Part 11. Deeper into Italy

Monday 24^th May 2010.

“Where are you from?” Christian asked me as I punched my PIN number into the credit card machine the next morning and gritted my teeth hoping it wouldn’t spontaneously combust or burst into hysterical laughter. “Melbourne, Australia” I answered the hotel manager, hoping that the lull in credit card thought might make it not notice my escalating balance due. “That makes more sense’ he responded, “you do not seem like English people, they are so anxious and in a hurry all the time; you my friend mister Bush are nice, like you are relaxed and happy with your life”. I smiled at that. He was right of course, I was feeling very relaxed and happy with my life, why wouldn’t I be? I was on a journey by motorbike through northern Europe and down to Rome, and then onto France for the second leg and a week in Paris with my mate Lyndal. Aside from some self-set very flexible agenda, I really didn’t have to be anywhere, or be doing anything at any particular time. I was free to come and go as I saw fit, and the way I saw it, that was what it was all about…freedom. The credit card machine went ‘beep’ and thanked me for my purchase, and Christian gave me a map of Siena and told me some of the places I really should try and see before setting off to Rome. Then we shook hands warmly and bid each other Ciao.

I found my way easily into the huge medieval Piazza del Campo. The place was alive with tourists and native Sienese sitting in the shade sipping drinks and people watching. As the sunlight played on old and young alike, strolling in the massive open space, licking ice creams and munching foccacia’s, I snapped many pictures, but try as I might, I just couldn’t get a well exposed photograph of the great bell tower that dominated the square. The sun was directly behind it and no matter my efforts I either ended up with a dreadfully over-exposed shot, or one that came in silhouette form, denying the tower of it’s wealth of beauty and fine artisan detail. Youngsters played and splashed water from the trickling spring, and mothers took photographs of their children looking in awe at the intricate statues adorning the fountains and water filled ponds of the plaza’s northern side. I bought myself a blueberry ice cream and struggled against the suns heat to finish it before it melted as I strolled lazily uphill through the tiny, shadowed lanes to the Piazza del Duomo where the Duomo di Siena, or Cathedral of Siena itself stood in emblazoned sunlit glory.

Sweet mesmeric music drifted to meet me as I climbed the stairs to enter the piazza. A violinist there moved with his music, feeling every note, living every sweet, sweet tone that wept from his strings in tortured ecstasy. I sat on the ground, resting my back against some great column and listened as he breathed in his strings and totally immersed himself in his rapturous passion. I called out ‘Bravo’ and tossed him some Sheckles, then I walked through to the nearby cathedral; a magnificent gleaming white structure filled with the tiniest of details and sculpted by the hand of pure craft. It was medieval Gothic, at least I thought so, but the statues and gargoyles that peered down from it’s highest of high points definitely understood contemporary slob. They laughed and ridiculed me and my efforts to capture there existence on camera, led to Ice cream running down my arm and splattering across my not so white T-shirt and onto my jeans and then my shoes. Did anyone notice that? I wondered as I attempted to clean myself up without being obvious. Of course they did. Children pointed me out to their parents, a Nun walked by and looked me in disdain, a photographer pointed his lens at me and said ‘Messy’; but did I care? no not really, for just like the age old stonework, the peeling paintwork and the rusted iron railings that filled so much of Siena, I was just another part of the scene; and besides, the alluring aroma of Pizza was calling me from not too far away, and my stomach was telling me to eat.

So I paid five euro’s and got a slice of pizza and a small can of coke. The coke was fine as far as coke goes, but the pizza was definitely a little bit dodgy, it really didn’t worry me though, I’d probably eaten worse before. Nor did it worry me as I sat at the side of the road eating it and drinking coke that the local Carbinieri pulled up alongside my bike and told me I couldn’t park it there and had ten minutes to be gone before they came back. I’d done Siena now anyway, and within an easy hours riding I would be seeing the distant hills surrounding Rome. I rode on south to a campsite at the Boisierre lakes, and unravelled myself from the day, typing out my thoughts on a less then fully charged laptop.

“I, for one, have an idea that he will never bring this journey off’. So read the words of Homers Odyssey; and I for one, have likewise thought the same. As I sat in the tent that night, flicking through the pages of a well-loved and much-read book, it occurred to me that tomorrow I’d actually be in Rome, I’d have reached the halfway point of my own odyssey, and that from there I’d be heading back towards the uk again. ‘What, I wonder will be the elixir I shall return home with? I have yet to seize the Golden fleece of my journey’. The almost-full moonlight dancing on the water reminded that the stage of completion was near. Any moment now, I would be entering into the great Ordeal where my resolve would be tested fully, and my reward bestowed upon me should I survive the unknown test. I finished writing for the night, and then walked to the campsites washroom where I could re-charge the laptop in one of the power points lining the wall there. As I stood there with nothing but the sound of insects buzzing in my ear, my stomach began to rumble, and an acid bile rose slowly into my throat.

Tuesday 25^th May 2010 ‘See Rome and die’

I wish I could say that Rome was a the crowning glory of my adventure, that it was everything I hoped it would be, and that the journey to get there simply paled into insignificance when compared to the splendour that was Rome itself; but I cant. Maybe I could blame the rampaging microorganisms that curdled in my gut for my very downhearted opinion of Rome. On the other hand, maybe the Peugeot driver bumping my rear wheel at sixty miles an hour as I rode tourist like along the pencil-pined roadways didn’t help my demeanour either. Perhaps it was the slight ache in my left foot from smashing the Italian drivers’ side mirror off as he pulled up alongside me. It probably had a lot to do with the insane amount of vehicle and pedestrian traffic there, and also the fast-paced, cheap, tackiness of it all I don’t know for sure what it was that made me dislike Rome so much, but that’s simply how it was, and I have no desire to ever return.

I’d bought a map as I entered the city, and had worked out roughly where I was and where I wanted to go. First up was the Vatican, then I’d planned on going to the Colosseum, and from there I figured I’d just make the rest up as I went along. So I started off along this great five lane roadway that resembled the starting grid of a formula one race track. Cars drove at a ridiculous speed, changing lanes with total abandon and zero regard for anyone other than themselves. Scooters in their hundreds zipped in and out, weaving through the tapestry of traffic like a demented bobbin on a loom. Road markings meant nothing and traffic lights even less. Red became Go. Green became Stop, and Amber didn’t exist, and no matter my attempts to move left or right, the traffic simply forced me to follow a route I really didn’t want. After twenty minutes, I found myself near the Olympic stadium, where I managed to pull out of the flow of madness and park the bike at the side of the road. I stood there a while feeling decidedly unwell, and watching this never-seen-the-like-of-before, mass of machinery go by in some kind of orchestrated insanity to which I didn’t possess a score. I rolled a smoke and pulled out the map. I could see roughly where I was, but couldn’t quite rationalise which direction I was actually facing. I stopped a girl in the street and asked for some help in finding the Vatican. I figured it was an important enough landmark for everyone in Rome to know how to get there, so I was quite surprised when she told me in rough English “it’s either up this way or down that way’. Great, I thought, I’ve got a fifty-fifty. She then phoned a friend, but he couldn’t help either. I was two lifelines down and none the wiser; I figured I’d ask the audience, and called out “The Vatican, does anyone have any idea how I get there?” About 75% pointed left, and the rest simply looked at me blankly; that was good enough for me. I thanked the girl and everyone else, then locked in Left, and headed back the way I’d just come. Half an hour later I parked the bike amongst a great stand of scooters and sat at the side of the road holding my pounding head in my hands and feeling vomit rising closer and closer to the surface. I had no idea where I was, I thought all roads lead to Rome, but here they all seemed to take me into one-way lanes that led off in every direction except the one I needed. I guzzled water, I sweated, I spat burning bile from my mouth. My breath tasted rancid as I burped into my hand, and my stomach was bloated and aching; all I wanted to do was find a road to get me the hell out of there. I was beginning to hate Rome, and it wasn’t even Rome’s fault. I strained to find a way through on my map, but it didn’t seem to matter what the map told me, as the reality of the streets was completely different. “Fuck it” I screamed into my helmet, and went straight up a one-way street in the wrong direction. Cars blasted their horns, scooters dared to play chicken with me, but didn’t realise I was past caring, and more than one ended up doing the sidewalk as a last second decision. Suddenly I knew where I was. A sign pointed me to St. Peters square just a hundred meters away. I sideswiped a scooter “get the hell outa my way” and cut across it and up onto the wide footpath where pedestrians scrambled to avoid me and my right on the very edge attitude of, talk to me and die. I leaped off the bike, ripped off my helmet and tried to breath. My guts were foul, I wanted to let rip the tremendous wind that had built up inside of me but nothing would happen; I couldn’t even burp properly. My head was spinning, my body racked in a cold sweat, and I was rapidly becoming dehydrated. I guzzled down water at a stupid rate, but all it did was add to my already bloated and uncomfortable stomach that ached as if I’d swallowed a football. I knew it would pass eventually, that all I had to do was walk it off, drink plenty of water, eat some plain food and soak up the nasties eating me inside out; but I could barely stand up straight, let alone walk in 30-degree heat. I soldiered on though, through a thousand people or more, all jostling for position on footpaths that were way too narrow, I crossed roads, dodging traffic that would rather run me over than slow down or even stop for the red-light in front of them. All I had to do was reach St. Peters square and see the Vatican. At least then, I could find a place to stay the night, work through the sickness that was rapidly devouring me, and tomorrow I could make my way out to the Colosseum and take some time out to enjoy the rest of the glory that was surely Rome.

So I sweated my way up the hell that led me into St. Peters Square, dodging the Hot-dog sellers and the purveyors of everything cheap and nasty. I shouldered tacky tourist bus spruikers aside with a don’t even think about it glare, and ignored the pretty little things in their tiny little skirts who tried in vain to shove all manner of pamphlets into my hand at every crack in the pavement. Eventually the vast columned circle called a square opened up before me. Towering Roman-built architecture surrounded me, dizzying me with its height, dazzling me with its brilliance and bringing gut-turning convulsions to me with its vulgar and tat-filled interior. The Vatican building itself was immense, but so out of reach through the swirling crowd of tourists queuing for miles to get in, that it may as well have been a hundred miles away. Priests stood amongst enthralled, ice cream toting audiences, telling the story of Saint Peter and his execution in the square, and all the while the cry of ‘Hot-dogs, souvenirs, cheap-crap for sale’ filled the area that was the seat of the Catholic church, reducing it to little more than the like of a travelling circus arena. I stood by the fountain and filled my water bottle there. An American woman in a god-awful floral top pointed to me and said to her equally fashion unconscious husband, “Hey Frank, I don’t think he should be doing that, why don’t you go say something to him?” I gazed at them with maniacal eyes while emptying the entire bottle over my head, soaking my shirt, my trousers and everything else around me. “Go ahead Frank, make my day”. I shook the water from my hair, scrubbed at my eyes and let out a huge belch. God it tasty vile, like someone had taken a crap in my mouth and left it to ripen in the sun for a few days; but it relieved some of the pressure in my gut, and the water had cooled my temper a little. I watched Frank walk away with his wife nagging at his tail between his legs, and made my way into the mass of age-old stone columns and sat in the shade for a while, trying to decide how I felt about it all, and what the hell I was going to do about it.

A man was playing in the small waterspout there with his young son. He was chasing after him, and splashing water and making monster faces and sounds. The boy was giggling and laughing hysterically. After a minute or so the mans wife arrived with another two children, they were both girls aged about seven or eight, and dressed in pretty little dresses with their hair done in sparkly tinsel and ribbons. Immediately I thought about my girls in Melbourne, and walked to the nearby Vatican post office where I bought them a nice card, wrote them some loving words and then posted it. The moment I put the card in the post-box I knew my time there was done, and I had to make plans for my escape.

I walked back to the fountain and refilled my bottle yet again. I took a long hard slug from it, put it back in my bag and braced myself for the road back. By the time I got to the bike I was near to bursting, I’d drank nearly three litres of water in the past hour or so and my bladder desperately needed emptying. Now I am not so gauche to urinate in public, but by that time, I’d decided Rome was nothing but a toilet anyway, and had sent numerous text messages to that effect. Even so, I needed to find a proper loo, and I needed to find one quickly; I also needed to a get out of Rome free card. I roared alongside the Tiber River, circled around the town centre time and time again, and crossed the same bridge four times, but Rome wouldn’t let me out. Somehow I got myself onto a ring road that circled the town, and despite my best efforts, I wasn’t getting away without a fight. With my guts on fire and my bladder on the very edge of letting go completely, I darted across three lanes of traffic and into a petrol station where I settled matters with my insides, and filled the bikes tank and re-ordered my thoughts. Somehow, I had to find a chink in Rome’s armour and thrust a sharp pointy stick into it, but its guardians were clever, and re-routed me over and over into a labyrinth of one-way roads that took me only deeper and deeper into the beast’s bone-littered lair.

“So how did you manage to get out of there?” Stephen asked me over a hot cup of coffee and a cold German sausage. “Dogged determination” I told him. “That and playing the beast at its own game and going where I wanted to go, not where it sent me”. I’d forced my way through the traffic, I’d ridden straight through Red-lights, and I’d beeped and tooted and abused and kicked the scooters, cars and pedestrians that got in my way. Eventually I’d made my way onto the Auto route and just kept going as long as I could. By eight o’clock that night I was drained and in desperate need of some food and somewhere to lay my head down. I saw a sign for a campsite near the town of Civvitavechio, so turned off the Auto route and wound my way towards a large Pine forest where I found the camps entrance, set in a woodland clearing.

It was very quiet there, not a peaceful quiet mind you, but an eerie quiet. It was dark too, but not a nighttime dark, more a Stephen King type dark. The woman behind the desk spoke little English, and my Italian had never even got passed Go. I read the Tariffs board and worked out it’d cost me 18 euros for the night, more if I wanted electricity. Fine, I really didn’t care, I just wanted to eat something even though It’d probably make me sick, which wouldn’t be such a bad idea. I handed over my passport and credit card, but the credit card machine wouldn’t work, so I reluctantly handed over 20 Euros, and then had to ask her for the change. I asked where the restaurant was, she said it was closed. Okay, so what about the shop that’s advertised on the front board then? It was closed too she told me. ‘Is there anywhere I can get something to eat here, anything at all?” She shrugged her shoulders, out of either disinterest, or non-comprehension. Bloody hell, if I hadn’t felt so done-in I’d have turned around and ridden straight out of there again, but I was wasted, and really needed to sleep.

“And so here you are now, enjoying a hot drink and eating German sausages”. Stephen said as he pulled a map-case out of his pannier and made his way to the table where I was sitting.

The receptionists’ husband had come out and bid me follow him on my bike to where I should put my tent up. We wound our way past deserted caravans that looked like they’d not seen life for years. I followed him deeper and deeper into the woodland; past the deserted and derelict restaurant, and the boarded-up shop with it’s remnants of long-passed holidays still sitting on the rickety verandah, and its tattered curtains peering out at me through filthy broken windows. It got darker and gloomier the further we went. I thought that maybe I could be murdered here tonight, and my body be buried in a shallow grave and all my belongings sold on e-bay. The track swung left past a pile of freshly felled trees, then right, towards a large washroom complex. The driver stopped his car here and pointed from his window to a large patch of open grass surrounded by a wild-looking hedge. I waved my hand as he drove away, and turned the bike into an opening in the hedgerow and onto the grassy campsite where I saw a man boiling water on a camp stove beside his tent. Parked to one side was a motorbike as laden with luggage as my own. It was a BMW GS 1150, and belonged to a doctor from Hanover in Germany named Stephen.

“And yeah, for sure there were other sights I’d wanted to see” I told him after retelling my tale of horror in Rome, “but after the circus Vatican, I wasn’t about to have my vision of the colosseum blown apart too. I didn’t want all my bubbles burst at once”.

Stephen had arrived at the campsite an hour or so before I had, and had likewise felt uneasy about being there. He said that he had considered packing up and leaving but couldn’t face the prospect of having to find another place at night, and going through the whole breaking camp, and setting up routine all over again. When he’d heard my bike coming along the track though, he’d decided that things were possibly looking up, and had put some water on the boil for what he rightly considered my much-needed coffee. We sat at the table of a long deserted caravan and pored over maps of the Alps, and shared stories and coffee and cigarettes. My guts were still very unsettled, but the sausage meat and the Mars bars that Stephen offered went a long way toward making me feel better. He’d ridden down from Hanover to Trento in Italy, just fifty miles north of Verona on the first day of his week-long trip, a journey of nearly a thousand kilometers, and was on his way to Rome to see the Vatican. Well that had been his plan until he met me and I told him of my experience there. We laughed about where we were, and talked about our respective lives, and why we did what we did; but the day had taken its toll on me, and before too long I had to call it a night with the promise we would talk again in the morning. I fell asleep that night not feeling any better, but not feeling any worse either, and when I awoke in the morning the sun was fully up, and the sinister woodcutters forest seemed less morose, but still a little surreal

Pt. 10 Superbikes to Florence

Saturday 22^nd May 2010

Today I needed to make Florence –the town, not the woman-, but the best laid plans of mice and men etcetera…

I ‘ve spent too much time gawking and not enough time riding, but ‘je ne regret rien’. Nonetheless I needed to make up some time, so I took the high-speed autostrausser to Bologne then turned off towards Florence, but I took the wrong turn, and instead of turning around, I did the only sensible thing I could do; I took another turn to see where it would take me.

Braaaaam-braaaaam, vroom vroom…braaaaaaaaam. Screaming superbikes were everywhere, I’d pulled straight onto a race track with a loaded up touring bike that had the handling ability of a boat in a forest. The road ran from Rioveggio across to Loiano, a distance of about twelve miles give or take a snake-turn or two, and it was where the boys came out to play. If I thought the road through the Alps was a winding wonderland, then I was in for an enormously big ‘HELLO’ from above. It was exhilarating riding, even on a tractor, as the sticky black track swung left then right then left and left again. Harder, harder, tighter, faster, steeper. Left, right, left right, hairpin turn. Downhill, faster, faster, screaming revs. My heart in my mouth. Up gear, down gear, down another gear, brake hard…harder. Screeching tyres, smoking rubber, burning brakes, screaming engine, sphincter twittering, nail-biting edge of the seat, magnificent fucking Oo-rah’s gentlemen! But fast and hard as I was going, I was never a match for those who knew their stuff, and screaming wheels raced past me with sparks flying off their foot pegs and leather shredding from their knee-pads at every turn. Leathered lothario’s diced with Adonis in jeans as Aprilla’s, Buell’s, Bmw’s Cagiva’s, Fireblades and every conceivable make and model of superfast bike that’s ever been born, raced down this madness of track called a road that cars simply knew to avoid. The air was electric, the sound was phenomenal, the stench was addictive and the whole place alive and dynamic. The road reached a junction where even the boldest held their breath. While cars drove sheepishly passed, and their drivers looked meekly away; the racers held their steel, then when the racetrack was clear, they screamed off with one wheel raised high, and raced to the sky up the other side of the valley.

But the thought of doing it all again was too much for me, so I turned off into a pretty little woodland where bunnies and fairy’s lived, and made a cup of tea and had a sandwich, and considered an afternoon nap.

As the water boiled, and steam filled the high-octane air that intruded into the waterside woodland, I could feel the adrenaline being carried away on a fast-flowing stream of fairy-tale lullaby music. Presently serenity returned, and the rush of nervous energy was drained, and I again became as one with the world. I drank my tea whilst sitting on a rock in the water, dangling my feet like a dreamy child into the cool mountain stream. I wondered whether there were any Trout nearby, and sat there with my eyes peeled looking for the tell-tale sign of a feeding fish. Then a rustling of leaves from the other bank caught my attention, and a barefoot woman stepped down to the waterside.

“Dario, Dario”. She called. But Dario didn’t answer, so she slipped out of her jeans, pulled off her top and stepped into the water wearing just bra and knickers. Oh thank you, thank you, thank you. Obviously she hadn’t seen me sitting there in full-view on a rock hiding behind a tree branch, wearing nothing but a camouflaged jacket and my drab khaki greens, and holding a camera in my hand. I remained perfectly still, uncertain exactly of just what to do. The ‘Click’ of the camera would be a dead give-away, but what an opportunity to miss; so I sat there in perfect stillness and silence, enjoying my privileged treat. She started fumbling around her back, nooooo, she was going to take off her bra. Take it off, take it off, take it off, take it off, but then more rustling occurred, and a man arrived and stole the woman away. That was it, the moment was gone and the magic was over; my bubble was burst, and the pricks name was Dario.

I peered down the flow of water. Was that a rising Trout I spied? There it was again, and again. I put my socks and shoes back on, grabbed my affairs, and started back to the bike to get my rod and reel.

I considered setting up camp for the night here, but it was obviously in regular use as Brick bbq’s and litter-bins however discreetly erected, were nonetheless there. I jumped on the bike and sedately rode a mile downstream where I found a track that led to the water’s very edge. There I found a perfect grassy spot hidden from the road, surrounded by trees, the water at my feet, and firewood in abundance. I parked the bike, and without bothering to unpack the rest of the gear, I got my fishing rod together, selected the perfect fly and crept down to the water’s edge. Several minutes went by without tempting a fish. I cast into streams, riffles, eddies and swirling back-flows where large boulders blocked the waters flow, and insects swept round behind into the open mouths of waiting trout…nothing. I walked downstream to where the water divided into two separate runs, and chose the fast gravel one first, leaving the deeper slower pool for when the sun was lower and the Moths came out….still nothing. So the sun wasn’t yet low, and the moths weren’t out, but a caterpillar fly would probably do the trick. No? Maybe a Tadpole pattern then, I’d seen them swimming in the shallows further back. No? How about a Greenwells Glory then, or a Cinnamon and Gold; a Grey hen and Yellow maybe? A cock-y-bundoo, a Black gnat, a bit of bread on a bare hook?…what then? I threw a stone in the water and hoped I’d knock a fish out instead. Down but not out, I walked back to my campsite and set the tent up, and made a cup of tea on a raging fire of driftwood and yesteryears green, green boughs. As I sat sipping my tea and considering what cunning plan to execute next, a movement in the trees caught my eye. What was that I wondered, it did look very big, sorta like a Bear, but surely not in here, not in downtown Tuscany anyway. It was dark-coloured though, and bulky too, maybe it was a Wolf. Did they still have Wolves in Italy? I figured I’d done enough fishing for the day anyway, and quickly gathered as much firewood as I could from as close-by as possible, and built a huge, almost forest-type fire. Then I slipped into the tent, pulled the sleeping bag over my head and prayed that I wouldn’t get mauled before morning…like one time is better than another?

Sunday 23^rd May 2010

I woke up alive and unscathed, which was a good way to start the day I thought. I considered tying on another fly and having a go at the elusive trout again; but then, given my appalling lack of success the previous afternoon I actually wondered whether there was even any point. I made a cup of coffee instead, broke camp and then headed onward towards Florence.

Once again, I found myself entering the racetrack Rioveggio where superbikes played and cars simply didn’t fit in. Within minutes of leaving the babbling brook behind, I was in the heady fuel-injected realm of leathered Lorenzo and his knee-scraping horde of gut-wrenching cornering crusaders. The road now wound its way up the other side of the valley. The engine revved hard in third and second gear corners as I leaned the bike into anti-gravity mode and dared myself lower and closer to the smooth, dark bitumen. The well-versed and infinitely more experienced riders than myself though screamed past me at an alarming rate, leaving me coughing in their exhaust fumes and feeling more than just a bit pathetic and green at this game of ride as fast and skilfully as you can up a road built for speed and high adventure. I pulled into the side of the road at an early opportunity and gave the racers the space and freedom they needed to do what they seemingly did best. I lifted the camera to my face and photographed the madness as they sped adrenaline fuelled into tight, tight corners with knees out wide and dipped down low. The noise filled my senses, the deep, deep strumming of high-tensile pistons pounding inside a fire-filled chamber, and roaring from the machines exhausts intensified and fortified the arena as if a great clamp had been placed around the entire scene and tightened to maximum pressure. I lifted the lens repeatedly as Ducatti’s, Triumph’s, and Suzuki Gixxer’s blurred on by in a mighty rush of power and unimaginable speed and agility. Out of the blue a tourist bus chugged its way awkwardly onto the scene, closely followed by four impatient bikes champing at the bit to get past, and snarling in aggravated impatience. The bus chugged by slowly, and one of the bikes pulled in to where I stood, and parked up. It was a BMW 1200S, a race-built machine ridden by Marco, who regularly races this road

“I had to pull in here for a few minutes,” He told me. “The bus holds us up and so you end up with several bikes all grouped together, wanting to go fast but going way too slow; it’s very dangerous”. I told Marco how Impressed I was with the riders and bikes I’d seen and their ability to handle these insane corners at such high speeds. “Don’t be too impressed” he said, “There are as many bad riders here as there are good ones, and plenty of them come off and end up with very expensive pieces of machinery twisted into nothing but mangled wrecks. Quite a few have died on this road too” he added. “For the likes of Valentino, it is okay, he can afford to go fast, and he can afford to fall off also, but for the rest of us it is still only Sunday, and the sun is shining”. We shook hands and wished each other well, then Marco flicked his machine into life and blasted out of there; the sound of his howling engine still audible long after the sight of him had vanished.

I still had to get to Florence though, that was my goal for the day, so I upped stumps and rode ever upward to the accompanying music of throbbing pistons and snarling exhausts. I reached a plateau quite unexpectedly, and saw Marco’s bike propped up on its stand. Beyond and all around it I saw what must have amounted to over two hundred bikes and bikers, comparing rides, comparing bikes, sharing the thrill and devouring the tales of danger. This was their 19^th hole, the bar at the top of the hill called the Chalet Raticosa. With a constant braaaam-ing of bikes coming and going, I parked my tug-boat amongst the throng and set out with my camera to capture what I could see.

Colours, colours everywhere. Racing Reds, growling greens, blasting blues and fiery oranges. Leather jackets, leather trousers, leather suits. Sponsors names, Agip, Pepsi, NGK, Shell, Playstation, Lucky strike. Helmets and gloves, guys and dolls.. The bar was full and overflowing as I walked up to order myself a beer, and bikers spilled out of there in happy, back-slapping enthusiasm for who they were and what they were doing. Bikes around me everywhere; BMW’s, Buell, Yamaha, Honda, Suzuki, Cagiva, Aprilia, Ducati, KTM’s, Harley’s and Triumphs; virtually every make of bike ever to hit the road had a representative there, and every rider had a story to tell about broken bones, shredded flesh and very-near misses. More than one knew a rider who would never meet them there again, and more than one had attended too many bikers funerals. ‘It’s the rush though’ a young guy on a Ducati 888 told me, ‘when you’re pushing yourself to the very, very edge of where you can go, and you can stay there longer than the other guy, and go faster than the other guy, then there’s nothing else like it in life…except maybe sex of course’.

I pondered the idea of sex on a motorbike for a while, but the thought of clutches, gear levers and throttles somehow tangled with bra-straps, knickers and shoe-laces just didn’t quite cut-it for me; besides, there’d be nowhere to rest an ashtray or a can of beer would there? I came down off the mountain and saw my first of two road accidents involving bikes. Both of them were from too fast, too hard and possibly too deep, and both of them ended in wrecked bikes and bruised but still-breathing riders and pillions. I may not be the fastest or the best rider in the world, I thought as I rode by surveying the carnage and debris-strewn scene, but at least my bike is still upright, with all its bits attached. With time though the mountain became a hill, then in turn a level road. Pine trees gave way to grassland, and then rural became suburban, as the road began to descend again. A river snaked along the valley floor, taking my eyes along with it, and leading me onwards; on towards the city of Florence which had appeared out of the horizon like a crayoned picture before me.

I pulled into the first Piazza I found and parked among a string of buzzing scooters. It was quaint, with a cobbled road and a statue of someone apparently quite important, standing in the middle of the square, looking vaguely imperial and wearing a cloak. I looked around the square a little, then spied a pizzeria and headed towards it.

“G’day. Yeah the one with the Salami on it thanks…cheers mate”

“You’re from Melbourne aren’t you” I said to the young woman ordering the pizza beside me. She was too. Her name was Jenni and she was from Beaumaris on Melbourne’s bayside. She was a law student at Monash spending a couple months on exchange in Florence, studying international law. ‘Aside from that’ she told me, ‘why on earth wouldn’t you want to be in Florence, it’s got to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world’. I said I’d have to take her word for it as I’d only just arrived. The only thing I knew about Florence was that Michelangelo’s statue of ‘David’ was here somewhere, and that it was a stopping place for me on the way to Rome. “David’s right around the corner from here” Jen told me, “but it can be a helluva queue sometimes”. We sat for a while chomping pizza and talking about home, while loud American tourists seated nearby complained about the price of the delicious food but praised its quality equally. “I’ve gotta get going” Jen said after half an hour, “I only came down here to get a quick take away, I’ve got an exam two days from now, and I’m way behind already”. With that she was gone, and I was left with the nasal twanging of ‘the second amendment states that…” Blah, blah, blah….yawn. I finished my meal too, and left the gun-control lobby to their debate, and sought out David.

“Lyndal says Hi Dave” I told the huge towering statue set high on a plinth beneath a vast glass dome. ‘Hi Lyndal’ replied David. “Look at the size of your hands’ I said to him, ‘and your feet too, there not really in proportion are they’. “And oh dear… “ I added. “You’ve got a very small willy for a man of your stature” I looked up at David from way down below. His hands and feet were definitely way too big for the rest of his body, and his head looked like it belonged to the Elephant man on a good day.

“Of course Michelangelo deliberately sculpted David disproportionately to emphasise the magnitude of his strength” I heard a female guide telling her massed audience of wide-eyed American followers. I wandered around him, noting the sling hung over his left shoulder and the stone held loosely in his right hand. Oh, David as in David and Goliath I suddenly realised. “And the reason he was sculpted with such enormous hands” She continued, “was to emphasise this strength even more so, for even as a young and slender man he was able do defeat the giant marauder that was his enemy, namely Goliath. Big hands or not I thought, he’s still got a tiny willy.

I’d seen what I’d come to see in Florence, and although there was so much more to this beautiful city I decided to move on. I walked into a small shop and bought myself some bits and bobs, I got some souvenir postcards, and ate an ice cream beside the bike, then I fired it up, jumped aboard and headed towards Siena where I immediately found the Piccola Villa’s, and booked myself in for the night.