In response to underwhelming demand, I thought I'd post a bit about my recent trip to Florence. Those of you who are easily bored please look away. I needed to be in Florence for a Monday morning start of a four-day conference, so taking advantage of a Swiss bank holiday I left home on Friday morning, with little more of a plan than that. Route was intended to be into Basel then using the Swiss motorway down to the Grande St. Bernard tunnel and then to see where I got to once in Italy. The day being cool and damp to start, I figured I'd wear "just enough" clothing, including waterproofs, and fit the waterproof luggage covers. So off I sets, with a coupla hundred miles of boring motorway only punctuated by a single fuel stop in Basel and a Speed Camera flashing (in my face) at one point. Sadly I was only doing about 150kph (limit is 130) at the time So anyway, a drink and fuel stop is required just before Martigny, from where, rather oddly, I find myself riding halfway along the valley towards Brig, only noticing when I see signs to Crans Montana, to which I'd normally drive via the Lotschberg rail tunnel. D'oh! Still, only about 80km out of my way :-} Back on the right road I head up past Martigny towards the Col du Grand St. Bernard, whose approach roads are absolutely great - nice wide roads with a great surface but still twisty enough to have loadsa fun. Unfortunately I was getting seriously cold by this time, so stopped to refuel again and put on another fleece, making 3 in total, under my winter jacket. Looking around at the snow on the sides of the road I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. OK then it's push on the last few miles and through the tunnel, buying a return ticket, and emerge into the sunny Aosta valley. Beautiful scenery on this side, and hardly a cloud in site. By this time I'd decided to head towards Alessandria for the night, but couldn't resist a detour up the valley towards Gressoney, where I skied last year. Lovely little road, not too much of a climb, with some oddly-shaped twisty bends to catch the unwary. Right, so back on the motorway for a bit, then off and follow my nose, ending up in a small town called Novi Ligure. Spent ages looking for a hotel, ending up with one right in the middle of town, which was OK. After an uneventful evening it's off on day 2 where I'm thinking of using Bear's recommendation near La Spezia. I go via Genova just for the experience and find myself fighting the scooters all the way into town (on a back road, spurning motorways where possible) and then along the sea front through the middle of town. I know it's been said before, but the Italian scooteristi are completely fucking mental. I mean, I filter, er,, positively, like, but I do tend to ease off when approaching a red light, at which point I'm passed by any number of scooters buzzing past me at all sorts of bizarre angles like the wasps after which they were named. Of course, at the lights it's a no-brainer of a start, so I lose them all until the next set when it starts all over again. At one point, I realise as I snick into second that the front's off the ground and has been for about 50 metres. Which is nice. So anyway, I decide to take a scenic route in the mountains rather than following the coast motorway, but the niceness of the road is pretty much spoilt by the number of fucking villages. Not that anyone slows down, of course, but it kinda spoilt it for me. So rejoining the motorway at Chiavari I head towards La spezia, arriving in Bear's favourite village of Arcola around noon. By this time, I'm realising that the distances involved around here are really not that much, so on finding that the B&B I was hoping to stay at was shut for lunch, and supping on a beer in the village square, I decide it's a bit of a dump and I've got a four-star hotel the company will pay for in Florence, so I might as well push on, taking in Pisa en-route (or off-troute really) just for the hell of it. Pisa is pretty much like you might expect - millions of tourists, quite a few old buildings, the tower in the middle and yes, it's still leaning over. So I stayed for about five minutes to see if it would fall down, but as it showed no signs of leaving I thought I'd leave it to itself. Now, getting into Pisa was a doddle, getting out on the right road to Florence was a right pain. None of the signs made sense, so eventually I fired up the Sat Nav to work out where the **** I was. That took ages, as I was in a poor reception area, and eventually took me back into town. I realised then that I should have followed signs to "Pi-Fi-Si" rather than "Firenze", as they prefer to sign the roads than the places they go to. So it's about fifty miles to Florence, than I'll use the sat nav to guide me to the hotel, as I haven't bothered to note it's address. Or at least, I would have, had the fucking thing not fallen out of my tank bag top onto the road at about 80mph onto the road. Bugger, I knew I shouldn't have just wedged it in there when the map wouldn't allow the velcro to close. I was just twisting round to check the bags were still straight and it slipped past my gut. As I walk back it appears to be pretty much in one piece, and I watch as a whole stream of cars manage to avoid running over it... all except the last one, a merc, who shattered it into a mashed up mess. I couldn't even find the memory card to salvage it. Bugger bugger bugger. Worst of it is that it was a present I bought for Jude a couple of months back, so I need to replace it before I get home or she'll kill me. Ah well, could have been worse, could have been me. After a bit of pottering around in Florence, I manage to find the hotel and meet up with a colleague for what turned out to be a very late drunken night. Why do they never put enough alcohol into mini-bars, though? Next day I can finally go out unfettered by bags strapped to the bike, so I spend the afternoon meandering round the Chianti area, stopping for lunch in Sienna and generally enjoying the brilliant sunshine and wonderful sights and smells. At one point I had a bit of fun with a pair on a Monster 900 and one of the new Triumph Thruxtons, which looked verr nice, but ultimately I couldn't carry on that slowly so I waved them goodbye. 4 days spent working and enjoying Florence, which is also exactly what you'd expect, full of amazing pretty buildings, piazzas, sculptures, bars, restaurants etc. etc. Food is amazing - wild boar is something of a Tuscan speciality, and one place did it in a rich sauce including chocolate which I swear was just 'mole' without the chillis. Absolutely superb, it was. All week I didn't have one dish that wasn't excellent. On the Friday, I need to get back to Basel before the shops shut, as Florence doesn't seem to have any electronics shops, so set out about 9 for what turns out to be quite a long boring journey, sticking to the motorways all the way, except for the road up to and down from the tunnel, after which I stopped for lunch and was reminded in no uncertain terms that I was back in Switzerland, when I was told that of course they weren't doing food, as it had 'finished'. This was at ten past two, when most Italians would just be getting past the Antipasti. Still, she made me a sandwich, which was OK. So I got into Basel in plenty of time, sourced a new GPS, spent an hour catching up in the Office, then on home. A later inspection of the map indicated that I could have saved a good hour by coming back through the St. Gottard tunnel instead, but as I'd bought my return ticket it had never occurred to me. Thick ****. So that was it, nothing of any great interest but spun out into so many words I doubt if anyone's actually bothered to get this far. Still, at least it'll push my 'original content' score up in this month's stats. -- _______ ..'_/_|_\_'. Ace (brucedotrogers a.t rochedotcom) \`\ | /`/ GSX-R1000K3 `\\ | //' BOTAFOT#3, SbS#2, UKRMMA#13, DFV#8, SKA#2 `\|/` `
<SNIP> Nice one ace. Reminds me of the Mugello trip. And last year when I stayed in Switzerland to do all the Cols on the bike. Aosta north going into Switzerland:-- http://simonb.zapik.com/mugello/mugello-041.jpg
