Week 8 – Croatia to Italy

Monday 13th to Sunday 19th May

Mon 13th – Split

Today we get ourselves back to Split – very slowly. We’ve arranged to have the bike transported to the UK where it’ll be shipped back to Australia in July. However, the carrier is in Italy, and seeing as he’s the only one to answer our ClickTrans query, he gets the job, so we have to catch the ferry back to Ancona where we’ll meet him on Wednesday morning.

In the meantime we’ll have a look around the old town of Split, and it’s well worth the time and effort. If you’ve been there, the following will be pleasant memories. If you haven’t been there, the following may just ignite some interest.

Tues 14th

Tonight we catch the ferry for Ancona. We’ve bought new luggage and decanted our gear into them and filled the panniers with our ride gear, helmets etc. The previously BMW F900XR thoroughbred is now nothing more than a pack mule – which many may consider it was all along.
I’ve tried calling BMW Melbourne; they’ll get back to me – they haven’t.

Norma assures me she’s not happy 🙂

It’s a short ride and we’re in line for the ferry early where we spend the afternoon chatting and commiserating with other riders, as you do.
Time to load – “one last effort little bike” but alas, all it did was rattle loudly and refuse to start. It’d turn over just fine but none of the required noises were emitted. How embarrassing. So we pushed it the last 100mtrs to the ship.

And it’s our 41st wedding anniversary which we should have been celebrating in Budapest. We celebrate with a lovely sunset as we leave Split.

Wed  15th – Ancona to Pesaro

We’re off the boat under shank’s pony and are met by a delightful Bulgarian who will transport the bike to the UK, except it’s at least a kilometre to where he’s parked – good thing it was flat.

But eventually the bike is loaded and we bid it farewell as we drag our bags to the railway station for the train to Pesaro. If you’ve been to Europe you’ll be accustomed to the billions of cobble stones that are the footpaths, you’ll also be aware of the dreadful sound of the clackety clackety clack that wheely bags and cases make as they’re dragged along.
I believe in some places, like Venice, they’re going to tax that cacophony of the tourist orchestra as they drag their bags in the early morning stillness. We too joined that dreaded brigade.

Thurs  16th – Pesaro

We’ve decided we need a couple of days to relax and recuperate from the previous days of stress and disappointment so we take a hotel room on the beach to enjoy the sun – which didn’t eventuate; the sun that is.

For those amongst you who don’t know about Pesaro, it’s the home of famous motorcycle brand Benelli. (I didn’t either until my ignorance was exposed) So we took a tour of the Benelli Museum guided by an old and dignified Italian who was a wealth of history, information and loyalty to the brand. If you wish to remain uniformed, look away now.

And these are old Guzzis which I’m sure our guide would have preferred didn’t exist.

Fri 17th – Pesaro – Bologna – Lazise

The sun had decided to shine today as we prepared to catch the train to Bologna.
I’d managed to get BMW Melbourne to pick up the phone and we had an amiable discussion – at least they know that I’ll be around to see them when I get back.

And the bike has arrived in the UK without any customs issues which is a real relief. Thank you MoveCars4U Ltd

It looks pretty good there, but it’s the noisy bit that’s letting it down.

The reason for Bologna was to collect our hire car for the next 6 weeks of our journey.
We spent 3 hours wandering around downtown Bologna, which, like Naples, I’m sure you could spend a week wandering around. My apologies, there are just way too many pictures following – but really, if you’ve seen the city you understand.
And no Mark, we didn’t visit the Ducati museum.

We picked up our AVIS Rental car – a Manual Fiat 500 Panda in white, sans sunroof. What a beast.

And headed for the hills.

Sat 18th May – Lazise on Lake Garda

It seems that whole of northern Italy is in the tiny walled town of Lazise this weekend. It is literally packed with people filling the never ending range of restaurants, street stalls, shoe shops and  gelateria. And the tourist season hasn’t started yet.

Famous for its Scaliger Castle Lazise is considered as the first and oldest comune in Italy, and perhaps all of Europe, dating back to the 9th century.

Sun 19th May – Malcesine – 40klm

It’s only 40klms from Lazise to Malcesine but there are a few places to see so it took us 5 hours.

We stopped at Bardolino which is only a couple of Ks up the road, and immediately ran into the inevitable problem of driving a car around Europe, even a white Fiat 500 Panda without sunroof. Finding a car park! For sure, there are quite a few car parks and they’re well sign posted, but there are more cars wanting to park than there are spaces available to be parked in. Whereas all those cheeky motorcycle riders just parked wherever they liked – how rude is that 😦

Garda, where we had a brew and snapped this.
We’ve seen quite a few Moto Guzzis today, all of them either new V7 850s or these V85TTs.
Norma thinks it might be a sign 🙂

Dream On! Mmmm.

Torri del Benaco

And Castelletto, where we had some lunch and went for a long walk.

We think we walked further than we drove today, but eventually we got to Malcesine where we’re stopping for 3 nights before heading to Cortina where we’ll pick up our original journey.

See you next week.