Today was my new favorite day.  If lunch on the patio chatting with Marco in Bellagio was what we envisioned for Italian dining, today was what we envisioned for the Italian countryside. Continue reading →

Today we planned to ride from Aosta to La Thuile, then south through Vanoise Park in France (parallels Gran Paradiso Park in Italy) then on to Alba. With nearly an inch of rain in the forecast from a storm cell that covered the entire Aosta Valley region and most of the Piedmont region, we decided to change course. I’m glad we did! For the first hour of our trip south toward Torino, we rode through the hardest rain I’ve ever experienced – my Frog Toggs croaked after 30 minutes, so I was soaked through, and Stephanie’s rain gloves were left in Milan during our gear-shuffle at the rental agency (thus her black hands from the dyed leather palms of her summer gloves). Twice we ran through standing water that was above my ankles – the second time Stephanie asked
“Are my feet sitting in water?”
“Yep.”
“Punch on through.” (nod to the Twisted Riders)
Creating a bow wave on a street bike isn’t my idea of a good time, but I’m happy that it happened on level ground rather than switchbacks up in the mountains. Click here for a short video, taken just outside Aosta (GoPro mounted on left fairing).

We wound up slabbing back to Milan to pick up a couple of forgotten items, then south to Parma. We stopped for lunch in Piacenza, where we ordered by pointing to meals in a display case. I figured they were examples of what would be prepared for us – nope, they were pulled out of the case and microwaved “to order”. Stephanie’s tortellini was decent, my pork/veal/chicken cutlet paled in comparison to our “gas station” pizza in Venice. Oh well, it was fast and cheap.

On our way to Parma, we visited the Labyrinth of Masone in Fontanellato.

At the end of the maze

In the beginning…

Kevin’s ready for the challenge.

Haven’t we been here already?

It took us about 45 minutes to make our way through the world’s largest bamboo maze to the pyramid at the center; then we viewed Ricci’s eclectic art collection.

Once in Parma, we ate supper at a local grocery store / restaurant, which included incredible Parma ham, a pork shoulder stuffed pasta (with no cheese inside), and strawberry panna cotta – yum!

So, not a lot of motorcycle roads today, but plenty of roads on a motorcycle. 🙂

Today’s ride out of the Aosta Valley of Italy took us north over the Gran San Bernardino Pass, a ridge between Mont Blanc and Mont Rosa, the 2 highest summits in the Alps. I could see roadways as we headed up the hill (understatement), and I kept thinking “Surely, we are not going up THERE,” Yup, we did. Continue reading →

We had to do laundry in Milan this morning – Friday was a bank holiday, and yesterday we went to Lake Como. We were waiting when the sweet shop keeper came to open the door. At this style laundromat, there are no coin slots – you pay the attendant and they wash/dry and even fold your clothes if you are not back in time. This gave us opportunity to take in a local bakery with all the croissants they had to offer. Our niece Clara would have been in heaven.

I always dress like this on laundry day!

Yummo!

A quick stop back at the hotel to gather our things and we were off to HP Motorad to pick up the bike. The bags we sent by courier from Roma were waiting for us at the rental agency. We brought our seat and gear in a huge hockey equipment bag, other motorcycle accessories in a large suitcase, and a small suitcase just in case Stephanie leaves Italy with more stuff than she brought. 😉

We thought we packed light, but consolidating normal clothes with motorcycle clothes is still a process, and we had to leave some stuff that we intended to take on the bike. As long as we can find a bottle of Febreze, we’ll be fine.

Our planned route is a jagged counter-clockwise path through northern Italy, beginning and ending in Milano. We knew that Friday June 2nd was Republic Day in Italy. After further consideration, we decided not to head north from Milan to the Lake Como area on the bike for Day One, but instead opted to take the Autostrade west (called “slabbing it”) and then head to Aosta, Italy.  This town is north of Turin near Mont Blanc at the border of Switzerland.

This plan suited my pillion just fine as it gave her time to settle in to riding in Italian traffic and allowed us to start figuring out road signs before it became imperative. I  could also watch the locals and follow their lead in lane splitting!

The terrain out of Milan was flat and then out of nowhere, there were mountains. Stephanie gave up pointing out all of the castles, cliffs and steeply terraced grape patches because they were everywhere. I can’t imagine the harvest! Tomorrow, we should be all set with camera and GoPro on the bike so you can see what we are seeing. Tonight, we’ve settled in to La Charaban and are headed down for dinner.

Aosta Valley Italy

Trying to find a hotel

Aosta Valley Italy