Cities in the Sky

Hmmmm yes, not the best day so far! We got up and packed everything away – we are well practised at this now! We were away by 10.30, although I would have liked another day by the pool. We set off along the beautiful coast road in the baking heat and it wasn’t long before we were bombarded by mopeds darting everywhere. They even drive along the pavement if they can’t squash between the cars. The mopeds plus the heat plus the state of the Italian roads made for a stressful journey despite the views. Also my neck pain is getting worse so we have to stop more frequently.

After making it through the traffic of San Remo, we stopped for lunch. We both really wanted some authentic Italian carbonara so we sought out a place serving it. We found a restaurant and had a hard time ordering as our original waiter spoke no English. He found a waiter who supposedly spoke English but it was so accented we couldn’t understand it! He spent ages asking if we wanted gas in our water and then accused us of not being able to speak much English. He was then muchly surprised that we only wanted one course. But eventually we got some carbonara and it was very yummy.

We then continued towards Nice. As we crossed the border into France the mopeds disappeared but the heat did not. We made it to Nice OK, but then got lost for a good couple of hours in the centre. Our radios ran out of battery which was a real nuisance as we couldn’t help each other find the way. Eventually we got out of Nice, straight into more traffic jams!

We didn’t find the campsite we were looking for. We are at a cheap campsite but it has no normal toilets, only outside showers and the owner doesn’t speak English! She does however have a very cute dog, but this does not make up for the rest of it! Hopefully tomorrow we will find our campsite quickly and have a trip into Nice.

Thursday night didn’t end quite as Helen wrote it… not long after that, the campsite ‘entertainment’ started up. It was a particularly bad singer, singing along to what sounded like either a karaoke machine or a Casio keyboard, I don’t know which. The ‘fun’ part was that all the songs were either Italian, or British songs sung with Italian words, all with the same monotonous euro-pop beat. This went on constantly for 2 and a half hours (would have been 2, but his Italian audience kept demanding encores). The ‘top’ moment was the odd mix of an Italian ‘California Dreamin’’ with an Italian ‘Stand by me’.

Anyway, we woke up fairly late and hung around for a while. Once we could be bothered, we set off for the nearby town of Ceriale on foot. The walk was interesting, as most of the buildings between the campsite and town appear to be disused industrial… things. Very pleasant.

Once there, though, things brightened up considerably. Ceriale is a busy little seaside resort, and is a lot more fun on foot when you have time to take in the sights! After a bit of a stroll, and a bit of a laugh at the people exercising in the sea, we stopped at a little pizzeria called ‘La Grotta’. It was very interesting, half below ground, and filled with odd bits and pieces. The food was delicious – I had a spicy salami pizza and Helen had ham and Wurstel (sausage). It was also very cheap which I liked a lot!

We wandered along to a gelateria for an ice cream after that. I had a yummy creamy ice cream with chunks of meringue and chocolate.

We walked back to the site and promptly jumped into the pool. The rest of the afternoon and most of the evening was spent either in or by the pool, which made a nice change of pace for us.

In the evening, we ate dinner at the campsite, which was also very cheap, though not as delicious as expected. I had gnocchi and Helen had penne pasta, each with a crazy tomato sauce.

After that, rather than go back to the tent and moan about the noise, we hung around for the evening’s entertainment. It was an odd pair of Italian clowns, who I’m sure were very funny, but we couldn’t understand a word of what they said! After popping many balloons, throwing many knives, playing musical chairs and making men lean on each other in humorous ways, we got tired and left. All in all, a nice, lazy day. I like.

Day 19 began with a mini lie-in and getting up at 9ish. It is pretty much impossible to sleep any later than this due to the heat in the tent and the noise of all the surrounding foreigners! We packed up in the dust and left, heading along the coast road. It was very warm; a pharmacy we passed displayed 32°C and it was much warmer in boots, gloves, helmet and jacket!

The bits of roads winding along the cliffs looking out over the blue water were lovely, but the bits through the coastal towns were not so good. Italy is full of moped drivers who dart in and out of everywhere, and are very unpredictable. They made the hot journey a bit stressful.

After less than an hours drive we arrived at our chosen campsite – camping Baccicia. We were going to be charged an extortionate amount, but Ben managed to barter it down to €25 a night, which is still on the expensive side but much better than what the man originally asked for.

Ben had a hard time setting up the tent due to the extremely hard ground, but with the aid of a mallet borrowed from reception he managed. After setting up and finally doing some washing (!) we paid €6 for a trip to the resorts private beach. Literally the second we stepped out of the office the sun went behind a huge cloud and did not properly come out again for the rest of the day! None-the-less, we went to the beach. It was rather nice as our ticket included 2 sun loungers and an umbrella. Ben coaxed me into the sea for a swim. The water was actually quite warm and the waves were fun. We got out because we hadn’t had lunch and by this time it was getting on for 4. We both had a burger at the beach side café and Ben had a beer. But then it began to spot with rain so we caught the bus back to camp.

Then we hung around doing not much. As the sun had gone in it became comfortable to sit in the tent again, so we took the opportunity to relax. Later we had dinner – a tin of pasta tubes with beef in from the supermarket, but it was really unpleasant! So we had to have an ice cream from the shop to make up for it.

Now the sun is going down as I write this and Ben is playing on his game. We are hoping to relax tomorrow, explore a bit and maybe take a dip in the campsites pool, before going onto Nice the next day.

We had a wet day in front of us – the cloud was thick outside the hotel window, and showed no signs of wanting to go away. We went downstairs for breakfast after taking advantage of the lovely shower (we didn’t need showers but they were free…), and sat in seats that were meant to have a lovely view of the valley below. They had a lovely view of the trees just outside, and we could just about make out the road markings of the next section of road down, but mostly the view was just cloud. Breakfast was delicious, and very filling (since we had so much… we wanted to get our money’s worth!) – there were croissants, baguettes, crazy sweet bread, cereal, yoghurts, the works. We paid up (€100ish for the room, dinner (also yummy) and breakfast) and were on our way by 10am.

It turns out it wasn’t long before a major town, which was annoying since we could have paid much less there! Still, it’s a bit late now. Anyway, we carried on, the roads got straighter and the bikes got faster, and it wasn’t long before we were at the tunnel to get back into Italy (another €48, and an oversight in our plan…). By this time the rain had stopped, though it was still very cloudy.

On the other side of the tunnel we had our second encounter with Italian roads. They were still absolutely rubbish, it seemed! Roadworks were absolutely everywhere. At least they were doing something to improve the roads, I suppose. Also, they have an awful lot of speed limit changes, but no signs to tell you the restriction has ended, so you have no idea when you can speed up after roadworks or when they have ended. Very annoying! The next gripe I have it that they seem to force toll roads on you. In France, it’s very easy to avoid tolls, as they sign alternate routes very well. In Italy, tolls spring up by surprise and with no warning (like ninjas), and no way to avoid them once you know they’re coming. As such, we spent a good deal on toll roads to Torino, before we were able to get onto the ‘SS’ (B) roads.

Not long after we hit the bad roads the clouds parted and we were basking in glorious sunshine. This then turned to baking in furious sunshine, which we weren’t happy with either!

We carried on through North-West Italy for quite some time, which took us most of the afternoon since the roads are generally very poor and the towns are difficult to get through due to the crazy Italian drivers.

The scenery was very sparse. Most of it was very flat, and the buildings quite run-down and damaged. I can only assume this is the poor part of Italy. I took a photo of the extravagantly-named “Car Palace” to illustrate my point!

When the roads ahead started looking wiggly and the hour started getting late, we hit the autostrada (toll motorway) again – we needed to get to a campsite so had no other choice but to pay, really! This was very wiggly indeed – lots of fast corners, chicanes, helixes and so on through nice-looking hills and mountains. Again, lots of roadworks, and very odd speed limits (90kph round tight bends, 30kph on long, wide, straight roads?!). Then comes my next gripe – we took a ticket at the beginning of this stretch and paid at the end, but I ended up paying €7 to Helen’s €3! It must have detected me as a car or something I guess – pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, we arrived at the coast in Savona, and immediately got lost in some odd shipyard – again, no signs! Then comes my final gripe of the day – the blind, unmarked high-speed crossroad with no working traffic lights! A moped emerged as I was crossing (neither of us aware that it was even a crossroad), and narrowly avoided hitting me. If he hadn’t been looking or was in a lorry, I guess I wouldn’t be writing this now. It turns out there were people working on the lights, but they hadn’t bothered to put any warning signs anywhere. Great!

Anyway enough of the dramatics – once out of ugly Savona things changed quite drastically. We were riding along good roads next to a beautifully clear sea on a sunny day, which cheered us up quite a lot.

We stopped at the first campsite we found – Camping Leo – which was… average. Very pricy for what it was, really, but we couldn’t go any further – we’d already travelled over 300 miles (our longest ride ever!) and it was getting quite late. We set up camp in a slapdash fashion due to the impossibly tough ground, and went straight to bed, after a delicious pasta/cheese/lardon dinner.

Oh my goodness what a day. It thundered during the night – but it was a massive storm that passed directly over us, and there were so many thunder claps and lightning that you couldn’t tell which went with which. We got up a couple of hours later and luckily it wasn’t raining. We hastily showered in the dirty toilet block, packed, and left.

We headed down towards Montreux for lunch (“We all came down to Montreux, on the Lake Geneva shoreline”). It would have had wonderful views as it has mountains behind and across the lake from it, but there were mostly obscured by clouds. We had lunch by the lake, tried to have a crêpe but from what we could understand of the waiter, they weren’t doing crêpes today so we had to settle for another pizza!

After this we did a bit more motorway through huge mountains, then we came off to go on some ‘A’ roads. This was possibly a mistake. The roads were OK, there were lots of hairpins which I thought were tough, but I didn’t know what was to come! Unfortunately, after a certain height we were driving in the clouds, making it slippery and difficult to see. Below the clouds, it started pouring with rain; oddly I think it was drier in the clouds than underneath them! We crossed the border into France and made our way to Mont Blanc – wow! The top was covered in snow (I realise why it’s called Mont Blanc now!), and it had an impressive glacier down one side, along with several freshwater cascades coming down it. Worth a visit, shame it was mostly covered with clouds.

After queuing for ages and paying €48, we made it through the Mont Blanc tunnel and out into Italy. This was where the difficult roads began! Italy does not seem to spend any money maintain its roads, at all. A sign announced that there was to be 8 hair pins coming up, but this was just the beginning. I think we maybe did about 50 (more like 100… – Ben). They are worse in Italy because there are no road markings, the road is very narrow and also covered in potholes! If you met something big at a corner you were in trouble. Luckily we didn’t but we did pass some lorries on straight bits. Also, as we were in clouds it was like fog, and with no road markings and sheer drops off the edge if you made a mistake, we proceeded very carefully indeed! We crossed our third border of the day back into France and were looking for our campsite. But it was still raining so we were drenched, and thought we’d have no chance of pitching the tent, so at 7pm we pulled into a hotel by the side of a hairpin. It’s a little on the expensive side, but we had run out of options; stuck in the fog on a mountain, nowhere near any towns!

So here we are. A bed and a private, clean shower! Feels very luxurious. And the French couple that run it are lovely, even drying our bike kit out for us. It’s actually early on day 18 as I write this, and the cloud hasn’t lifted, so I guess we’ve another wet day in front of us…

Yesterday (…) started quite early (for us). We were up and out of the campsite by 9:30, for a stroll along Lausanne’s waterfront and marinas. Along the way we read about various Olympic things on handy little information signs (Lausanne is very important in the Olympics, apparently). The views were, as expected, rather nice, though there was a lot of haze (smoke?) on the water so we couldn’t see the mountains surrounding the lake too well.

After a long slog up the hill towards the town centre, we headed to the train station and caught a train to Geneva. Again, the scenery was gorgeous, but being behind two panes of glass it was difficult to get a good photo!

We arrived and wandered about for a little while before stumbling upon Tourist Information. We then set off for the waterfront. I don’t know what I was expecting, really, probably a lake made of gold given the praise everyone seems to heap on it. Basically, it was a bit like Zürich’s waterfront, but with a huge fountain, and lots of Ferraris surrounding it. Pretty impressive, anyway.

The rest of the town is very nice, too; an interesting mix of architectural styles, an interesting mix of people, and an interesting mix of posh and not-so-posh. Perhaps 50 metres separated buskers and ice-cream stands from high-tech-looking banks with Mercs (complete with blacked-out windows), Lamborghinis and Ferraris parked outside (often with chauffeurs or guards nearby).

We had a nice rest in the park since it was ridiculously hot, and watched some more giant chess. We found some English people that evidently don’t know a lot about chess, as arguments kept breaking out over whether the queen can move like a horse or not. We had to be the official judges for them!

We wandered back to the train station, caught the train back to Lausanne and then a bus back to the campsite (which we managed to avoid paying for!).

Dinner consisted of some kind of macaroni cheese thing, to which we added more cheese (kind of like Emmental) and some interestingly named “Knoblaunchwurst”. It turned out to be plate-lickingly delicious, much to our surprise! Lunch, which I forgot to mention, was a very thin crust pizza with deliciously expensive-looking ham on it – nice!

Oh my goodness, today has been hot hot hot! We got up at 8ish, showered, packed and left. The sun was blazing down and we were wearing full bike gear. It was relief getting onto the Autobahn! We left Luzern and first headed past Bern (much faster on the Autobahn than the A roads). Once past Bern we pulled off the road into a village in search of lunch, and found a small pizza café, so it was pizza again for lunch. The village itself was unremarkable but seemingly full of bikers! More motorbikes went past than cars as we sat outside to eat.

We clambered back into our hot gear and continued onto Lausanne, stopping on the way at a service station with an amazing panoramic view over a valley, 3679 km from the North Pole apparently.

Our journey had many impressive bridges and tunnels; I can see why they need so much road tax. At one point we had an amazing view over a lake, but couldn’t appreciate it as we were driving.

We got to the campsite and flung our gear off, then set up camp. Our site is right next to lake Geneva, literally a 30 second walk, so we had a stroll along it. There are small beaches which were very crowded with tanned locals, probably because it’s a Sunday. It’s odd seeing beaches with swans swimming along them! Through the haze, the mountains across the lake could just be made out – all very lovely.

After our walk we cooked the second bacon brunch for dinner – much better this time as we have oil so there are no burn bits! Now we are just relaxing in the cool of the tent, looking forward to seeing Geneva tomorrow.

Yet again I’m a day late writing this!

Yesterday we woke up a little earlier than the day before in the hope of arriving before lunchtime. We set off to Bern along a ‘red’ road (an A road really, though most countries on the continent use ‘A’ for motorways), after a petrol stop in Luzern. A little way along, and we were in the most beautiful countryside I’ve ever seen! It’s quite a pity we were on the bikes, as there weren’t really any opportunities to stop and take any photos. I’m sure the memories will last though – streams and waterfalls along sheer rock-edged valleys, rolling hills and heavy forests, log cabins nestled alone up in the hills surrounded by colourful flowers and flags – astonishing.

After a fair while, we were joined by several other bikes, which was entertaining! We had a little staggered convoy going, I quite enjoyed it! The bikes in front of us turned off and we were joined by some more from behind, and so I was the leader of a little biker gang for a few miles at least!

We stopped in a little village in the Emmental region (hoping to get some cheese), but apparently picked the wrong restaurant to eat in. We were greeted by a crazy German (?) lady who most likely hadn’t had a visitor for a long time, who kept making funny noises with her mouth and apparently didn’t sell lemonade! We each had a cola and promptly left, to get lunch in Bern instead. The lady waved us off and we were on our way.

The view of Bern when we arrived was very impressive indeed – a small group of old buildings raised up on a steep-sided hill located in the centre of a meander of the river, with a single bridge to access it. It turned out this was just a tiny part of the city, but it was a very pretty tiny part!

We parked up in the city and sat at the nearest restaurant, which happened to be a pizzeria. We each had rather delicious pizzas; we were both very impressed. We then walked up the street a little and stopped in an internet café to check email, weather and so on. Interestingly, it was in the cellar of another shop – it seems that buildings and their cellars in Bern are completely separate, in order to jam in more shops! It was very… eclectic.

A bit more of a walk, and we were in the main part of the city. I wasn’t too impressed – it was just your average commercialised town centre, and the only buildings worth seeing were hidden underneath cranes and scaffolding. We had a rest in a park, and listened to a little live Spanish-sounding jazz whilst watching two people play giant chess. When we were rested, we carried on and found a giant chess set of our own. This took up the best part of the rest of the day. The winner is not important.

A little bit more of a walk along the outer edge of the hill and we came to a bridge out of the city, with a castle/chateau at its end. I wanted to snap a few pics so we crossed it, and were greeted by a mob of Africans! Apparently it was some kind of “Côte d’Ivoire” festival we’d stumbled upon. We bought a scrumptious mango smoothie (since by now we were very thirsty) and were on our way.

Since it was getting late we headed back to the bikes and took the motorways back to the campsite. Dinner consisted of a chocolate éclair and two stamp biscuits for me, and just an éclair for Helen (we were still quite full from the huge pizzas we had at lunch!). Then it was sleep time.

Overall, I quite liked Bern, if you ignore the busy commercial bit. The city is beautifully situated, the area in general is spectacular, and it’s generally just plain nice. Strangely enough, though, it was the ride there that I preferred!

Yesterday ended quite late, so I’m writing this on Saturday morning when I have some light!

Helen woke up early to have a shower and do everything that needed doing, while I snoozed in my sleeping bag. It was hard work, but I got through it. I eventually woke up and we had breakfast and so on, and prepared to leave for Zürich.

This excursion was a little different, we went on the bikes assuming public transport would be a little poor in the Alps! It turns out they do have pretty good trains, but I quite enjoyed the ride anyway.

Once there, we cheekily parked up in a shopping centre next to a few mopeds, changed into ordinary clothes and set off in search of tourist information so we could figure out where we were! It turned out to be in the central train station just up the road, and they had some pretty good maps and information available.

Next port of call was an internet café so Helen could send an email to her Dad about some bike problems. We were going to eat there too, but for the first time on the trip we found the food unappetising!

After this we wandered the streets for a café to eat at, but everywhere was very expensive. We ended up having a Panini back at the station.

Next we figured it was time to explore a bit more of Zürich, since we’d only seen the main high-street so far, which was just like every other high street in the world. We headed out of the station north, towards some nice looking gardens and the sound of a jazz band, and stumbled upon the Zürich museum. We felt like we should probably get a little culture and stepped inside. 3 hours later, at closing time, we left! It was very interesting, especially the arms and armour exhibit and the pre and early history exhibits. Everything there was to do with Switzerland and Zürich, and their history, and it proved absolutely fascinating.

After we left, we went through the park, over a bridge and walked more or less the whole length of the river towards the lake (or “see” as the Swiss call it). The buildings, save for churches and so on, were generally unremarkable along the waterfront. Off the waterfront, though, the streets turned very steep and winding and the shops and buildings turned very eclectic and colourful – it all looked absolutely splendid!

We followed the route to the lake, which turned out to also be quite amazing! The sun over the water, and the tree-covered hilltops surrounding the lake were amazing. I’d pile on more praise, but I’m reserving all that for Geneva…

A few photos later and we headed back towards the bikes, which proved a little difficult due to the odd little roads and very steep hills. We rode back to the campsite, de-kitted, had more Bratwurst for dinner then went to bed.

Today was another day of travelling, and the day began at 4am when there was thunder and lightning and rain! We had left the panniers on the bikes in the hope it wouldn’t rain, but it did so we had to dash out and get them. After trying to get some more sleep, we got up at 9 is, hastily packed, and left.

The route we had chosen was over some hills on some fun curvy roads – luckily on hair pins! We were rewarded with amazing scenery of valleys with towns nestled between the greenery. Once past this, it was motorway to Switzerland. However, there was a huge queue to get into the country, with loads of crazy cars reversing back the wrong way up an on slip road to avoid the queue! We sat it out which didn’t take too long. There were guards sorting the lorries from the cars. But once past this we got to the border where we were told to park up and were asked where we were going. We said Luzern on the autobahns and had to cough up 60 Euros (which the guard insisted was pronounced “sixteen”) for 2 windscreen stickers. Oddly we got given 10 Swiss francs in return.

After this we were safely in Switzerland and stopped for a baguette. The Swiss roads are busy, full of roadworks and littered with impressive tunnels, some of which were over 3km long!

We arrived at the campsite and set up. We are right down next to a lake, and when the cloud lifts you can see a giant mountain with snow on. It is all very scenic. We had dinner at the campsite café; very yummy! I had a chicken noodle wok thingy, and Ben had Bratwurst and chips; just what we needed after our long drive. Then we settled in with our books, played cards, and went to bed as it got dark.