What can be more satisfying than the first holiday text. 'Im on the boat: see you in Geneva'.
Sleeping comfortably within the bowels of The Queen of Scandinavia with three weeks of continental biking ahead of you is nice.
Travelled leisurely through Holland, Belgium and France, using the most rural roads I could find until reaching the first stop, Sedan, A magnificent fort, converted to a hotel.
Over the mountains, into Switzerland to meet Louise who was already complaining about the dump of a hotel I had booked her. I showed her pics of my fort hotel to cheer her up. Somehow this had the opposite effect.
Round the lake and over the St Bernard pass to Aosta in Italy for the next night, where it pissed rain most of the night.
Loitering in Aosta
Took the motorway down to Genova the next day.
Chris Columbus came from there. Nice place in bits.
Onto Savona for the ferry to Corsica next day.
Corsica is made from boulders, held together by very narrow strips of tarmac.
Deciding to follow one of the tarmac strips, we crossed between the boulders to St Floret for an evening of eating and posh yacht viewing.
These boat owners are strange folk. They sail round the globe, park, then sit on the back of the boat all night. They never seem to set foot on land.
Right ... next morn, set off on a diagonal tar strip to our base for the next week. Twisty twisty even more twistier, and after what felt like a thousand mile journey, reached our base for a week.
A concrete box, loosely named 'a bungalow', in Solenzaria. On the east coast. Mozzie-ridden sweatbox, but convenient for some sightseeing.
From there we explored a few mountain passes and dooked in the rockpools.
Ahh ... rockpools. Wonderful places, some of them with naked ladies in them.
This one sat doing her toenails for an hour, and only covered up her bald ladyhole when I got the camera out. Spoilsport !!
The path down to the pools was sometimes a bit rocky.
Porto Vecchio was boring. Bonifacio was wonderful.
We decided that six days in the sweatbox was enough, so I made an executive decision to get the hell outa dodge and move to the west.
Propriano, via Sartene was the next stop.
On the way there, we passed through the areas which suffered severe fires recently.
The scenery was stunning. Burned black earth and tree trunks with colourful new growth.
Propriano was a relief from the previous place. Hotel balcony overlooking the sea and mountains.
We met a German motorcyclist who we named Franz. We didnt ask him his name.
Louise immediately brought up the war, and we spent a jolly couple of hours accusing and defending , but all in good fun.
I think it was the week in the Solenzaria camp which filled her with the spirit of internment and torture.
Incidentally .... whilst in the sweatbox, I was bitten by mozzies on the eyelid and on the penis. The swelling was huge .... on the eyelid and sex was impossible for ........ hours.
We decided to make a mozzie killing device.
Well .... thats not strictly true. We had forgot the adaptor, so being a resourceful sort of guy, I adapted things.
Didnt half give the maid a fright though !!!
Where was I. I keep going off track. OK .... Back to the holiday ramblings. From our hotel we managed to book a ferry to Nice from Ajjacio, so we headed up to there. Dumped the gear in the hotel and headed for the Calanche area, between Piana and Porto.
The 60 mile ride up to there was really picturesque, but the Calanches were something else.
If you go to Corsica. dont miss this bit.
Alas, our time in Corsica was over. Nice place, but extremely expensive.
We arrived at the ferry terminal early and the ferry was not even there. It arrived at about 7.15. It was due to leave at 8.
Now, its not a small ferry, but out came the cars and lorries, and in went us.
It left dead-on 8 oclock. Really efficient.
Across to Nice.
I had PM'd Franco and asked if he wanted to meet for coffee, but he texted later to say that ha had been away for a holiday with his wife and didnt get my message. Lousy excuse Rob!! Dya not think we havn't used that one before !!
I decided to recreate a trip which Louise and I had taken in 1978, when we went from Port Grimaud to Antibes on a monkey bike .... The time when Louise got severe sunstroke.
The traffic in 2009 was a lot busier and the heat was hotter ..... and Lou was just as annoyed as she was all these years ago.
Get me the feck away from this heat and traffic , I heard her swear.
I high tailed it up to the slightly cooler quieter climes of Grasse. There was a farmers market happening. Louise chatted up a handsome French stallholder for about an hour. I drank beer.
Now ... Its seemingly illegal to motorbike down that way without travelling up the route Napoleon. We went up it to Castelanne, and the route was as good as ever.
From there to Aix-le-Bains stopping in the very same layby which Napoleon himself faced up to the royalist troops and said 'who's wantin a square-go then'. 'if your not wanting a fight let me move on'. They let the wee guy carry on.
There is a plate which says this, and a big statue of him on his horse.
The 4 star hotel behind the casino was fab and we got a special rate and an upgrade. Nicked the unopened yoghurts and things from the breakfast trays left outside the rooms and had a feast then had 4 star posh sex. I was probably 5star considering I was boosted by mosquito venom.
Return journeys are never as exciting as the outward ones and as good as it was, I cant be bothered writing about it.
Oh... almost forgot. Found a big cock. Her is Lou performing the Funky Chicken in front of it.
Me with my ' Homme Sac' in Delft ... which is a lovely place.
And we are still in love .... after all that !!
Now ...... where can we go next year ????
Sleeping comfortably within the bowels of The Queen of Scandinavia with three weeks of continental biking ahead of you is nice.
Travelled leisurely through Holland, Belgium and France, using the most rural roads I could find until reaching the first stop, Sedan, A magnificent fort, converted to a hotel.
Over the mountains, into Switzerland to meet Louise who was already complaining about the dump of a hotel I had booked her. I showed her pics of my fort hotel to cheer her up. Somehow this had the opposite effect.
Round the lake and over the St Bernard pass to Aosta in Italy for the next night, where it pissed rain most of the night.
Loitering in Aosta
Took the motorway down to Genova the next day.
Chris Columbus came from there. Nice place in bits.
Onto Savona for the ferry to Corsica next day.
Corsica is made from boulders, held together by very narrow strips of tarmac.
Deciding to follow one of the tarmac strips, we crossed between the boulders to St Floret for an evening of eating and posh yacht viewing.
These boat owners are strange folk. They sail round the globe, park, then sit on the back of the boat all night. They never seem to set foot on land.
Right ... next morn, set off on a diagonal tar strip to our base for the next week. Twisty twisty even more twistier, and after what felt like a thousand mile journey, reached our base for a week.
A concrete box, loosely named 'a bungalow', in Solenzaria. On the east coast. Mozzie-ridden sweatbox, but convenient for some sightseeing.
From there we explored a few mountain passes and dooked in the rockpools.
Ahh ... rockpools. Wonderful places, some of them with naked ladies in them.
This one sat doing her toenails for an hour, and only covered up her bald ladyhole when I got the camera out. Spoilsport !!
The path down to the pools was sometimes a bit rocky.
Porto Vecchio was boring. Bonifacio was wonderful.
We decided that six days in the sweatbox was enough, so I made an executive decision to get the hell outa dodge and move to the west.
Propriano, via Sartene was the next stop.
On the way there, we passed through the areas which suffered severe fires recently.
The scenery was stunning. Burned black earth and tree trunks with colourful new growth.
Propriano was a relief from the previous place. Hotel balcony overlooking the sea and mountains.
We met a German motorcyclist who we named Franz. We didnt ask him his name.
Louise immediately brought up the war, and we spent a jolly couple of hours accusing and defending , but all in good fun.
I think it was the week in the Solenzaria camp which filled her with the spirit of internment and torture.
Incidentally .... whilst in the sweatbox, I was bitten by mozzies on the eyelid and on the penis. The swelling was huge .... on the eyelid and sex was impossible for ........ hours.
We decided to make a mozzie killing device.
Well .... thats not strictly true. We had forgot the adaptor, so being a resourceful sort of guy, I adapted things.
Didnt half give the maid a fright though !!!
Where was I. I keep going off track. OK .... Back to the holiday ramblings. From our hotel we managed to book a ferry to Nice from Ajjacio, so we headed up to there. Dumped the gear in the hotel and headed for the Calanche area, between Piana and Porto.
The 60 mile ride up to there was really picturesque, but the Calanches were something else.
If you go to Corsica. dont miss this bit.
Alas, our time in Corsica was over. Nice place, but extremely expensive.
We arrived at the ferry terminal early and the ferry was not even there. It arrived at about 7.15. It was due to leave at 8.
Now, its not a small ferry, but out came the cars and lorries, and in went us.
It left dead-on 8 oclock. Really efficient.
Across to Nice.
I had PM'd Franco and asked if he wanted to meet for coffee, but he texted later to say that ha had been away for a holiday with his wife and didnt get my message. Lousy excuse Rob!! Dya not think we havn't used that one before !!
I decided to recreate a trip which Louise and I had taken in 1978, when we went from Port Grimaud to Antibes on a monkey bike .... The time when Louise got severe sunstroke.
The traffic in 2009 was a lot busier and the heat was hotter ..... and Lou was just as annoyed as she was all these years ago.
Get me the feck away from this heat and traffic , I heard her swear.
I high tailed it up to the slightly cooler quieter climes of Grasse. There was a farmers market happening. Louise chatted up a handsome French stallholder for about an hour. I drank beer.
Now ... Its seemingly illegal to motorbike down that way without travelling up the route Napoleon. We went up it to Castelanne, and the route was as good as ever.
From there to Aix-le-Bains stopping in the very same layby which Napoleon himself faced up to the royalist troops and said 'who's wantin a square-go then'. 'if your not wanting a fight let me move on'. They let the wee guy carry on.
There is a plate which says this, and a big statue of him on his horse.
The 4 star hotel behind the casino was fab and we got a special rate and an upgrade. Nicked the unopened yoghurts and things from the breakfast trays left outside the rooms and had a feast then had 4 star posh sex. I was probably 5star considering I was boosted by mosquito venom.
Return journeys are never as exciting as the outward ones and as good as it was, I cant be bothered writing about it.
Oh... almost forgot. Found a big cock. Her is Lou performing the Funky Chicken in front of it.
Me with my ' Homme Sac' in Delft ... which is a lovely place.
And we are still in love .... after all that !!
Now ...... where can we go next year ????
