30 October 2010

A Week in Northern Italy

I had some extra vacation time, so decided to take a week in Northern Italy, just checking out some of the towns and lakes.

October 24, 2010

This was the first time I'd used Mototouring's airport drop-off capabilities, and I was very interested to see how it would work out.  In short, it worked pretty well, although I've got to tweak the process a bit.  Basically I landed and called the number that Eligio had given me for the shuttle to pick me up and take me to the parking lot.  Of course the guy on the phone didn't speak any English, but I understood that I should go to Exit 4 from the terminal.  Right as I walked out the exit a shuttle bus pulled up, but neither the driver nor any of the passengers spoke any English, so I had no idea if this was the right bus, or where it should take me.  So I called Eligio, he talked to the driver, was taken to the lot, where I found the bike, but not the key or any of my gear.  Called Eligio again, he told the parking guy where my stuff was.  Then it took me about an hour to pack up my stuff, most of which I didn't need for this trip anyway.  Anyway, I landed about 11:00, and by 12:30 I was on the road to Lugano—not a bad set up, and now that I know the ropes it should go even smoother next time.

The bad news was that the weather was pretty crappy—cloudy, foggy, damp, and cool.  I hadn't really decided where to go, but thought I'd check out Lugano, because I wanted to get some shopping done this trip.  I was there by 14:30 or so and checked into the Hotel Walter, probably the most over-priced hotel I've ever stayed in during my mototravels—120 euro for a tiny room, although it did have a balcony overlooking the lake, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much, and I can't imagine what the high seaason rates would be.  Here's the bike parked by the hotel:

Couldn't sleep hardly at all that night, sat out on the balcony smoking cigars watching the rain till about 03:00…

 

October 25, 2010

Well, the weather didn't improve overnight.  In the morning it was cold and drizzling, here's a shot:

Pretty dreary.  I decided to go to Bellagio by riding to the western shore of Lake Como, then down the western shore to Como, they up the road to Bellagio from the southwest.  It was a great ride, and the road to Bellagio is awesome, but it is very narrow with lost of blind curves and at this time of year, wet leaves, so I rode pretty slowly.  I finally got to Bellagio.  It wasn't quite what I expected, but it was nice enough, lots of pix are below.  The weather remained awful the first day I was there, as you'll see in the pictures.  The first hotel I tried had already closed for the season, so I went to the next hotel I saw, the Hotel Metropol, which I later read was the first hotel to open in Bellagio.  It was nice enough, and has balconies with awesome lake views.  I have not seen so many American tourists in one place in a long long time, I don't know why there were so many…

Here's a shot from my balcony. This is NOT a black and white shot, let's just say it was a pretty gray day:

OK, here's a black and white shot of one of Como's ubiquitous ferries:

Another ferry shot, from my balcony.  The ferry dock was right next to the hotel, so I saw lots and lots of ferries:

I'm guessing that not too many tourists get to see waves breaking over Bellagio's harbor wall, but I did!

Anyway, the town is nice enough, but pretty dead this late in the season.  Here are some shots of the town:

 

October 26, 2010

I decided to stay in Bellagio a second night, and just kind of ride around the area today, I wanted to see what other towns were worth staying in on future trips.  Mennagio sounded good, and Varenna, so I wanted to check them out. This morning was bright and sunny, looked like a great day.  I got up early, watched the ferries for a while, and enjoyed the glorious view from my balcony.

After breakfast I took the ferry over to Menaggio, there are great views from the ferry as well…

 

Menaggio turned out to be pretty unimpressive, as were most of the other towns, other than Varenna, which looks nice.  I also kind of liked Lecco, in a beautiful spot at the bottom of Como's right leg, although the guidebooks descibe it as "industrial"…looked nice enough to me.

October 27, 2010

Good thing I planned to check out today, because the hotel was closing for the season this morning.  I was the only passenger on the ferry to Varenna; in October even Bellagio can look lonely:

I wasn't really sure where to go today, I wanted to go to St Moritz, in the mountains, but it looked like the Alps were under lots of snow, so that was out.  Then I thought about Bolzano, which is quite a bit lower, but to get to Bolzano I would have to ride in a big loop, and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that…so I decided just to play it by ear, took the ferry to Varenna, and set off north along the eastern shore of the lake.  When I got to the end of the lake I thought I would turn east toward Sondria, and then south to Brenno, and then take a little road from there to the east, which would take me to the road to Bolzano.  The road to Sondria was quite boring, a long flat valley in the shadow of the snow-capped alps. If I kept going straight, over Passo de Tonale, I would be heading straight towards Bolzano. but that pass is quite high and I was pretty confident that the road there would be snowy.  I turned south and had to go over the Passo Aprico, which is only 1200 meters, but that was high enough for there to be snow on the side of the road, so I'm glad I didn't go any higher.  When I got to Brenno, I looked at the mountains to my left, where the road I wanted to take would be, and they were covered in snow, and I decided it would be a Really Bad Idea to take the steep, narrow, twisty road shown on the map, and reluctantly kept heading south, toward Lago Iseo. 

I reached Iseo at Lovere, on the northern shore, and stopped for coffee and some tiramisu…the town was pretty average, so I rode down the western shore, a great road carved right between the lake and the hills, through tunnels, half-tunnels, etc., with nice views.  Here is one shot:

 

Next stop was iseo, a large town on the south-eastern shore of the lake.  I also looked pretty blah, and I couldn't find a hotel that was open with a lake view, so I decided to press on to Brescia, maybe I'd stay there.  Brescia was also rather blah, didn't care to stay there, so I headed toward Sirmione, on Lake Garda; I'd read a bit about Sirmione, and it sounded like a cool spot.  When I got there, it looked like a rather modern touristy lake resort town with a bunch of hotels closed down for the season.  Blah, kept going to Verona. 

Finally, in Verona, I found a nice town, somewhere I'd like to stay.  Lots of pix below, but even just riding into town you can tell it is nice place.

 

 

Had a very pleasant evening in Verona, had hoped to stick around for a while during the day, but the hotel had a strict 11 am check-out policy and wouldn't budge (?!).  Maybe I'll stay somewhere else next time. 

October 28, 2010

The plan today was to head to Bergamo, very close to Verona.  The problem was that I didn't get around to reserving a room until yesterday, so most of the hotels were already full (usually I don't reserve, but old town Bergamo has very little accomodation, so I made an exception.  So I made a reservation in "Gourmet" a hotel/gourmet restaurant just outside of the old town.  The good news was that there was parking, and the hotel was about 200 meters from the gate to the old city.  The bad news was that the hotel is pretty blah, with no balconies.  Oh well.  From what I had read, I thought I would really like Bergamo, but in fact I found it pretty boring.  Here are a few pix:

04 September 2010

St Tropez-Lago d'Orta-Lago Maggiore-Milan

SEPTEMBER 2, 2010

I set out pretty early along the Cote d'Azur, from San Tropez through Antibes, Cannes, Nice, and Monaco. I had never been in this area, so was kind of looking forward to checking it out.  To see the sights I had to stick to the coastal road rather than the highway, which meant that it was very slow going.  To make a long story short, Antibes and Nice seemed very nice.  I didn't take many pictures, really nothing remarkable, although I did have to get a shot of the famous Casino at Monte Carlo:

The coast just past Monaco is also pretty spectacular:

Shortly after this spot my GPS directed me to turn left off the coast road to start north toward Italy.  I expected to end up on a highway, at least for a while, but I ended up on probably the twistiest mountain road I have ever been on, with more hairpins than a New Jersey beauty salon.  It was actually pretty brutal, but of course mercifully little traffic.  After a couple of hours of this, the road turned onto a slightly larger road through a beautiful river valley.  Really, nice, here is one pic:

At or near the border between France and Italy there is a really cool, long tunnel—very narrow, small, it felt like I was riding through a mine shaft.  Anyway, once I got into Italy I decided to pick up the pace, it was getting toward late afternoon, so I got on the highway and about 50 tolls later arrived at the beautiful Lago d'Orta.  I decided to stay in Orta San Giulo, which as far as I could tell is the nicest town on the lake.  It is quite nice, with a quaint old town and lots of artwork placed around the city.  Here are lots of pix, it is a very photogenic city.  Supposedly the island visible from the city (first pic below) is the "most beautiful lake island in Italy," but somehow it just reminded me of Alcatraz:

 

An un-Photoshopped sunset pic:

Nice city, but rather sleepy.  Next morning, on to another lake!

 

SEPTEMBER 3, 2010

Did not have far to ride at all today, just over the Lago Maggiore, so I basically decided in ride in loops a bit.  Rode up to the north end of Lago d'Orta, then over the Lago Maggiore near Stresa, then down around the south end of Maggiore and back up the eastern shore via Angera (very relaxing day not withstanding riding through "Stresa" and "Angera").  From Angera, up to Laveno, and caught the ferry over to Verbania, then up to Cannobio.  Here is me on the ferry:

I had more trouble finding a hotel in Cannobio than anywhere I've ever been, very few hotels, and the ones I found were full.  Finally found someplace with a moldy-smelling room, but my only alternative was to ride to another town, so I took it. Kind of a pretty town, see the pix below, but utterly boring—don't think I'll be back here, ever, unless I'm just passing through somewhere…

SEPTEMBER 4, 2010

Was not eager to hang about in my crappy hotel in Cannobio, so I left early, thought I'd try to do some shopping, maybe see if I could find a hotel in Laveno for future reference.  Took the ferry again, no shopping, no decent hotels in Laveno, just headed down to Milan.  I checked into a hotel in the middle of nowhere (near Mototouring), and then headed downtown to check out the sights.  The city seemed really dead, lot os stores closed, etc.  I stopped for lunch by the castello and then went and dropped off the bike at Mototouring and walked to the hotel.

The area around the hotel was remarkably boring and sterile.  I noticed that even the neighborhood strip bar was closed on a Saturday.  This place is boring!!!  I probably walked for an hour trying to find a place to sit outside and have dinner, but no luck.  The few bars with outdoor tables were fully of very seedy-looking characters.  NOTE TO SELF:  next time stay downtown…  Anyway, as I walked around I poked my head in a few Italian restaurants, but all of them looked to be run by Koreans.  Finally I gave up and had an average dinner in one of the Korean/Italian places.  I also noticed that most of the local populace walking about on the streets were carrying take-out pizza boxes.  Kind of funny.  Later on, I didn't even bother looking for a bar, I knew it was hopeless.

Next morning, I woke up and got the hell out of Milan via a very expensive ($125!) taxi ride to the airport (NOTE TO SELF:  Next time get hotel downtown, near express train to airport…)