'Round the World with an Italian Supermodel

Halibut with a bunch of frou frou .... all over it. But at least the frou frou .... tasted good. Definitely better than Starfish Tuna out of a can!

So I have just finished reading through your European Odyssey and admit will need to revisit some parts as I tended to be too eager to know what was coming next (and because I was reading on the job...).

Thanks for sharing this all and for all the efforts put in sharing!

I have tons of questions right now, I know would not bother asking ever if we met in person. But let me just ask this: you did evade Hungary earlier when going through Austria-Slovakia-Czech rep. Are you evading my country deliberately? Romania (Transylvania) and the Balkans might expand your perspective in more than one way... So it seems like a tempting route, doesn't it?

My original 'plan' was to circle counter-clockwise through Europe, then head through Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Greece on my way to Turkey. Unfortunately that's not how it worked out. Still very much part of my future 'do it before I die' list.

Aww mann...gotta visit my birth city of Istanbul. The history and architecture would compliment this documented journey of yours.

I was in Istanbul, twice. Just not with my bike. Unfortunately I was in close proximity to the airport only....did spend enough time walking to know that Istanbul isn't a place I'd be excited to ride in. Unlike, say, Paris or Rome, where the drivers are aggressive yet polite, people in Istanbul were vicious behind the wheel. Kids scream like maniacs everywhere and I've never had so many people try to barge in front of me while standing in a line. Definitely not a place to go to relax.

Haha absolutely. Their driving skills are subpar at best. My parents go almost every summer to visit family n my dad was traumatized by the riding passanger experience. While we think traffic in los angeles sucks, the traffic in istanbul makes l.a. roads look empty. You'd definitely have to been on your A+ game with focus.

A little bit of a housekeeping item: Laundry. I'm not a fan of just throwing my underwear and socks into a sink that 2000 other people use for all sorts of easily imaginable purposes. Waterproof compression bags that keep my clothes dry in the rain make great tiny washing machines. A little squirt of shampoo or liquid soap, some hot water, a little bit of time and a few rinses and viola: clothes that don't stink!



And while my clothes were drying, I headed out to wraith around in the night. No concerns with traffic here.

And then it was back on the road:

Great shots, I love the mark of "Zorro" you left.

Ok, now....where were we?

Ah yes:





I was back in the Alps again. Other than Death Valley, the Alps remain on my list of favorite places in the world. Had I known how glorious they were, I would have just ridden back and forth and back and forth on, in, up and down them. Not merely because they offer incredible rides, but because of the various tiny little villages nestled into the landscape along the serpentine ribbons of black.





I'm guessing the Romans were here. I forget the name of the town. I was not very welcome if the glares the people of this quiet community communicated anything. It was Austria, after all. No offense against Austrians, but they seem the most open when it comes to expressions of disdain. I'll admit, the place was peaceful and my bike is, of course, anything but.


Someone wanted to hitch a ride, though. First time in a long time I'd seen a bee:



(And no, that's not blood, it's paint.)

Bee that got a free ride and quick rest on Red Ducati,

Quoted as saying,

"Man what a ride, that Ducati is one hell of a missile, I'm still Buzzing off it now"

Old joke: what's the last that goes through a bug's brain when it gets by Pani rider?

Its ass.

Did you ride any specific mountain passes in the alps or just randomly picked routes?

Phl said:

Did you ride any specific mountain passes in the alps or just randomly picked routes?

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Random. All totally random. My only regret is not staying in the Alps longer....but I got some more comin' up soon.


And now back to our regularly scheduled program:



For some reason, the most enduring memories I have of travel are most often just random places like this.



No reason to be there. No reason to stop. No reason, really, to stare. Unless you're a horticulture expert, it'd be really difficult to determine the location based on the scenery. Could be Colorado, could be Italy, could be California. But being there you for some reason wouldn't mistake it for anywhere else. I suppose it's kind of like looking out of the window of a skyscraper and actually hanging by a thread staring down. You see the same thing, but the experience couldn't be any more different. And that's how I feel out there, alone, far away. Always like I'm dangling over a precipice, held aloft by, well, a lightness of being, to steal from Kundera. The only thing unbearable would be that when the thread is cut, I fall back not to death, but what I fear could be an unbearable weight of living normally.

No doubt about it, the sun is setting, the shadows long.



As much as I enjoy my bike, exploring on foot has its own unique advantages. Instead of everything blurring itself by, I can actually stop and lean up against a wall or a pole and watch the world come at me, albeit at a rate that can be a little slow.



Can't recall the town. It, I assumed, was simply a normal place where people lived and worked. Where nobody vacationed. But like most European towns, would be a place I'd consider immensely livable. I'm so sick of every damn place I go to be so charming. In the US, I can barely find a place I want to live, but in Europe I could be happy pretty much anywhere. HATE IT!

And finally....back to Italy.

AntiHero said:

And finally....back to Italy.

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Are you still in Italy? Let me know if you are close to Milan sometime.

Hey,
We not heard from you for over a month now, Hope and pray all is Ok and its purely down to the fact your having to much a great time and just forgot about us poor bored souls sat at our pc ?

Sorry about the delay. Life has been getting in the way of pretty much everything lately.

The crazy thing about all this travel--you realize that though you see so much, you only see a literal and figurative thread intersecting on a line with the world. The realization of just how enormous the world is is both wonderful and tormenting.

But, on with the line....

I stopped on the outskirts of a little village in the gravel parking lot of an abandoned church graveyard.



Wish I could rewind time and just watch processions of weddings, baptisms, funerals over the course of a hundred years. Even when nothing was happening the backdrop would still be like heaven (only without all the annoying people).



Who knows, maybe someone in the future will do just that. Rewind time. And see me hanging out here with nothing to do and nowhere to go.






(Going a little spaghetti western with the filter.)



Just like places in the world, there are places in the heart that do not yet exist; wander for them to come to be.

Thanks for the update

Hi Mr. Antihero, its end of second quarter here in the corporate landscape. Thanks for balancing out all the negatives in no more than 5 landscape pictures of your own...minus the finger, as that one is already a given here in daily life . Ride well..be safe.

So this was, I believe, the last photo I took in the Alps.



I've got lots of video. Make that plural. Lots of videos of this whole trip that I just haven't gone through. Ideally I'd like to produce a supercut of it all, but that will have to wait.

I made it to Bologna. I missed my hotel and made an illegal u-turn. Half way through the U-Turn I spotted a daylight blue car with a white stripe and what looked like rooftop lights. In my rearview mirror I could see the front end of his car lift with each shift through the gears. Clearly I'd become an excuse for his shifting at redline and chirping the tires every shift through the gears. Was he pissed or was he just in a hurry to thank me for giving him an excuse to haul ass on a crowded city street? Not a big deal, he was still pretty far back. With a green light in front of me and Viala Sandro Petrini (some sort of expressway) to my right, I could calmly make a right turn, then disappear. I'd already passed my hotel once without a good reason. Would not mind at all passing it again until.....damn it! RED light at just the wrong time.

I was maybe 100m from my hotel with a sidewalk full of pedestrians in front and a cop (one one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand) screeching to a halt on my left. I could have attempted to ignore him and just stare straight ahead if it wasn't for the 4-5 pedestrians that scattered when he looked like he wasn't going to stop in time for the crosswalk. I'd made it this far without a ticket and now, in Italy of all places, where the police are more relaxed than anywhere on the planet, had the Polizia Locale screaming something at me with both his hands and mouth. Was he mad or just happy to see me?

I killed the motor, but more so I could say something to him he might understand vs. the other way around. He was gesturing for me to pull over in...you guessed it, my hotel parking lot. I kept saying Non parlo Italiano, to which he replied something something something Spagnolo or Spagna, while pointing at my license plate. At this point, people were staring, he was getting angrier and I thought maybe I should put the kickstand down in the event he tries to tackle me.

With each mention of "Spagna" he seemed to get more angry. Aha, I thought. He hates the Spanish. Something was going on. As his reactions exceeded their ostensible cause, my thought shifted from, "how am I going to get out of this" to trying to figure out the source of his displeasure with the Spanish. "Did Italy just lose a football match to the Spanish National team? Did his girlfriend run off with a Matador?" "Did the autographed biography of Antonio Banderas he bought on eBay turn out to be a fake?"

Now, normally, we think only phrases like, "Wow, you look skinny in that outfit." "I really appreciate how much you correct me all the time." "Have I ever told you how much you mean to me?" And "Here's my ATM card" were the only kind of phrases with the power to melt hostility like it was marshmallow. But as I stood there on silent bike in the middle Via Emilia Ponente contemplating his hatred of the Spanish, I realized there's an easy way out of this. "No, non Spagna. CALIFORNIA. United States. Americano!" And just like that, his shoulders dropped and the expression of bitter contempt dissolved into curious enthusiasm. "California? Los Angeles?" Were followed by words foreign. Though I had no clue what he was saying, his hands did a very good job of translating. With a smile and a wave, he was off, and I pulled right into the parking he originally gestured me into. (Reminder: it was my hotel).





I grabbed some grub from a grocery, ate dinner and called it a night.



The hostess even let me park in the store room.