer weather is back again so I think it's about time to follow a friend's advice and take a dip in the lake. Seeking for a deserted and quiet place I ride down the West coast. Problem is that the beaches I can see from the road are too crowded for my taste while the other (potentially less crowded) parts are impossible to see while riding as the road doesn't offer view being several meters above the lake. I notice though that there are openings on the guardrail with stairways. Most of the times they read "privato" so I skip the invasion in their privacy. Finally I find one without a "privato" sign plus it had a bit of space for my bike. I pull over and step to the other side of the road to have a look and...yes! No sign of civilisation! I take my stuff of the bike, lock it and soon I am me myself and I having at my disposal this:
I put my things down, take off my clothes and...bloom! In my first few seconds in the water I see a snake! I go out again to take my phone and capture it but it was gone so I leave the phone out and go back to swim again. However, being spoiled enough since I've spend most of my life near or at a snakeless sea heaven I decide to spend most of my time out enjoy the sun. When I am dry enough I pack and go. I take with me as souvenir two stones for my travel museum:
The left one for its "gold" bits and the right one for the plain pure white.
Riding down the West coast I see really impressive hotels that look like royal cottages of the past. Amazing with all these flowers in their balconies, pity the traffic didn't allow an easy stop for pictures. That friend who proposed me to swim also told me they do great pizzas around. Having zero doubts about that I kept an eye for a pizza house but being quite crowded and me not hungry enough yet I decide to go back to my AirBnb and cook instead. Besides, my trip was coming close to its end so I had to consume my supplies.
Here's the video with the ride around Laggo Maggiore:
My next destination is a place outside Modena in order to be relatively close to Ancona's port for my return ferry trip to Greece. Italy is under intense heatwave now so I prepare for a hard day riding in heat and traffic both in large quantities. Actually it wasn't that bad and it even rained a bit at some point. I can't recall another time that I begged for rain that much while riding. As I continue South though, no rain, no clouds, just pure melting heatwave. As I ride on a straight, there's two bikers in front of my who turn right to stop at a Pizza house while an old guy in an old wreck waits to cross the road. As he sees them turn he jumps ahead and I save the crash stopping in front of his door. He tries to say in his Italian something like "I thought you would turn right with them" and I leave the place before I do something that would benefit Italy's social security system.
I arrive at my destination much earlier than planned so I stop at an "Osteria" to have a bite on something. "Finally time for some pizza" I say to myself. I leave my bike in the shade and I reach a table with two guys to ask them in my ultra poor Italian if they serve food. Both no English but willing to help they say "Si!". I step in, have a look at the edible stuff and I ask the owner "Pizza?" Well, have you read my pizza challenges in the previous part7? Yes...they are still on! He says "No pizza - only this" and he points me a stamp sized bit of pizza. I am too angry to appreciate his English efforts but I see next to it something looking like spinach pie. I ask him to confirm it and he says "yes, spinach". I tell him I want both, the stamp of pizza and the spinach pie escorted with a beer and I go out to pick a table under a fan that turns rather slow making the 35 C feel like 34.9... Under such conditions this beer feels heaven sent:
Not much later the waitress brings me the food I ordered, only to realise that from the spinach I expected to be served they had cut a tiny, also stamp sized, bit of it, same as the pizza one. Go figure...I drink, eat and go. Still some time to kill so I find a gas station and decide to fill up my tank. Unfortunately it is closed but with the huge shade it offers and "Moonlight Shadow" of Mike Oldfield on his numerous decent speakers playing I spend some time there. And it pays back in laughs by looking at this sign:
I later find a tree to lie for a while but even its dense leaves can't do much for this laser penetrating sun that burns Italy:
Time finally comes to arrive at the place I booked, a room in a beautiful house of a lovely family. As I settle and see the spacious bathroom one thing comes to my mind - and I do it:
I also wash my clothes and then go to the local supermarket for a few edible things. One more store that keeps the Italian flag high on food. As I see that tomorrow is expected to be even hotter (37C) I buy enough supplies so that I could stay in. This actually turned out to be the only day during my trip that I did absolutely nothing. This made my host look me up and since (again in Italy) my phone provider let me down he had to step up to my room to see if I am OK.
Next day and last one in Italy is no better weather wise but I only have to ride up to Ancona and take the ferry so come what may. To do so though I first have to be able to exit the house and I find out that... I actually can't. It is early in the morning and the yard's outdoor is locked. I think to myself there's gotta be a button that opens it, I try to trace its cable but no luck. I think about jumping over the door but that would put in risk the arbor over it. The wall is too high to climb. I see a wood stove in the corner but the scenario of using it as a step to climb the wall would force me to destroy some of the plants around. Plus if a neighbour sees me doing so at that time you guess what he'll do...Meanwhile I've texted my host but everyone is still sleeping though I had told him I'll leave early. As I sit at the yard behind the door brainstorming on what to do I hear the sound of a door opening inside the house. I turn back and I see a guy stepping out in his 70s who just woke up, with a bit of smile and bits of underwear telling me "Buongiorno". He pushes the bloody button and the door opens. Where it was? Behind a curtain but in the dark I couldn't see it though I touched part of that wall in my desperate efforts to find it. I take my stuff out and say goodbye to that guy who later I found he's my host's uncle. "Buon Viaggio" he responds with a bigger smile now and I ride off.
Fortunately as I am riding South and closer to the sea the heat is more bearable. Still, the unnecessary wankery of some Italian drivers is not. At a traffic jam a car cuts me from the right as if the extensive use of my horn is not enough. I brake so hard that I stall the bike on 3rd gear. For the first time ever in 12 years and 130.000km. I look at him and he goes like "I was making way for a truck behind me". I leave the scene immediately with lots of swearing - better things to do ahead. Well, I thought so. At my arrival at the port I am announced that Grimaldi gifts me again with a delayed ferry (first one was on my way to Italy) which would force me again to drive at night, this time on my way home. One has to invent new words for these guys cause the known ones are not bad enough.
My anger is partially eased by getting to know a lovely couple from Germany travelling to Greece, Andreas and Tina. The latter has visited Greece on her own on an XT600 back in '84! Now they are on a KTM 1290. Times changes, bike change, the passion stays the same. Really nice guys. Later we share beers on the deck and we Split at Igoumenitsa as I have to continue with the ferry to Patra. I arrive there when it is already dark and as I enter Athens's region my birthplace punishes me for my absence with the smell of burned pine trees from the on going wild fires. When I finally make it to my bedroom at the end of this 260km ride from Patra I see this:
Only a few days ago I was close to 3000m above sea level with single digit temperatures at the French Alps and now my ears are caressed by the sound of the sea kissing the Greek rocks. We (Europeans in this case) are so lucky...
Dear France, thank you for your beauty and kindness, I'll be back on first chance, dear Italy you'd better have pizzas for me next time because you don't want to see a hungry Greek loosing his cool and last but not least, put your hands to together for Japan - she still makes the best bikes in the world: The ones that work no matter what. Like mine:
I hope you managed to travel somehow with me while reading this series. Thanks for following, see you on the next trip, stay safe and well!