On the road....day1
Bouncing around at 5.30am….Tim’s already out the front door for a ciggie…
Today’s THE DAY !!
Rocking up at BiancoBlu at 9, there are 5 bikes lined up in the yard, complete with luggage and tankbags…
BUT only one GS12 and one 650GS, HUHHH??
Francesca rolls up and rubs the hiring contracts under our noses….NO WAY !!
The R1150R, the 1150RT and the old 1100RT were definitely NOT on the menu !!!
Let’s get Renato in…which proves a 2hr. affair, the sun pelts down and we’re sitting there in the shade of the garage, suitcases still unpacked, waiting for El Maestro to explain where the missing 3 Gs’s are…:flame:
I’ll spare the details.... but eventually he rocks up, things get fairly ugly and frustrating (not just about the wrong bikes, but other things as well). In the end things get sorted, of course he’s got us over a barrel when it comes to the 3 non-GS’s…we’ll have to run with what’s in the yard for the start, bummer !
And that’s what we emailed back and forth about for the last 2.5 years?
BiancoBlu?? NEVER AGAIN !!!
The hope of closing the first day-on-the-road with the Col de Tende (juuuuust across the French border 30km from our stay for the night) had vanished into thin air, dammit !!
(we managed to get two more 2 GS’s ten days later, when we met up with Renato in Martigny/ Switzerland….the third GS never materialized, there weren’t even any replies at all to calls and SMS’s sent over a period of 4 days…before we gave up).
This wasn’t a good start
….and some of the bikes had blinking fuel-lights, so they weren’t even fuelled up. Thankfully there was a servo close by….
It’s early afternoon and we’re finally going, YEEHA !!! FINALLY !!!!
It’s hot, the smog sits like a blanket over the city, we’re soaked with sweat, the packing of the panniers had happened in a rush to get out of there….onto the Autostrada for our run towards Torino, then south towards Cuneo and the mountains near the French border.
Easy enough to find our way onto the Strada, the traffic is dense…after a couple of k’s we’re at the tollbooths.
The 2 lanes stretch into a 10-lane football-field, signs by the hundreds, which lane is for bikes, which one?? With all the traffic around it’s a stab in the dark, just stay away from those booths signed for trucks…
I pick one, the boomgate is open, the light is red….stop here?? I fiddle with the ticket-machine which turns the light to green, I’m through….wobble across the 4 or 6 lanes of traffic to the right sitting on my gloves, this will a little while till everyone gets through….
Turn around…and they’re all there!!! Huhhh???
“ Ticket? What ticket, the boom was open, thought you had a ticket for all of us…???”
Arggghhhh SHIT !!! The boom was broken !!! Anyone checked the green/red lights??
With the BiancoBlu frustration of the morning still in the system, it’s better to just keep going and sort out the mess at the other end, when we have to get off the Strada and pay up…
Roadworks after roadworks, speedlimits that nobody seems to give a shit about…Torino isn’t that far. I dread the looming toll exit before the ring-road around the industrial city and another piece of the toll-Strada, so we cut north-west a little to join another Autostrada that bypasses Torino, hopefully we’ll finish up with only one toll-exit at the end of the whole stretch, rather than sorting out the mess, just to enter another one 10 mins later.
It works and we sail around Torino, tacking south…the smog is still yellowish-brown, it’s still hot and we’re way behind in time.
There’s the sign to Cuneo…we roll onto a smaller, 4-lane apron, pick a booth and let the fun begin...:thun
“Mama Mia!!!” The wall of Italian is SOLID, not a word of English anywhere, the poor, old bastard burries his head in his arms…we ruined his day ! !
After 5 mins he decides to close his booth to all other traffic to sort us out and we’re lucky: no penalties, no max. charges…just the 6Euro50 or something that apply for the stretch we’ve taken…
The heart attack isn’t far off, but he comes through, arms and legs flailing, shouting and muttering… everyone gets a ticket which then has to be handed back to get punched…. we’re DONE.
Blood vessels slowly recede below skin-level again as we’re rolling south, an endless stream of smaller towns, the traffic very slowly getting thinner. Farmland, paddocks, vineyards, this is looking better.
A couple of stops to check with some locals, more sign language, heads shaking, pointing…the Google-map I’d printed out helps to find our booked accommodation, one of the local Agroturismo BnB’s, a loose collection of private rooms for rent in private homes.
Just above the valley and the worst of the smog, the gate opens to a cosy place set amongst a few acres of gardens and surrounding vineyards…Anna has remembered my booking and was expecting us.
An angel called Anna !!!!