Going to Northern Italy

[Pedro]

1 minute ago, boboneleg said:

When it rains in the lake district of Italy it really rains.  I love when you see all the scooters/bikes parked up in the tunnels waiting for it to stop 

Served a good purpose of washing some of the mud off the GS, I was a little embarrassed to return it in the state it was in and would have had to wash it before.

[JustaPor]

15 hours ago, Pedro said:

(...) They were riding two Honda CB750X, Sofia had given the Speed Triple a rest from this trip. (...)

 

 

Those are NC750X.
I know you're not a Honda guy so I'll let it slip.  

Anyway, another great ride report! 

 

[Pedro]

Barolo is very nice, very pretty town and the surrounding farms on top of each hill like little castles. It's clearly a motorcycle destination as we saw lots of groups of Italian bikes riding through, we arrived on a friday and there were lots of them, and on saturday when we left in the morning there were lots more. There was even a guy taking pictures of bikers on the road with a sign for a website, but I forgot about the name and didn't find it on google. Will look into it a little more. What I don't really like about Barolo is their very typical, very old school red wine, they call it the king of wines but I really don't agree. I'll consider it a pretty motorcycle destination but not really a wine one.

Anyway, in the morning we set off in perfect motorcycling weather, heading to France.

 

An hour and a half hours later, espresso stop.

 

We chose a nice and wide main road to cross into France, the Col de Larche, at just a smidge under 2000 meters was nice and smooth, wide roads, nice going to make progress. Still, it's as tall as the Serra da Estrela, Continental Portugal's highest mountain.

 

Picnic stop for lunch in Jausiers, already in France.

 

We were going to keep on country roads, but on the map they seemed easy and pointing more or less straight in the destination we were aiming for, which was to go past near Carcassone the next day. The scenery we found was great, and really surprised me since I was hoping for something a little boring. 

Firstly still high up in the mountains:

 

And then lowering onto farm lands, through tiny roads, no markings and a little bumpy, we were making slowish progress, but steady and pointing the right way. What you can't see in the pictures is the high winds, those really picked up and made it a little uncomfortable.

 

The mountains gave way to farms, and those led to gorges

 

We didn't stop for many pictures as we needed to move, but the scenery really surprised me as by looking at the map it seemed like it would disappoint after the mountains. Eventually we got onto properly wide and main roads, and that made us keep a higher average speed, but the winds were merciless. This region of France was under a yellow warning for high winds, with 20 to 30 knot winds through two or three days.

A little tired of it, we got off the road at 18:00, a little earlier than planned, and just found the closest "cheap" hotel. This was in Pont-Saint-Esprit, the hotel was a little poor, shabby, not expensive while not really good value either, but in the center of town so we could have a little walk before dinner. 

 

The town was a disgrace, it might have been vibrant 10 years ago but has fallen in disgrace. Lots of abandoned houses, lots of closed businesses that looked like they have been closed for a while. This was a saturday afternoon and the best restaurant in town was closed for dinner, only reopening on tuesday? The real estate agent's shop itself looked half abandoned, and most of the adds showed no price. It really felt like a ghost town in the making. We did have a walk, still enduring the high winds.

 

We picked the cheaper of the two restaurants available, but the most inviting by looking at the warm lights inside from now a quickly darkening street. The meal was a very pleasant surprise, and we all liked it quite a bit, washed it down with some local wine from a place where we had ridden a couple of hours prior.

 

As I type this, Sofia is looking and sorting some invoices, and I reflect on what a good business it must be to have a restaurant in Italy, but I'll leave those reflections to the final post. 

Next day, onwards onto the Pyrenees.

[Pedro]

In the morning we avoided the hotel's overpriced breakfast, packed the bikes, and had a lovely fresh croissant (or two ) on a patisserie, along with juice and coffee. You can love or hate France and the French, but nothing beats a nice still warm croissant in the morning! No pictures of that as we were eating outside and I was trying to keep the pastry from flying away with breakfast stealing winds!

By 08:30 we were already traveling, as we left town the police was closing down a street for some kind of protest, I suppose people there aren't happy with the state of their town either. 

 

We rode through little pretty villages and tree lined roads for 20 or 30km, and got on the motorway heading for Carcassone. We were on a schedule as this part of the trip wasn't planned before, the girls were supposed to catch the ferry from Italy back to Barcelona, but after having a not very pleasant ride on the first trip, and hearing my praises on the beauty of the french side of the Pyrenees, they decided to give up on Barcelone and ride all the way back. Hence, we had a timetable to maintain, easy enough miles but it did mean there had to be motorway bits.  We had maybe 200 or 250km to get to Carcassone, and doing that we were expecting to get out of the wind storms that affected the area we were on, so the motorway provided the relief we needed, and indeed after a couple of hours we were in Carcassone where the winds were now just a breeze.

We went on a walk, but the place felt like too much of a tourist trap on Sunday. We didn't do ourselves any favors by parking a little far from the castle, we ended up going for a nice walk, eating a pretty shitty sandwich on a place I chose , and moved on.

 

Walking back to the bikes, I came upon @Skippy's old bike.

 

From Carcassone onwards, we rode more or less the same route I had ridden by myself when entering France a week before. I was keen on showing that area to the girls. 

Eventually, stopping to figure out where to sleep on the same pretty castle I visited before. 

 

We were quickly running out of daylight, so hurriedly booked the same place I had also stayed before. Unfortunately being a Sunday they didn't have a dinner meal available. I ended up riding to Lourdes to buy something for an in house picnic. The two open supermarkets didn't have bread, so that was out, carrying pizzas by myself was also not a possibility, so ended up getting Indian takeaway. Two different biryanis, some sort of chicken nuggets with red seasoning and onions, and something else. That's what I ended up with as they messed the order completely. Along with a bottle of wine, and that was it. Lack of plates and other things meant we had it from cups, the ladies had fun but I honestly was not happy about it.

 

Next day, Pyrenees and onto Spain.

[JustaPor]

I found your photographer...

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[Pedro]

We got up to a cold morning, the cars (not covered like the bikes were) were starting to get a bit of a frosty look to them. To prevent the girls having to ride around on the soft gravel, I maneuvered the Honda NC750X (@JustaPor) onto the front of the house, these are cool little bikes and the frunk is an addictive thing to have on a bike. Again, I'll post my opinion on them later on, same as on the 1250GS.

 

 

 

We slept on the outskirts of Lourdes, and first thing was heading up the Pyrenees to the Col D'Aubisque, from South to North, half way up the mountain @Sofia stopped to see a honey stall. The owner was a very nice elderly man whose hives were just in sight behind the stall. Sadly the honey was all packed in plastic containers with lids that pop off, however tempting it would have been to bring honey from such a cool location, you could see the potential for a big mess if one of those lids pops off mid trip.

 

Going up the Col de Soulor

 

And a stop at the Col D'Aubisque for a coffee. When I was here last week it was not sunny at all, there were hardly any bikes coming up and bikers basquing in the sun, but it didn't look any less pretty in the rain. A bunch of british bikers turned up, and didn't say hello back to the girls even though they did greet them in English. Having a portuguese plate Barbara was obviously in disguise, but I really don't understand why some brits do that, we had the same in Yorkshire last year. Anyway, it was glorious up there.

 

A little more than an hour after, we stop for lunch in a little village, having spotted a small grocery shop. Couldn't be any more french, that, I had a nice jambon beurre, and we sat outside watching France happening. A guy bought his baguette for lunch, and 10 minutes after came back for a bottle of red wine, his Citroen CX15 having clearly endured a pretty hard existence so far.

 

It was a lovely place to stop.

 

I guided the small group via a small roads through very green valleys, and then up the mountains that I had previously seen through deep fog and under rain.

 

Strike a pose:

 

And just like that, we were down the mountains and onto the Spanish side of the Basque country. We rode to Pamplona for the night, and stayed in a hotel in the outskirts of town. In hindsight, we should have looked for something near the centre as that would have allowed us to walk out in search of a nice place to eat, Pamplona must have plenty. Instead, we ate in the hotel's restaurant, they advertised it as a special restaurant but it turned out to be very mediocre, a true disappointment.

I did my best to impersonate a Bond villain, while sat in an armchair.

 

Next day, onto the Picos da Europa.

 

[Pedro]

13 minutes ago, JustaPor said:

I found your photographer...

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https://picmood.com/shop/967985

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You star!

[Pedro]

In the morning, the outside of our hotel was full of bikes ready to go out, most of them to one way or the other catch a ferry in Santander or Bilbao, returning back home to the UK. 

 

We get on the motorway for a bit, then onto smaller roads heading through a particularly ugly part of Spain into the Picos da Europa. Every small town seemed desolate and sad, might be just me but those small villages and towns in that area suck the life out of you. We stopped for a coffee and some breakfast in the form of toast or whatever. No chance of that, nothing to eat whatsoever, in a cafe , they had coffee, coffee with milk, and all sorts of spirits. We had a pretty horrible coffee and left.

Eventually, making it to the start of our third mountain range in this trip, after the Alps and the Pyrenees. The weather had given us a little bit of a hint of rain, and a few sprinkles, so the waterproofs were partially on. The cold in the Spanish plains also made it easy to want to put them on, but now that the pace had slowed we were much more comfortable.

A stop in a village where we slept last year on our way to England, to plan things and figure out a place to sleep that night. After a little, we found our bearing.

 

 

@Sofia remembered a viewing point where we were riding past, so we stopped there, there were a few big birds there, which were very interesting to see but kind of hidden by the clouds. It's still very cool to see vultures and eagles up in the air not very far away from you. Didn't get any nice pictures of them, though.

 

 

Our final stop, to book a place for the night. We were ready to stop, so it only took 15 or 20 minutes to get there, a nice little apartment a few minutes from the little town of Potes. We left the luggage and went to Potes to buy groceries to cook dinner and eat "at home". Potes looks very quaint and cute in the pictures, but was really a busy tourist trap. Most shops were for souvenirs, most cafes were horrible, we had a little walk around, sat in a cafe for a while and then gave up and went away.

 

Back home, Sofia and Barbara talked to our Dutch neighbors for a while, while I caught up with work.

 

That night we ate some portobello mushroom linguine, drank some below average spanish wine, and went to be a little tired.

 

[Skippy]

Wow that’s some ride report @Pedro, great photos too. Thanks for showing me what a working DR600 looks like

[Pedro]

New day, heading to Portugal. We left Potes while it was still a little cold, but sunny enough. Stopped for breakfast and parked next to a very odd looking Land Rover.

 

 

After a brief stop at a lookout, which was mostly taken over by me having a few work calls and emails, we pointed the bikes towards Portugal. Hopped on a very boring motorway for a little bit, then some main roads, and we made it to the border quite early.

 

We were to spend the night very close to the border, sleep in one of my favourite places and have dinner at my favourite Trasmontano restaurant. I had called and asked for my favourite rice to go along with the usual grilled beef.

In the meantime, we made time by showing Barbara a little bit around the area.

 

We got ourselves installed, and walked up to have dinner at an appropriate time. I loved it, didn't disappoint. 

 

We made it back to the hotel under an amazing sky, at around 22:30 the full moon lit the clouds from behind, and it looked even better in real life.

 

The reason we stayed here was partly because it wasn't too far away from the Picos da Europa, but also because Northern Portugal was plagued with a natural disaster in the form of forest fires. The air was very smokey, the country was in panic, and we wanted to see if that got a little bit resolved before venturing farther on. That was left for tomorrow.

[boboneleg]

Well you certainly got better weather on your return trip ........

 

.

[boboneleg]

I'm loving this road , is it anywhere near St Jean pied de Port ?  If so I have ridden it about 12 years ago .

 

[Sir Fallsalot]

Thank you @Pedro made a very wet and dreary day in Wales today more tolerable 

[Pedro]

6 hours ago, boboneleg said:

I'm loving this road , is it anywhere near St Jean pied de Port ?  If so I have ridden it about 12 years ago .

 

Indeed, Bob.

[Saul]

4 hours ago, Sir Fallsalot said:

Thank you @Pedro made a very wet and dreary day in Wales today more tolerable 

Yeah what my Welsh friend said.   Reading this report has made my night shift a whole lot better.   Thank you @Pedro

[Pedro]

On our last day, things could have ended on a happier note. Portugal was going through a lot of forest fires, but we still tried to make the best of the morning, at least to give Barbara a glimpse into what northern Portugal has to offer.

Packing the bikes at 9:30, not exactly an early start.

 

And getting into it, already in the distance you can see the smoke haze.

 

One hour into it, and an espresso stop. The pace is relentless 

 

The views from the top of my favourite Castle, I don't like the smokey air.

 

And the view from our lunch stop, a few delicious and very good value sandwiches made at the local firefighter house bar 

 

A couple of hours later, and we stop by the Douro. 

 

It was pretty clear that we were going into the deep smoke, so stopped to make a decision on route. Initially, the small road I was going through would take too long, three or four hours to get to Porto while enduring thick smoke was no way to enjoy it. Also, second more direct route took us very close to one of the big fires, I didn't like that idea at all as with heat and wind things quickly turn from adventure into disaster. We would get to Regua and then get on a big motorway, a little bit more distance but safer.

Still had to do 45 minutes or an hour to get there, shortly after, what is usually a very scenic typical Douro vineyard view looked like this:

 

The motorway wasn't more pleasant... sometimes with fires illuminating the haze that now was very thick and ever present.

 

 

I stopped taking pictures, it just wasn't pleasurable. We returned the bikes at around 18:30, and then, instead of going to visit Porto for a night, hoped in my car and drove to Sofia's, almost 300km away. 

It was not the end of the trip I wanted, and it is heartbreaking as there is talk of a lot of these fires being caused by criminals. Now the weather has changed a little and that area is getting back under control, so all is looking better.

 

[boboneleg]

That;s a real shame about the fires , we're fortunate that it's not something we get a lot of in UK .

[YamaHead]

Great report @Pedro....those smokey sky's are no fun....we see them here every summer.

[Sofia]

On 22/09/2024 at 11:59, Pedro said:

In the morning we avoided the hotel's overpriced breakfast, packed the bikes, and had a lovely fresh croissant (or two ) on a patisserie, along with juice and coffee. You can love or hate France and the French, but nothing beats a nice still warm croissant in the morning! No pictures of that as we were eating outside and I was trying to keep the pastry from flying away with breakfast stealing winds!

By 08:30 we were already traveling, as we left town the police was closing down a street for some kind of protest, I suppose people there aren't happy with the state of their town either. 

 

We rode through little pretty villages and tree lined roads for 20 or 30km, and got on the motorway heading for Carcassone. We were on a schedule as this part of the trip wasn't planned before, the girls were supposed to catch the ferry from Italy back to Barcelona, but after having a not very pleasant ride on the first trip, and hearing my praises on the beauty of the french side of the Pyrenees, they decided to give up on Barcelone and ride all the way back. Hence, we had a timetable to maintain, easy enough miles but it did mean there had to be motorway bits.  We had maybe 200 or 250km to get to Carcassone, and doing that we were expecting to get out of the wind storms that affected the area we were on, so the motorway provided the relief we needed, and indeed after a couple of hours we were in Carcassone where the winds were now just a breeze.

We went on a walk, but the place felt like too much of a tourist trap on Sunday. We didn't do ourselves any favors by parking a little far from the castle, we ended up going for a nice walk, eating a pretty shitty sandwich on a place I chose , and moved on.

 

Walking back to the bikes, I came upon @Skippy's old bike.

 

From Carcassone onwards, we rode more or less the same route I had ridden by myself when entering France a week before. I was keen on showing that area to the girls. 

Eventually, stopping to figure out where to sleep on the same pretty castle I visited before. 

 

We were quickly running out of daylight, so hurriedly booked the same place I had also stayed before. Unfortunately being a Sunday they didn't have a dinner meal available. I ended up riding to Lourdes to buy something for an in house picnic. The two open supermarkets didn't have bread, so that was out, carrying pizzas by myself was also not a possibility, so ended up getting Indian takeaway. Two different biryanis, some sort of chicken nuggets with red seasoning and onions, and something else. That's what I ended up with as they messed the order completely. Along with a bottle of wine, and that was it. Lack of plates and other things meant we had it from cups, the ladies had fun but I honestly was not happy about it.

 

Next day, Pyrenees and onto Spain.

Having curry from a teacup was an absolute first and super funny! It's what happens when we travel without previous booking and it was a fun experience! The food was tasty, if a little hot, but had a great yogurt sauce to calm it down.