Starting Sept 26 or there abouts. Going to busy so I will blog when I can.
(I guess some people missed this line)
NO, I am not in jail in Paris. NO, I
have not run away with the gypsy's. Yes, I have been abducted by
aliens. I am sorry I have not been taking you along for the last ten
days but you guys are heavy and we are limited to one carry on sized
bag. I have missed you though and I greatly appreciate all those
email inquiring about just “what the hell is up”. To be honest I
have had full days and nights and weak to unusable internet and that
has kept us apart. The Princess went to Florence yesterday leaving
my evenings a little freer thus here I am. However, here in Bagni de
Luca in the hills/mountains of northern Tuscany I have to go to one
little area of the hotel for internet and then it is to slow to
upload photos. Anyway, here I am and I hope not to leave you behind
again for so long.
So, where were we.........
Sept 25
San Remo sits at the bottom of the
mountain on the Med. To leave town you have to get on the autostrada,
that you can see from the water front perched high above on the side
of the mountain. To get there you have to snake your way up the side
of the mountain, which we did with help from Isabella and a few
signs. Even after getting to the toll booth you have to snake your
way up to the highway.
We take the highway because on it it is
just a little less than a four hour drive to Pontedarra. Off the
autostrada it is just under ten hours. That tells you what the
terrain is like. In a sixty one mile stretch from San Remo to Genoa
there are over one hundred tunnels and just as many bridges. You know
how I know? Vicki took a picture of everyone of them “for Frank”.
No idea why and I had planned to make a slideshow to stick in the
blog of all one hundred but Google is not letting me.
We checked into the hotel in Pontederra
and had a big reunion with Walt, Hellen, Bill and the mystery women
Sarra, Bill's wife who we had never met along with scooter riders
from past events. We had lunch at a pizza restaurant that sold pizza
by the meter. A welcome dinner that night and lots of wine all day.
Sept 26
We all went down in the morning to get our scooters. Just about all Vespas but a couple of strangers thrown in. These are some pretty beat up looking scooters and in I rejected the first one as it looked worse than Big Red when it was wrecked. Overall mechanically they were OK, mostly. I had to take mine back after Walt and I road up to Vinci to see Leonardo because he kept running into in the rear because my brake light did not work. The bulb was replaced and a mirror tightened and we were off.
art and ardy the ones to blame for all this fun
vespa scooter and vespa airplane
helen with the first vespa ever
for you saint pete people that is the most valuable vespa in the world because it is painted by Dali
Sept 27
We were off as a gang to Elba Island.
The weather was great and the ride was great. We stopped in a small
town for lunch and as always was good, though Walt and I just shared
a appetizer. Hellen and Vicki are following in the car. Avis gave me
a Audi, which I thought was great until I tried to put suitcases
into it. We had to lay down the back seats. I was going to exchange
it but there was a sign on the desk in San Remo that said “we know
you have a reservation but we are sorry we may not have your car. It
is not our fault here, but corporates fault for over booking. We will
give you a 15% discount of your bill.” What bill if you do not have
a car.
Anyway we arrived at the coast and
bordered the ferry for the one hour ride to Elba. Elba was made
famous when Napoleon was exiled here and put Elba on the map so to
speak. Off the ferry there were a few navigational errors by our
leader but most followed him faithfully like ducks to the hotel.
One of the challenges for Maria, the
travel agent from Greece that has to find hotels for this event, is
finding one with thirty rooms at a reasonable cost. One of the
requirements is that they must have a restaurant on primes or within
two hundred meters. This on had a restaurant, but could only serve
ten meals which we got six of and the two hundred meter was more like
five and way to dangerous to walk to.
The next day we, Bill and Sarra and
Walt road around the island. It is a beautifully rocky mountain
sitting in the middle of the water with a few little cove beaches.
The road runs on the edge of the rock high up off the water. The
views were stunning. Lunch was at a small beach side restaurant in
one of the coves and a dinner of wine and cheese on the patio of our
room and the day was done.
Yes, my writing is horrible, there is
no editing, get over it and read on.
Sept something in Italy
So, we hoped a boat back to the
mainland. The main group went one way, the girls went another, and a
small group like us went off our own. Everybody but the main group
ended up in Massa Maritima at about the same time. We ran into BoBo
and his group in the plaza as we were speaking to a group of scooter
riders from around Italy. As we were having coffee, as required by
law, Vicki and Hasta with a couple sauce choices, salad, bread and
a main dish of a meat and fries. The waitress offered us a mix grill
of the meats. Oh yea, and a bottle of wine and water. The mixed grill
was some of the best ribs we all said we had ever had. Just rib, no
sauce to cover the taste. There was also great steak, and sausage.
It is one of the best meals yet. We pressed on to Poggibonsi our home
for the next three days and home of the president of Italy.
this guy had more cameras all over him and his scooter
the lunch stop
of course coffee and grappa
OK, so when I first started riding with Walt, I told him that any time he wanted to stop or if there was a place he wanted to go or eat, just say something. His response, and I quote "Whatever. I will just be in your rearview mirror." And that is pretty much how it has worked with our riding relationship. Except for the Cannonball of course. So I have been taking pictures of here and there of scooters and this is getting a little spooky.
Sept something in Tuscany
I had booked a tour of a winery coming
over. As there are lots of free tours and wine tasting I decided to
pay and see what the difference was. It was at the Fattoria il
Palagio winery. They family has been making wine for seven
generations and was the largest producer of wine in Italy. They even
have a winery in Barbersville, VA. The sound of all that makes you
think you are wandering to a large industrial complex to see them
make wine and that was what I was afraid of. There is no need to
worry as it was far from that. We went over hill and over dale and
down the dirty road to get there, followed shortly by our Wine Angels
in the Audi. This was a normal vineyard. Large house, formerly a
military facility they believe, Then owned by a Marquis from Spain,
who in the 20th century gave it to the French and around
1979 bought by the present owner the Zonin family. The manor house is
now apartments for the workers as is part of the barn, the other
half being offices and wine show room. To our good fortune we the
owners daughter, Elisabetta Zonin, was running the operation and her
father was down to visit. Both very charming people. We were a little
early and Elisabetta was buys so her father led us around some and
then he had to take care of wine making. The property was over three
hundred acres with two hundred in wine that will produce close to
eight hundred thousand bottles a year. After the tour we went to the
tasting room were we sampled their wines and they served us meat and
cheeses with each wine. I can say that a good time was had by all.
Walt and I went our way and the wine
angels went theirs and we met up at the hotel later in the day.
there will be photos here as soon as google gives them back
sweet elibthetta pours our wine
note the empty plates and lots of wine
dad had been out to vineyard a cut fresh grapes for the women.....and the flower
The next day, Sept the next
I had coffee and a Donald Trump, Make America Great Again sign to deliver to our friend Daniel so Walt and I suited up and headed for Monte San Savino. Daniel has become a dear friend since we met him and he was really glad to see us as was I. So much so I forgot to take a picture of him and he sign, but I will do that when we get back there next week.
From there we wandered back through the hills of Chianti. A beautiful day and a beautiful ride.
chicken and livers
"hamburger"
Sorry for neglecting you again. Let's see of we can land the plane.
So we spent some more days roaming Tuscany. From Poggobonsi we moved north the lower alps to the once famous spa town of Bagni de Luca. There we road around trying to find twisty roads and mountain top towns. They were about every ten miles so that was not a problem and the roads were so twisty the Isabella lost the satellites and had us riding the lake. We top one pass at over 6,000 feet. My little scooter was struggling hard to make it up the 18% grades at the altitude with it's over size load. From Bagni we spiraled down the mountain the seaside town of La Spezia. It is at the base of the famous Cigna Terre area. The day we were there I took the day off and napped and walked around what was a very interesting town with lots of pedestrian roads only. Most of the group caught trains to the Cigna Terre towns. Walt to my knowledge was the only one that rode there. Isabella did not like leaving me behind so took him on a wild ride. The worst part was that I always mark the home location on the GPS at the hotel so that if all else fails you can get home. There was a problem this time. I was on the back side of the hotel and just held Isabella out the window to get the sat's and marked that position. La Spezia is like San Remo, it is on the water but quickly climbs the side of the mountain. So much so that entry to the lobby of the hotel is on floor five and you take the elevator to floor zero to walk into town. So Isabella kept trying to bring him to my window which is a all pedestrian only and there is no clear way around. Between GPS and cellphone Google Maps he finally arrived at the 5th floor.
this is the 4th and 2nd generation hotel owners and chefs from the hotel Poggobonsi. Jacamo and his mother, not pictured, spoke great English. We had spent some time visiting with Jacamo and at dinner we asked Granny if Jacamo was in the kitchen. We exchange some words that neither of understood and waved to follow her and we were off the the kitchen.
send help
the sun is starting to just light the distance mountain top.
one of the many spontaneous events happened when we stopped on this mountain road and the owner of the vineyard came out and asked if we wanted to sample his wine. others politely declined not wanting to trouble him but I said hell yes. I knew that it just wanted to share with us.
google translate does not always compute
I have a lot of pictures with walt in this pose
what is he photoing now?
we stopped on a tiny hilltop village to have our coffee. note the amercan flag.
we where directed down off the mountain to this little trattoria on the side of the mountain for lunch. Not to our surprise the waitress spoke prefect English. She was born in Argentina to Italian parents, grew up in Connecticut, moved back to the family restaurant here.
in la spezia I walked down to the docks to see if the yachtys would give me a coffee, but when I saw the name on this one, Olga Princess , I kept walking.... fast.
From La Sezia we rode back to Pontederra and turned in the scooters. It had been a great trip. I am sorry I did not share it more with you. There were great people in the group with great stories to tell but the riding got the better of me and because of many challenges, internet being one of the biggest and time being the other, I did not write as much as a wanted. Oh well, maybe I will be better on the next part, Roaming Italy.
