Long Way Home

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Despite thorough planning which included printing several maps, each one at bigger scale than the next, I missed a crucial off-ramp almost immediately entering Naples. I was still contemplating the fine I just got - the way I was brought up, you take your punches and smile about it, but I felt I'd been ambushed. While engaged in deep philosophical musing I was caught in the second lane over with traffic between me and the offramp as the "Aeroporto" sign flashed by. Luckily the road I was looking for runs past the airport, so I was able to navigate by watching the aeroplanes land and find my way back to it.

Might as well speak my piece about Italian drivers now.....I'd noticed the previous time, that they drove like maniacs. Traffic is heavy in the cities, and they don't sweat the details like lanes and one-ways and robots unless they WILL die if they run the robot or whatever.  Remember those 5 or 6 stages of.....what was it again? You know....grief, denial, anger, acceptance bla-bla-bla.....that psycho babble you read in self-help books that keep chubby spinsters hanging off that oinker Oprah's ample lips?  Well - as I entered Naples, I was in the STUNNED  phase. With hindsight, the next phases were SHIT SCARED, then DAMOERIN, then DRIVE-LIKE-YOU-DO, then ADRENALINE RUSH and finally the HOOLIGAN stage. A week later, in clean, orderly and disciplined Munich, I was  ridiing on pavements and pulling U-turns over centre dividers until someone shook his fist at me and I schemed das Polizei is gonna get me.  Point is, the Italians - and I mean male, female, old, young,  EVERYONE - think they are Rossi or Andretti. I finally figured out that they see every trip in or on a motorised vehicle as a race. After a while I laughed my arse off at every robot - when it turns green, the 5 or 6 cars jammed into 3 lanes, with scooters in between at all angles, steek it like it's the start at Monza.  It's like a 30 second board goes up - they all run the revs onto the limiter, a cloud of 2-stroke smoke rises from the scooters, and when that light turns green they drop the hammer. The bigger bikes get the jump on the rest, followed by a swarm of scooters and then the cars.  Next robot, it's the same grid, same start. After a while I kept the 950 up with the leaders. And don't think the bikers are all  skeef okes or racer types - sexy Italian girls in mini skirts and business attire make up  a good part of the field  :imaposer:

I eventually got back on the road I missed, only to come up to a SCHIUSTO sign. Closed. For roadworks. After some more wild riding I found the cemetery I was looking for, in a dodgy part of town. There was a big policeman wandering around, apparently people had been mugged in the cemetery  :imaposer: jissis that's low.

It is a beautiful old city though, while trying to find the coast road I took this. That's Mount Vesuvius at left, Pompeii is on the beach below it. Didn't have time to go see it.



While I stood there taking photos, a big tour bus came towards me in this street. In fact, you can see it - the orange one. Let your imagination wander a bit. It was chaos  :laughing6:




I was absolutely SHOCKED by how filthy Naples was. I have NEVER seen so much litter ANYWHERE, and I've hung out in piss-holes like Nairobi and Mogadishu more than I really needed.  Piles of big plastic trash bags lay on every corner, and it smelled like...well, SHIT. At first I thought there must be a municipal strike or something going on, until someone told me that it's situazione normale. The mafia basically runs the city, and money for services go in their pockets. It sounded so familiar....except I didn't see any billboards with Zuma's cock-eyed mug on it. Unbelievable. I couldn't believe that a first-world city with so much history could be so filthy. The half of Africa that sat on street corners or tried to sell rubbish at robots  clearly couldn't care less....

After an hour and a half of sweating and swearing I finally got out of Naples, along the coast to the north. By 6 pm I was tired and looking for a place to stay. Several campgrounds along the beach were still painting and mowing for the coming sunner tourist wave, so I turned inland along a steep river cut through the mountains towards CASSINO.  In 1944 it had been the site of a major battle, and the famous Monte Cassino abbey on top of a mountain had been bombed flat by the Americans. Unnecessarily, as it turned out, and is today acknowledged. I hadn't planned on the stop, so knew little about the history of the place, but at one point the valley opened up and the view was breath-taking. It is instantly clear why the Germans defended the place like they did - the point the abbey sits on absolutely DOMINATES the valley, which runs north all the way to Rome.

This is literally the first glimpse I got of Monte Cassino.




A few k's further I found a nice hotel and booked in. Turns out it was the most expensive place I stayed in all trip, E75. I used Guido the speedcop's fine money to pay for it  :imaposer:
:middlefinger:

The view of Monte Cassino from the front garden of the hotel:


 
Yep, can't agree more about the bloody Ities and the way they drive, went through Italy in a VW Golf years ago... and they were none to pleased when I asked them when last an Italian had been F1 World Champ ? ... whilst they drive like lunatics... didn't go down well with them at all.  :biggrin:
 
They're all car and bike mad, it's strange that Italians don't dominate world motorsports. They haven't had much success at F1 especially in a long time, and it seems everybody's trying to prove THEY should be in Alonso's seat at Ferrari.

BUT - don't forget - these are the people who make Lamborghinis, Maseratis and Ferraris. And Agusta MV's, Ducatis and a lot more.....

Ane the girls are.......................where was I ??  O0
 
love your writing... just read it all again from the start ...
looking forward to some more please :thumleft:
 
After a 3 course pizza dinner at a restaurant across the street - the waitress, who didn't speak one word of English, was a bit offended that I declined the other two courses -  I crashed as I did every night around 8 or half-past. At any sit=down restaurant, you get at least 3 courses - salad, first course, second course, main course, dessert, cheese and crackers, coffee plus bread and olive oil, and of course whatever beer or wine you choose. No such thing as dine-and-dash. You're there for a while. Some big reception was going on in one of the dining rooms at the pizza place, everybody in suits and slacks and blazers except moi in shorts, flipflops and bright orange KTM T-shirt......spot the turista  :evil6:

The next morning I rode into town and up the mountain. As Table Mountain dominates Cape Town, so does this mountain Cassino. Having expended many weeks of my misspent youth on infantry attacks by section, platoon and company, I couldn't stop staring at the mountain trying to imagine what attacking uphill against the German paratroopers must have been like. I still haven't had time to read much about the battle in 1944, but I  have learned that the Allied forces had 55000 casualties here in a few weeks, mostly New Zealanders, Poles, Indians but Saffricans too. 

I could feel ghosts all around, believe me....

A view up the slope from town - note the remains of a small monastery halfway up that was left in the same condition as 70 years ago, and the rebuilt big one at the top.


View of Cassino from halfway up. The town was completely destroyed in 1944, everything is post-war construction:


Looking west, towards the Med:


Looking north, towards Rome. In those days the only road up the valley went right past the bottom of the mountain.


At the top, bikes park for free (as all over Europe) but I had to impose moto-apartheid - some very undesirable characters in the parking lot. Have you ever seen anything this fucking ugly??





SOMEBODY best go to confession for taking those into a holy place of beauty like Cassino  :evil6:









 
Long before the battle, the monks or priests or rabbis or whatever they were called, removed all the art and valuables from Cassino monastery and hid it somewhere. Once I got inside, I realised what would have been lost. This was my first ever pukka Italian monastery, and it's beautiful, if  a bit over the top. The monastery was rebuilt in the fifties as close as possible to the original 13th century building that was flattened.

Kiepie in the courtyard


Looking north from the courtyard. The white area on the right is the Polish War Cemetery.




The upper courtyard is ringed with statues of the Popes since back when. This PEUP, to quote Clouseau, did not strike me as a man of God:



WTF does a pope need a big blerrie sword for? But then, if you read about the history of the Catholic Church, especially in the Middle Ages, you find that it's really just a very repressive government masquerading as a religion....

As mentioned, the inside was breathtaking but garish. BAROQUE, I believe they call it. Looks more like the American idea of "fine art" to me  :evil6:




Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....the brothers brew their own wine or mampoer or whatever their long history of cultivating the vine has taught them. Sneaky, sneaky! I wondered where they keep the wimmen....on second thought, who needs 'em when you have altar boys, hey?? 


Some views coming down the mountain:



Unfortunately the Battle of Cassino Museum in town was closed, on Saturday for some reason. The place intrigued me, and I wanted to put what I'd seen in context but, MUSEO SCHIUSTO.

I returned to the coast via the river valley, and turned north towards Anzio, my next stop. The weather was absolutely magnificent - 24 degrees every day, not a cloud in the sky. After a stop in Anzio, I went  through a semi-rural area, with dirt roads turning off into the fields.

I believe that you can learn something new every day, no matter how old or jaded you are. My edu-macation on the subject of the birds and the bees is, despite being at graduate level if I may be so bold, still seriaasly deficient in some areas. (At least I realise it) My gay-dar lets me down routinely, and I can't tell a hoo-er from a nun to this day. It was proven again just outside Anzio  :dontknow:

While riding through the south a few days before, I had noticed the many turn-outs along the highways and other roads, as well as numerous rural bus stops, just a sign with a route number at some of these turn-outs and at crossroads. I'd seen women waiting for the buses, and at a few stops they were even sitting on white plastic chairs - the standard type that you see outdoors everywhere from SA to Wajiristan. I felt a little sorry for them, and thought, man that sucks - must have a long wait, the bastard Italian buses must be really unreliable.

Well, leaving Anzio, I saw THREE of them on white plastic chairs at a small crossroad, waiting for a bus.......they were dressed lekker slutty, and I laughed as I rode by, saying out loud inside my helmet, "....hey sissie, best you be careful, waiting for the bus out here dressed like hoo-ers..."

Then the penny dropped  :imaposer:

My sister had urged me to go into Rome and see the Colosseum and all that, but after the nightmarish ride through Naples I gave up on THAT bright idea. The ring road was busy enough, and I was glad when I found the exit to Lake Bracciano, about 35 k's northwest of the city. The attraction here was the Italian Air Force Museum, on the southern shore of the round lake. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was blown away - it's one of the best aviation museums I've seen, and the Smithsonian, RAF Hendon, Imperial War Museum, and a few others are on that list. The Italians have a unique talent for combining technology with atyle and art that you don't find anywhere else.

Just look at a Ducati or Agusta MV or Lamborghini.

This is a bike website, so I won't get carried away with the aeroplane bit, but these two should be familiar to most, the SAAF flew them:
Aermacchi  MB 326, or, in Saffricanese, IMPALA


Also a HARVARD


Yes Pieterkie, they really are - just a slightly unusual paintjob. For some reason I had a very strong urge to go lick them. Reminds me of a mango milkshake or something.
 
Great reading! Love your sense of humour, you're a funny mutha farker! :biggrin:
 
Per my normal MO, I'd found a perfectly good place to doss halfway between the little town of ANGUILLARA and the museum by riding past a sign on a gate that said "B+B". After offloading I went exploring and had some pizza in town.
Anguillara:


The town has a typical European waterfront, with restaurants, fountains, statues and dogs running around. Very peaceful and pleasant. Around 8 pm, just before the sun went down, the place literally started glowing in the golden evening sunlight:



I walked out on the pier to take photos, and noticed two swans nearby, obviously a couple. Now swans are interesting birds - like humans....uuuh TRY to do, they (swans) mate for life. These two were clearly having a domestic squabble. One, which from personal experience I deduced to be the female, suddenly took off and flew a wide circle before splashing down again 400 metres away. I knew it was the missus, because........"What's wrong, sweetie-pie?.... NOTHING.........SLAM!!"

Also, she was carrying a few extra kilos around the stern. The takeoff was anything but sudden, come to think of it. After a lot of wing-slapping and feet pedalling she eventually got airborne, only to run out of steam and land after 30 seconds. The landing was ungraceful too - feet stuck out, skied on them for a metre or so and fell into the water like a lifeboat off the Titanic. Very amusing to watch.

Then hubby, knowing he wasn't getting dinner that evening, cruised over to the pier where the humans were and looked for handouts:



Beautiful birds.

I hadn't gone far after leaving the Museum, when I saw fast movement out the corner of my eye just after passing through VITERBO. Turned out to be a very nice kart track, it was junior day on Sunday morning and a bunch of future F1 hopefuls were honing their skills. Some of the little ones, probably no more than 6 or 7, went around VERY fast.
I pulled into the pits and sat and watched for a while. I was struck by the professionalism of it all - really makes one wonder why they don't have more success at the top levels.



They don't seem to have much success in selling tickets either, but to be fair - it was free entry, and the crowd consisted of forty-something dads living their F1 dreams vicariously through little Enzo and Isabella, sexy mums in halter tops and tight jeans, and adoring siblings. I wish I'd had such opportunity when I was that age.....

Just north of Viterbo I entered Tuscany. The road was very quiet and the riding spectacular, probably half the traffic was bikes. Coming around a corner on the shore of yet another beautiful lake, I saw the entrance of yet another Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery, BOLSENA.  Totally unexpected, but another spur-of-the-moment stop. Turned out it's the second largest South African war cemetery in Italy, with at least 185 SA graves.

The research I'm busy with includes finding certain individuals' graves, and I'd been in several of the CWGC's beautiful cemeteries on the trip. No matter what your mental state when you visit one - and I can only  speak for myself - you end up with tears rolling down your face sooner or later. Some of the epitaphs are heart-wrenching. There are many - many - families in SA that have NEVER even seen the grave of the father, brother, son or uncle they lost in the war 70 years ago. I know, because I am working with two such people at the moment.

Most of these are SA graves


SA graves look like this:


This was in Naples, but they all have a Springbok engraved except for individuals who were in the British Navy or Air Force, and those typically have (from South Africa) below the RN or RAF badge.

I wonder if the criminal scum in the ANC will try and change these headstones to a protea or a bushman drawing too.....
 
 
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