What I did on my holidays, by Stephen Packer aged 46 and a half.

So, I fancied a decent ride to somewhere I hadn't been before. Chose
Sicily...

On paper it looks pretty straightforward, ride to calais then head
south. After a while take a ferry and that's it. Small matter of about
1800 miles to cover.

Day 1: Left home and crossed the channel tunnel. Got in too late to get
anything to eat. 170miles.

Day 2: Got up late and rode to Bruce's at a leisurely pace. Arrived
about 18:30. 500 miles.

Day 3: Bruces south to (roughly) Narni. Went through the Gotthard
tunnel. It was *very* hot in the tunnel and slow (30mph or so). The
K's temperature (took the K1100) started to rise... I switched the fan
on (fitted an over-ride relay shortly after I got it) and it just about
stabilised. Crept up slowly but not enough to really cause a problem.
Apart from that day went well. About 11 hours and 560 miles.

Day 4. Narni to Sicily. Should have been straightforward. But my God...
the traffic and roads once I got south of about Naples. Really busy
motorways, unfortunately looking busier going north (problems on my
return?) and also ridiculously long roadworks- 70km section! Filtering
seemed to be frowned on, riding in the hard shoulder was fine though.
You live and you learn. Ferry to Messina from Villa San Giovanni was
cheap, about 15 euros... return. Camped in a campsite near Messina in
Sicily. Unfortunately arrived late, put tent up in dark... on an ants
nest. Which I lived to regret. About 11 hours and 450 miles.

Day 5. Messina to Alcomo. Sicily is big. This was almost 3 hours.
Palermo is a bit crazy when it's busy. But it's OK for bikes to go
anywhere they want. Apparently. About 3 hours and 170 miles.

So that was it. Didn't seem so bad going down. No issues with the bike
apart from a blown headlight bulb (which I think I last changed about 4
years ago).

Spent around six days in Alcomo. Top points, the wine was good and the
food wasn't bad. Had (allegedly) one of the best canoli in the world.
It was very good. Weather pretty good and sea pleasant. Did nothing
apart from eat, read and get bitten by mosquitos, which made a pleasant
change from the ants.

So to the return. Since I'm off to **** around with bikes on Friday and
have a fair amount to get done work-wise, I needed to get back to put in
a full day today. I also didn't want to cut my holiday too short.

Return would have to be quicker..

Day 1. Alcomo to Ceraselle.
Long day with lots of delays due to traffic and ferry problems.
Highlite was trying to filter in Messina and getting the K wedged
between a bus and a car (parked car, wheels pointing out from kerb
caught pannier and pushed bike into bus, slightly). Female driver did
her nut. I apologised and explained I was English and didn't understand
a word. She didn't draw a breath and continued to curse me. Oh well,
shit happens. Would like to know what she was saying. Looking on the
bright side it's only a matter of time until my mobile will work like a
babel fish.
In all about 520 miles in 11 hours.

Day 2. Ceraselle to Mulhouse.
Another long day. Would have been fine if it wasn't for the effing
Gotthard tunnel. Two hour wait to get through. About 5-7km queue. Of
course I *tried* to filter discretely but was worried about this in
Switzerland. Really very tired at the end of this day.
About 680 miles in 13 hours.

Day 3. Mulhouse home.
A long day with lots of rain in France.
High points,
- Triggering a bunch of forward facing speed cameras. Yeah... stick it
to the man...
- Dodgy overtake followed by blue flashing lights from a plain clothes
black ford something. Car pulled alongside me for what felt like an
age, matched my speed. I played the 'if I don't look at you, you're not
there' game and won. He fucked off... thank Ged.
- Coming into Calais at close to 120 (ish, indicated) and wondering why
that car was sat at the side of the road at 90 degrees to the
carriageway. Coming to the realisation that that's the most comfortable
position for speed trapping. But too late to brake much. Relieved that
when they saw the brit plate they couldn't be bothered.
- Being able to change my cheap ticket from Tuesday afternoon to Monday
afternoon at no charge.
About 640 miles and 11 hours.

So that's it. Another year's summer hols done.

K was faultless but it is getting on now, about 15 years old and with
almost 70k on the clock. I'm wondering if it's time to replace it with
either an R1150GS or maybe a K1200GT. It can wait... until it does let
me down...

Route, for anyone still reading, was something like

http://preview.tinyurl.com/39y478m

Still shitting myself in Switzerland after last year and didn't really
do much speeding or anything like it. Mental cruelty at the very
least, scarred for life.

Thanks to Ace for his hospitality.

Sicily is definitely worth visiting.

 

I'll have to cross it on my way to Rome next week...

What's the problem over there ? I heard they were nuts but is it that
bad ?

Nice journey you did there.
I'm thinking of doing it in three steps : Basel, Parma and Rome (Going
from around Brussels).

 

<> escribió en el mensaje de noticias

Aye, sir!

 

I got fined last year, along with three others, for a little
exhuberance.

The police were completely lacking in any sense of humour. The judge
was willing to rob a pauper blind.

 

wrote in :

why not go over the top rather than sit in a queue?

did you chance it without a vignette?

<thinks about trip next year>
he's a very nice man, especially if you rock up with a couple of bottles
of burgundy

Must go sometime. I love the red wine from the Nero d'Avola grape. Fly
drive,though with aircon car & a decent hotel. None of this canvas
nonsense.

 

The traffic was held at some lights, backing up the motorway, it's only
once you got through these lights that you got the choice of going over
the top or queuing a little longer.

In the end the additional queue was something like another ten minutes
tops vs. going over the top.

That was also a nice one. But I found the whites better.

PS. snipped it but given I was going through Switzerland twice I plumped
for buying the vignette.

 

Anything interesting?

Did you move the tent?

 

Can I lie here?

I was on holiday, ok. So mostly shite. 'Merde Actually' by some bloke
what used to have a column in the telegraph.

Solar by Ian McEwen (a re-read really)

Umm.. and a bunch of stuff I'd rather not admit to. Mostly nonsense.

Plus Wolf Hall which I'm only partway in.

Unfortunately the E-Reader seems a good idea but the availability of
books is limited. At least that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.

Oh, and I also bought a book explaining the Mafia to visitors when I
visited Sugesta. It got stolen immediately by my son. Will read it one
day.

At 3AM when I woke up being bitten? no. It was only once I took the
tent down at 8AM that I saw what the problem was.

 

wrote in :

they don't tolerate illegal immigrants, obviously

 

He lied about his income.

 

wrote:

Friendly enough though. In a "I'm about to rape you" kind of way.

 

Oh go on, as it's you.

I read the first one 'year in the merde' and decided not to bother
with any others.

On my list to get, it's the only McEwan I'm missing.

'fess up. I can't concentrate atm so I'm mostly reading Pratchett and
the Scott Pilgrim comics.

On the pile to read, I need to finish Beyond Black first.

What's the battery life like? When we went away I rationed myself to 2
books as that was all that would fit in the tank bag. Fraction of the
whole - OK but flawed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/jun/21/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview28

and Confederacy of dunces (didn't finish it due to the accident and
haven't felt like picking it up again) and an Ereader would mean I
could take more for less space but I do like having a physical book
with pages.

Mine has nicked my '10 questions science can't answer yet' and '13
things that don't make sense'. I hadn't even started them.

I've had nights like that.

Tricky coves ants.

 

Which one?

 

If you're into that kind of thing, I can recommend Meg on the Moon,
though you might find it a bit advanced.

A mistake many seem to be making at the moment.

 

I was only partway in too. Now it's been discarded.

I really wouldn't bother.

I made the mistake in the notion that I could be all smug about reading
"proper" literature but I've seen the error of my ways.

It's something easy & trashy for me next and IDGAF if the ukrm Book
Club want to point and laugh.

 

<looks at bookshelf for random selection>

World War Z - Brooks
What A Carve Up! - Coe
A Canticle for Liebowitz - Miller
Breakfast of Champions - Vonnegut

All easy reads, all good.

A good rule of thumb is "if it wins the booker, cross it off your
wishlist"

 

/attempts to stifle laughter
/fails




guffaw


ty

 

Mafia explained to tourists ; Augusto Cavadi

 

Did this in the car on Saturday - around 90 minutes queue to get in -
temp outside around 20c, temp inside the tunnel 32c.

A number of bikes filtered past, no one seemed to mind. On the other
hand, the police had set up a "roadblock" on the hard shoulder and that
was collecting cars and a plainly rather stupid biker who rather than
filtering decided to run up the hard shoulder too.....