29 October 2012

Long Break

After my trip to Yaroslavl, I had a longer break from riding than I expected for health reasons, and did not get back on the bike at all until August, and didn't go on a trip until I took a long weekend in Italy from October 20-22.  I didn't want to ride far, just wanted a break from Moscow, so I just went to Bellagio again.  Not too exciting, but a nice relaxing break, as usual.  Really not much to say about the quick trip, but here are a few pix, most of which will look similar to pix from past trips...















28 May 2012

Yaro 2012

May 26, 2012

Went to Yaroslavl for one night for City Day.  Left Saturday at 13:00, arrived at John's place about 17:00.

I took the XChallenge, because I wanted to make sure it worked before the trip to Mongolia.  It is not a great bike for road trips, because the seat is not very comfortable and there is no fairing.  Other than that, everything was OK.

Walked around town, standard City Day stuff. Later, kind of a slow night in Yaroslavl.  

Left in the morning, rode back, no big adventures.

23 May 2012

Border Run IV

May 19, 2012

Hard to believe, but time for my fourth border run to renew my temporary import certificate for my GS.  This time, I left Moscow early, at about 07:00.  I rode more than 500 km to Ukrainian border via Kaluga and Bryansk in the rain, and arrived at the border at about 14:00.  

At the border, the Russian border guard wanted me to enter Ukraine but suddenly relented, so I did not have to enter Ukraine and got back into Russian by about 15:20.  

I had planned on staying in Kaluga or somewhere, but I started riding back and didn't feel like stopping and got back home by about 21:30.  

All in all, 1000+ km and a border crossing in one day, not bad!

09 May 2012

Back in a flash


Well, since my last trip had been delayed so long because of work, within a couple weeks I was on my way back to Italy over the May holidays.  I landed in Milan on April 29, and had the bike delivered to the airport again, which is super-convenient.  Soon I was on my way to Verona, where I stayed at Hotel Accademia this time.  Kinda boring, still looking for a good place to stay in Verona.  

On the morning of the 30th I left Verona for Riva del Garda and fought traffic all along the lake roads to there.  I got to Riva del Garda and found a hotel by early afternoon, but I was not that crazy about the town.  Kinda modern and touristy.  And it was raining.  meh...


I didn't have any definite plans from here on, but on May 1 I left Riva del Garda for Merano, up in the mountains. I thought I'd stop on the way in Bolzano, to check out the town and to see the archeological museum, where they have the Iceman, the 5000 year old man found dead in a glacier.  The museum is only closed two days a year:  Christmas, and yes, you guessed it, May 1st.  Not good timing.  The weather wasn't great, and I decided just to head to Merano. In Merano I found a decent hotel overlooking the river, not bad. Here's the view:

The next day (May 2) I decided to go back to Bolzano to see the Iceman.  It was pretty cool. The Iceman himself is just sort of a brownish lump, but seeing all of his gear--backpack, books, etc. was pretty cool.  I was back in Merano by early afternoon, and it was sunny, so I went up the chairlift in town to have beer in the cafe on top of mountain, but you guessed it, the cafe was closed.    Again my timing was not great.  

On the morning of May 3rd I decided to spend my last night in Bellagio.  I had hoped to go via Stelvio pass, which I think is one of the highest in Europe, but according to the webcam, there was still lots of snow up there and in fact the road was still closed. Therefor I rode via Passo del Tonale, which was open.  Here are some pix.

Somewhere along the road:

 Lots of snow up by the pass:





Here's where I had a picnic lunch; kind of an uninspiring spot, but I had been looking for a place for quite some time and had already ridden through Passo del Tonale, so I was ready for a break:

So I got to Bellagio, got a room at the Metropole, and tried to go to dinner, but my usual restataurant was closed..aargh, I'd really been having bad luck this trip.  

On May 4th I got up, had the usual nice breakfast at the Metropole, and rode back to the airport where I dropped off the bike. 

Here's a map of the trip:

12 April 2012

Checking out the new Engine

APRIL 4 2012

I hadn’t been able to ride my bike in Italy since the engine had been replaced in the fall, so I was eager to get back there and check it out.  I had planned to go in early March, but repeated delays due to work meant that I couldn’t go until April. 

Last fall I had hoped to check out Cinque Terre, a region along the coast south of Genova, supposedly very quaint and beautiful.  So I landed about 11:30 and went to pick up my bike at the garage.  This time Eligio was in, so we got to chat and I even had lunch with him before getting on the road about 15:00. 

Of course it started raining almost immediately; I was not too psyched about riding in the rain in the mountains, so I thought about staying in Parma or some nearby city, but ultimately I only had a few nights and didn’t want to stay in some blah city for one of them, so pushed on towards Cinque Terre.

I took the road through Bobbio which I took on my last trip, a very nice road, although this time it was not a sunny fall day but a rainy spring day.  Not so nice, here is a picture for the atmospherics:

Anyway, I was making really slow time, and I hadn’t even reached the coast, much less Cinque Terre, before it started to get dark.  I was following my PGS through all sorts of little mountain roads in the rain, and had absolutely no idea where I was…  Finally just as it was getting really dark I came to some town on the sea, and basically stopped at the first hotel I found, which for better or for worse was a pretty nice hotel.  For the first time during my travels, I literally had no idea what town I was in… 

So I got a room with a balcony, took a warm shower, and went out for a nice dinner before heading back to the room.  Here is the hotel:

The view from my balcony was interesting, so I took several shots under different conditions (last one is my fav):

By the morning, all of my wet gear had dried thanks to those handy European towel-drying racks.  I finally figured out that I was in a town called Camogli, pretty far north of Cinque Terre and even a bit north of Santa Margharita, where I’d stayed last time.

APRIL 5, 2012

So today I would ride down the few kilometers to Cinque Terre and pick the best place to stay, I was looking forward to it.  The weather was not that great, but at least it had stopped raining.  So off I went along the nice coast road.  I realized last night that I’d forgotten the base plate for my camera to attach it to my tripod, so I thought I’d pick one up along the way, surely I’d be able to find one in this touristy area?  But in Rapallo, the biggest town in the area, a camera shop told me that “maybe” I’d be able to find one in Genoa…oh well, looks like I am without a tripod this trip. 

So my first stop in Cinque Terre was Monterosso. I thought I’d have lunch there, and if I liked it, spend the night.  I got there, and the whole town was a construction zone—drilling, hammering, trucks, etc.  I had a quick sandwich and got out of there, not very peaceful!  Here is a view of Monterosso from far above in the hills (it’s the white blob on the water):

OK, that was a little discouraging, but supposedly the best Cinque Terre town in Vernazzo, so I went there…  The road to Vernazzo was very narrow and twisty, and it was foggy as well.  Here is a shot from along the road:

Finally, as I got close to Vernazzo, there was a sign across the road saying “Chiuso” which I’d learned meant “closed” in Italian.  But I couldn’t tell what was close, the road, or what?  So I kept going.  Then I came to some construction worker; he didn’t speak English but after much gesturing I figured out that he was saying the road was closed, but I could try to get through on the bike, and if I couldn’t get through could turn around.  So I kept going until a came to a huge boulder which had fallen on the road, blocking it for cars but leaving plenty of space on the sides to get by on a bike.  I was pretty pleased with myself and imagining all of the free hotel rooms that this would mean when I pulled up to the edge of the town itself.  They had a couple of guys posted there who spoke some English, and they said that the “town was closed”.  I didn’t get what they meant, how could a town be closed?!  Apparently over the winter there had been towns which basically destroyed the town, or at least all of the hotels, so the town was closed for reconstruction.  Well shit!

So I kept going, this time I decided to Portovenere, which is technically not part of the Cinque Terre but close enough.  I didn’t reach there until evening, even though I had only covered less than two hundred kilometers all day—the roads along the coast were very twisty and steep, so quite slow.  Anyway, I was able to get a room with a balcony at the first hotel I came to in Portovenere and started walking around town a bit. Here are some pix:

APRIL 6, 2012

Portovenere was OK, but there was really not any reason to hang about, so I decided to go back to Lake Como and look for a place to use as a base for the last night before heading back to Moscow on future trips—previously I’d been staying in Milan the last night, so that I’d have time to drop the bike off and get to the airport, but I don’t like Milan and wanted to find somewhere better to stay.  I’ve already stayed in or looked at Novara and Pavia, and wasn’t very impressed, but I thought that either Como or Lecco on Lake Como could be good choices.

So I set off for Lecco, riding several hours on the highway.  Not particularly fun, but I wanted to have plenty of time to find a hotel. I got to Lecco about 14:00 or so, and after looking around a bit I couldn’t find a hotel I liked and didn’t care too much for the city, so I decided to go up to Bellagio again.  I took the great road from Lecco to Bellagio and stayed in the same hotel as before, the Metropol, for two nights, but in two different rooms.  I really like the location of the hotel so will probably stay there again.  Here it is, the pink building at the end of the piazza:

Anyway, here are several more photos, some with a fisheye lena:

Almost forgot to add—everything OK with the engine, so far, so good!