Another amazing day, begun at early morning above the glaciers, in snow and in temperatures designed to numb extremities, through small Austrian mountain villages such as Heiligenblut, riding through torrential rain and electric storms, a forest fire and finally into the bright clear sunshine of Southern Italy offering temperatures that after the mornings chill seemed impossibly hot in leathers!
The scenery again, almost the whole route was impossibly magnificent, at every turn inspiring yet again the ‘wow’ factor, I think I spent most of my holiday with my jaw hanging open in awe (very attractive!) as we went from the majesty and power of mountains above the clouds through forests and past glacial lakes of unbelievably bright turquoise waters and finally into Italy and Tuscany offering an array for as far as the eye could see of beautifully ramshackle buildings in subdued tones of ochre, sienna, olive and terracotta set against a backdrop of rolling of hills in matching tones.
One note here: If you ever take this route please be aware that in Zurich not only is it hot noisy and busy but they also appear to have a novel approach to road signage….when looking for a place on our route called ‘Chur’ we came across a big sign at an intersection that had the destination marked in completely opposing dirctions!!! Infact we found two such signs in a short distance. Helpful!!
San Giminano reached we were both hot, tired and hungry and despite the only campsite being set among beautiful scenery in shaded woodland, we found it to be very overcrowded and with (horror of horrors eh Fletch) a late night bar offering high decibel musical ‘entertainment’. This was the time we decided to have a day of two of ‘rest’ and we booked into a hotel for a few nights.....the owner of which was a delightful lady who insisted that we park the bike on their private terrace to keep it safe. This involved manouvering the great beast through two sets of internal doors ….no mean feat, she only had about 2cm clearance!
San Giminano has to be one of the most beautiful places known to man (or in this case man and woman), though it's beauty of course means that in the season it is a little less than peaceful but even that can be forgiven when among all it's other attributes it boast the the world champion gelateria 2006-7.....we of courser felt duty bound to thoroughly test the wares.....well, it would be impolite not too now wouldn't it?!
I have to say that the idea of a few days hotel bound was not unattractive after the cramped confines of a very small tent (more on that another time) and add to that our hosts were particulary nice people and the hotel had an even more particularly nice restaurant, things were looking good as we wandered among the beautiful historic buildings of the town, bathed in evening sun eating copious amounts of pizza and gellato, very good indeed.
There was but one cloud on the horizon (these things are sent to try us!) at this point, I'll give you a clue, it involved a U.K bank.......
*Part 3 soon.
1 Comments:
Looks gorgeous and sounds like you had a great time! Welcome back :o)
*whispers shyly* when you're settled, can we do that PSP7 tutorial?
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