Part 3: Dubrovnik, Croatia to Barcelona, Spain
Introduction. By this time, riding with much reduced power relative to what I started with and other implications of a central-nervous system that was fully tapped-out by the first two sections of the tour, I set out, on Part 3, with kindness and patience for the rider foremost in my mind as I rolled off of the ferry boat that brought me across the Adriatic Sea, the night before, from Dubrovnik, Croatia. Readers will find a complete elevation profile, and stats, for Part 3 to the right and (or) below along with highlights from sections that I had in mind as I rode Part 3 of Europa 360.
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Dates: 21 October to 13 November (24 days)
Distance: 1,928 miles (3,103 kilometers), 80/102 miles per day including/excluding 5 rest days. Distance and miles per day include a few short, insignificant crossings and three significant ones: ca. 133 mile (214 km) transect of the Adriatic Sea from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Bari, Italy, ca. 289 mile (465 km) transect of the Tyrannian Sea from Palermo, Sicily to Cagliari, Sardinia; and a ca. 208 mile (334 km) transect of the Ligurian Sea from Bastia, Corsica to Toulon, France. Climbing: 54,445 (16,595 meters) GPS Details: https://ridewithgps.com/trips/116297054 |
Dubrovnik, Croatia to Messina, Italy: Despite near total annihilation from the shock waves associated wlovelyith a 1667 earthquake and artillery bombardments during the 1991-1995 Croatian War of Independence, Dubrovnik offers a genuine, well preserved window into the past, where Byzantine citizens took refuge in the 7th century and much later the same territory was incorporated by a few of Charlemagne's naughty progeny, into the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy. The old town and its massive outer buttresses leave no doubt that this place was assembled in bygone days. Work left for perpetuity, built by hands that understood and advocated for meticulous angles and fits, and cared for to the present day with the same concern.
Five days came and went quickly as I waited for the next ferry to Italy and otherwise caught up on social media posts, checked my bike into the Dubrovnik Bike Adventure Shop for a pro servicing, explored the town, and prepared many hot meals in two cozy apartments, one in the old town itself and the next high on a hill overlooking most of the town and the coast below hosted by a woman with only loving kindness in her heart, Mirjana. Between all those tasks and pleasures, I also slipped into a local barber shop, this one, and came out feeling fresh and aero for Part 3 of Europa 360.
I arrived by bicycle in the dark to Dubrovnik on day 56 of the tour and departed by ship (video journal update) as evening was just settling in on day 61. I was on my way to Bari, Italy via a complete east to west, overnight transect of the Adriatic Sea. And not too soon either, because there was just one more sailing available for the season once my ship departed the Port of Dubrovnik. Onboard, I secured my bike and quickly moved into a private cabin before exploring the decks where I said my final goodbye from the portside to a town that will always be a fond memory (video journal update).
After so much time spent idle relative to the 56 days that brought me to Dubrovnik, I was ready to start riding again (video journal update) as I exited the ship, in gorgeous morning sunshine, and also curious how my body would feel after a rest block that was twice the duration of blocks taken with friends in France, Belgium, Germany, and Finland during Part 1 of Europa 360. Inside the terminal, I paused by a man dressed in a military uniform and hand gestured in a way that asked, "how should I proceed."
He communicated in a similar way that I should "stop for a moment", and following a short conversation on his radio pointed me in the most favorable direction. Soon I was exiting one more maze, it seems that all ferry terminals are this way, towards a gate and a comfortable and colorful promenade, Lungomare Imperatore Augusto. I took time to absorb the Italian debut of this tour, on those initial streets in Bari, a solo neutral roll-out inspired by the grand tours of cycling, Le Tour de France, La Vuelta, and the local favorite, the Giro d'Italia.
Training and racing since 2013. when I entered the sport of endurance mountain bike racing at 43 years old with no previous bike racing experience, had taught me lot, before my retirement in August 2022 after my 8th completion in under nine hours of the Leadville 100. Among those lessons, was the often experienced, powerless return to sport after a significant rest break. But that expression of my body's central nervous system in particular was always ephemeral, other than 2015, when I descended into overtraining syndrome for many months, the power always returned quickly and when the training was going well it returned in spades.
As I made my way, beyond Bari, into the foothills of Italy's famous boot I quickly began to feel papery thin, fragile, a fraction of my normal self, reminiscent of how I felt at the conclusion of difficult training blocks throughout my racing career but also when I was in the throes of overtraining syndrome in 2015. Given those similarities, concern was impossible to contain and certainly amplified all on its own, from somewhere within the vast allocation of my subconscious mind, as formidable adversaries rose from gently rolling plains on my western horizon, the silhouettes of mountains that I would have to cross and I hardly knew, part of an expansive, mountainous region in southern Italy nicknamed the "Calabrian Alps."
On that first day, feeling the way I did, I nevertheless closed the gap to Italy's coastal arch (video journal update), settling into a palatial and nearly deserted campground not far from Policoro and not long after strangers quickly became friends at a gas station cafe set high on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The following morning, navigation didn't go well, as my route concluded at a highway on-ramp without any alternatives in sight other than to backtrack many miles, which is for some reason about the hardest pill this adventure-oriented, 50-something year old white dude is ever asked to swallow and so predictably, I searched for a more efficient way to escape this cul de sac.
Despite my habit of never turning back, the price I paid for stubbornness in this particular case was notable. I decided to carry my loaded bike through an extensive and deep briar patch that tore into my unprotected legs and left me bleeding from many cuts a few minutes later. Beyond the briars, the situation improved, I regained unobstructed terra firma on a gravel road and was otherwise lucky when, not long thereafter, I was able to bypass a locked steel gate whilst hanging on with one hand and hugging my bike with the other arm, Dervla Murphy style (read about her encounter with a black cow in Full Tilt for more details), as I avoided falling into a canal below. More luck followed, the absence of any more gates of significance and the dogs that a person might encounter between those obstructions, as I navigated an agricultural and industrial wasteland looking for a way back into more comforting spaces. This video journal update captures my thoughts not long after those obstructions were behind me.
I might have had another story, or none at all, if I'd not, in contrast to the story just told, made an otherwise rare decision to give in to my unwillingness to leave my route when farther along the arch I encountered what seemed like an impenetrable barrier that I nonetheless studied for many minutes until a rare bias towards self-preservation took over. From here, I backed tracked, picked up the primary route and was soon witnessing the construction site that I had just barely avoided. Voluminous in scale and likely conclusive for a man approaching unbeknownst, involving either bodily harm or prison or both.
Beyond the idle construction scene, it was, fortunately, a Sunday, the drama quickly subsided and I settled into my usual habits including a pick-me-up espresso, or two, during the early afternoon hours when the natural build-up of adenosine is often threatening to dislodge the conscious mind at inopportune times. Cafes in the village of Borgata Marina, Salumi Calabresi (video journal update), and Cutura, Pasticceria San Francesco, were memorable, where I sat without speaking, for the most part, as curious children, loving mothers, and many unhurried, conversations carried on nearby, locals expressing their priorities with the people they loved in an environment that nurtured their subconscious minds and generated the biomolecules that often express themselves as smiles and laughter.
In Cutura, I was already ascending towards where I would conclude the 63rd day of Europa 360, in a steep-walled valley tucked within the impressive and complex subregion of the Calabrian Alps known as the Serre Calabresi, in a former hostel that became a bed and breakfast and was recommended to me by a kind woman that by chance overheard an inefficient discussion I was having with one of her coworkers and volunteered to help in perfect English. I was in the namesake of the local provincial region, by chance in the historic part of Cosenza, on a sidewalk that led to a small park that overlooked a fast flowing, stone-choked tributary of the River Busento.
All around, restaurants beckoned their accomplices, in part by aromas that emanated from their pizza ovens, which I desired with every cell of my being to sample but off-season business hours would not allow as all hands were busily shutting down for the day. Less than a half a kilometer away, at the top of a steep climb, I encountered my host, waving to me, smiling, and standing in the road. We descended together, down a steep walkway, all stonework, between tightly packed buildings, which I negotiated carefully in my cycling shoes and steel clips. Once down a few levels, we began to climb, his hands free and my own carrying my loaded bicycle, up a narrow series of stairwells to a wooden door, ajar, and an awaiting grandmother that oversaw the entire project.
For 40 Euro or less, I flourished here, at the Old Garden Bed and Breakfast, which in the absence of the stranger back at the restaurant I would have completely missed. Under any scenario other than 90 days to complete a ca. 7000 mile journey, I definitely would have stayed longer and not only to relax in the third floor, open air gardens and its fruit trees that were part of the facility (video journal update) but also to explore Cosenza, including a well preserved, 12th century Norman castle, and the adjacent countryside that I would soon discover approximated wilderness by any measure other than proximity to a privileged minority of humankind.
The morning of day 64 was one of the most difficult on the tour as I ascended from the road below the Old Garden for two hours, fifteen miles, to over 3200 feet and a significant intermontane ridge embedded in the Serre Calabresi (video journal update) that otherwise blocked passage to a canyon and a tributary that plummeted from the same and concluded at the Tyrrhenian Sea on the dorsum of Italy's booted foot (video journal update). The Tyrrhenian Sea is a subbasin of the larger Mediterranean that comprises the seascape enclosed by Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily to the north and west, and the Italian mainland to the south and east.
The youthfulness and energetics of the region was well captured by vertical cuts through hard, compact talus at the foot of the coastal expression of the Serre Calabresi that concluded, also informative, just above the Tyrannian Sea that I passed through in the final kilometer of the descent. I stopped part-way along that descent and captured these thoughts for my Europa 360 video journal playlist. From the cut to the sea, I navigated perhaps a kilometer and no more, through infrastructure, it turned out, that would be the norm, with some marvelous exceptions, all the way to the Strait of Messina, a narrow passage between Italy's great hallux and the autonomous region of Sicily, as it is technically known.
Beyond those visceral challenges and associated, visual extravaganzas, I was looking forward to a period of what I suspected would be relatively casual cycling, just above the sea on smooth roads that rarely deviated from any flat earth hypothesis. My expectations turned-out to be only partially true, instead the casual was peppered by far too many encounters with careless drivers, the worst air pollution that I encountered, by far, on the journey, four extensive and difficult climbs, and one mishap that began when a pedal bearing imploded on my bicycle and I could go no farther without a repair.
The population on the coast between about where I entered the scene, at Amantea, all the way to the Strait of Messina is significant and at least during my transit through the area was generating enough exhaust from its automobiles that I was concerned about the short- and long-term consequences for my lungs. Between those concerns, I found myself in battle with the same autos and their drivers that otherwise wanted to own not only my road ahead but also my road below.
Some of those encounters were innocent enough, others were motivated by ignorance such as no idea how quickly I was moving towards them, and the remainder were intentionally unfriendly. I survived them all fortunately, and truth be told I also enjoyed some of those duels especially when speed was a factor and both driver and cyclist were confined by narrow village streets and nearby sidewalks which I occasionally used to gain the advantage or win the battle altogether.
Trash was also a prominent part of the landscape, a continuous stream of mostly discarded bottles and other plastic waste on both sides of the road, from the Tyrrhenian coastline at Amantea to Villa San Giovanni where the ferry departs for Messina several times a day. Sadly, the omnipresence of trash extended across the Straits of Messina, to the island of Sicily (video journal update). I'll speculate here as I did months ago when I was on tour, that the trash was very likely amplified by the recent covid pandemic. The trash was nonetheless an unpleasant distraction from scenes that were otherwise spectacular in every detail.
Amidst that stream of discarded waste but otherwise flourishing as I followed the coastline west of Amantea on essentially flat roads, normal wear and tear of a pedal bearing was about to make its debut on this bicycle tour with significant implications. My pedal stopped turning for the first time a few hours beyond Amantea and when it did I had to quickly unlock my foot from the same to avoid an unhappy conclusion for my right ankle. On that first occasion, and several thereafter, I managed to free the pedal with my hands enough to continue making progress. But eventually, the damaged bearing locked the pedal for the last time and I was forced to the side of the road where I assessed my situation and devised a plan. Fifty miles away was a Decathlon store, a French department store chain that specializes in outdoor recreation, bikes, trekking, etc. Leaving out lots of weeds that are part of this story, I eventually pushed my bike to the top of an on-ramp where I encountered prominent secondary road, leaned my bike against the nearest section of guardrail, and assumed the hitchhiking protocol that I knew from the United States.
Antonia and his coworker, both of them helicopter mechanics, showed up about 10 minutes later and we had the bike in their small utility van, a tight fit, in less than two minutes whilst making haste to avoid moderate but nonetheless fast moving, nearby traffic (video journal update). Less than an hour later, bike and bodies were dislodged, by then at the Decathlon shop in Gioia Tauro, and that's when my problem compounded significantly when I discovered that my front wheel axle had been forgotten on a road surface which was by now fifty miles away.
Amidst the sadness that ensued in the Decathlon parking lot, a shared hope materialized that I would be able to buy a replacement axle and then nothing but a modest sum of Euros would be lost. Nonetheless, I remained very concerned, and hid most of it, because I knew my bike was the product of a small bike manufacturer, Niner Bikes, and a one-of-a-kind, custom build from Brave New Wheel in Fort Collins, Colorado. Fortunately, my concerns turned-out to be partially amplified relative to the actual outcomes that followed.
We did manage to find not only the Shimano SPD pedals that I needed, that was easy at Decathlon, but also a slightly shorter axle that a locally owned bicycle shop ensured me would finish the tour. By then, a few hours into our introduction and no doubt holding up Antonio and his co-conspirator from getting to their next helicopter, we bid farewell outside of Barbaro Sport and I quickly found lodging nearby in the coastal village of Parmi where my proximate priority quickly transitioned to coming down from what had been an elevated state of anxiety, especially since discovering that my front wheel axle was resting, unintentionally discarded on a median strip amidst bits of road and humankind's mangled discard that a person would normally find there.
By the time I went to sleep, well fed thanks to the kindness of strangers, in this case pizza shop owners not far from the apartment that I rented for about 40 Euro, a plan was already crystallizing in my mind and it wasn't going to include relying on a short axle all the way to Barcelona. Along the way, I'd also recover the 50 miles that I otherwise would have ridden on the 64th day of the bicycle tour. The next morning, I refined my plan a bit more and then rushed a few kilometers to a local train station, down memorable rough tracks, where I couldn't buy a ticket because the ticketing machine was broken.
That caused no conflict, and about an hour later I was standing on a platform about a mile from where the axle was hopefully still waiting for me (video journal update). That mile included a cul de sac that I escaped and no worse for the experience. And shortly thereafter, I was on a very familiar, massive, roundabout, that in part services a little known international airport not far away and hence the train station for the same purpose; circumstances that combined with luck, including a subtle hint from correspondence via WhatsApp with a local taxi cab driver, led me to discover the airport and assemble the axle recovery plan.
Few could imagine my anticipation, a mix of dread and excitement, as I ascended the same ramp that the day before I had walked, with my head down both inside and out. As soon as my eyes crested the top of the ramp, I was already scanning and it didn't take long before a black, metal object, implying intentional design, became apparent. As suspected, the axle had been pushed off the road and in the process clipped at least one time. It hadn't been bent by those impacts, just a bit marked-up in harmless places. Once back on the bike, the wheel turned freely and so did my beating heart (video journal update).
A few hours later and two significant climbs behind me, I coasted back up to the bike shop in Palmi where I'd purchased the short axle the day before. Unfortunately, no one was in sight, and even a patient vigil at the gas station across the street whilst sipping a Coke and snacking on equally evil potato chips, for their control of seemingly far smarter creatures, wasn't enough to encounter anyone inside. Months later, that Euro-centric axle is still for sale among other items in my Facebook Marketplace store.
All the commotion the day before had concealed my proximity to Villa San Giovanni, where I was planning to catch a ferry boat to Messina, Sicily, by then just three kilometers away. So when I departed Palmi for the second time in 24 hours, I was surprised when a few hours later evidence of a proximate Strait began to make itself apparent ahead and on my right, such as many prominent nad fading ship trails on the surface of the water, as I otherwise stuck to the coastline and associated climbs along the way.
Much to my pleasure, the section from roughly Palmi to Villa San Giovanni was also quite enjoyable, far less trash, no swordplay with autos that I can recall, and gorgeous coastal views of mountains and drainages on my left, a blue and green, rocky, coastal scene on my right, and straight ahead passage through a string of beautiful and historic villages. It was a spectacular way to resolve the bad air that I'd manufactured and breathed in on this section of Europa 360.
At a prominent headland amidst the coastal village of Scilla, where I stopped to photograph, admire, and appreciate my reassembled bicycle at Castello Ruffo, I could easily see the looming mass of Sicily and beside it the wide entrance into the narrowest passage of the busy Strait of Messina. In Villa San Giovanni, I ate something that was likely repriced at checkout for a naive tourist, a deviation from a significant string of enviable luck and so I barely noticed. The same meal, however, also did not sit well and a mild GI complication followed. But all of that remained invisible to my conscious mind when I boarded the Villa San Giovanni to Messina ferry without my purchased ticket in hand, taken by the Gods no doubt as a small toll to pay for many days of devious mischief that they nevertheless allowed to go my way.
Five days came and went quickly as I waited for the next ferry to Italy and otherwise caught up on social media posts, checked my bike into the Dubrovnik Bike Adventure Shop for a pro servicing, explored the town, and prepared many hot meals in two cozy apartments, one in the old town itself and the next high on a hill overlooking most of the town and the coast below hosted by a woman with only loving kindness in her heart, Mirjana. Between all those tasks and pleasures, I also slipped into a local barber shop, this one, and came out feeling fresh and aero for Part 3 of Europa 360.
I arrived by bicycle in the dark to Dubrovnik on day 56 of the tour and departed by ship (video journal update) as evening was just settling in on day 61. I was on my way to Bari, Italy via a complete east to west, overnight transect of the Adriatic Sea. And not too soon either, because there was just one more sailing available for the season once my ship departed the Port of Dubrovnik. Onboard, I secured my bike and quickly moved into a private cabin before exploring the decks where I said my final goodbye from the portside to a town that will always be a fond memory (video journal update).
After so much time spent idle relative to the 56 days that brought me to Dubrovnik, I was ready to start riding again (video journal update) as I exited the ship, in gorgeous morning sunshine, and also curious how my body would feel after a rest block that was twice the duration of blocks taken with friends in France, Belgium, Germany, and Finland during Part 1 of Europa 360. Inside the terminal, I paused by a man dressed in a military uniform and hand gestured in a way that asked, "how should I proceed."
He communicated in a similar way that I should "stop for a moment", and following a short conversation on his radio pointed me in the most favorable direction. Soon I was exiting one more maze, it seems that all ferry terminals are this way, towards a gate and a comfortable and colorful promenade, Lungomare Imperatore Augusto. I took time to absorb the Italian debut of this tour, on those initial streets in Bari, a solo neutral roll-out inspired by the grand tours of cycling, Le Tour de France, La Vuelta, and the local favorite, the Giro d'Italia.
Training and racing since 2013. when I entered the sport of endurance mountain bike racing at 43 years old with no previous bike racing experience, had taught me lot, before my retirement in August 2022 after my 8th completion in under nine hours of the Leadville 100. Among those lessons, was the often experienced, powerless return to sport after a significant rest break. But that expression of my body's central nervous system in particular was always ephemeral, other than 2015, when I descended into overtraining syndrome for many months, the power always returned quickly and when the training was going well it returned in spades.
As I made my way, beyond Bari, into the foothills of Italy's famous boot I quickly began to feel papery thin, fragile, a fraction of my normal self, reminiscent of how I felt at the conclusion of difficult training blocks throughout my racing career but also when I was in the throes of overtraining syndrome in 2015. Given those similarities, concern was impossible to contain and certainly amplified all on its own, from somewhere within the vast allocation of my subconscious mind, as formidable adversaries rose from gently rolling plains on my western horizon, the silhouettes of mountains that I would have to cross and I hardly knew, part of an expansive, mountainous region in southern Italy nicknamed the "Calabrian Alps."
On that first day, feeling the way I did, I nevertheless closed the gap to Italy's coastal arch (video journal update), settling into a palatial and nearly deserted campground not far from Policoro and not long after strangers quickly became friends at a gas station cafe set high on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean Sea to the east. The following morning, navigation didn't go well, as my route concluded at a highway on-ramp without any alternatives in sight other than to backtrack many miles, which is for some reason about the hardest pill this adventure-oriented, 50-something year old white dude is ever asked to swallow and so predictably, I searched for a more efficient way to escape this cul de sac.
Despite my habit of never turning back, the price I paid for stubbornness in this particular case was notable. I decided to carry my loaded bike through an extensive and deep briar patch that tore into my unprotected legs and left me bleeding from many cuts a few minutes later. Beyond the briars, the situation improved, I regained unobstructed terra firma on a gravel road and was otherwise lucky when, not long thereafter, I was able to bypass a locked steel gate whilst hanging on with one hand and hugging my bike with the other arm, Dervla Murphy style (read about her encounter with a black cow in Full Tilt for more details), as I avoided falling into a canal below. More luck followed, the absence of any more gates of significance and the dogs that a person might encounter between those obstructions, as I navigated an agricultural and industrial wasteland looking for a way back into more comforting spaces. This video journal update captures my thoughts not long after those obstructions were behind me.
I might have had another story, or none at all, if I'd not, in contrast to the story just told, made an otherwise rare decision to give in to my unwillingness to leave my route when farther along the arch I encountered what seemed like an impenetrable barrier that I nonetheless studied for many minutes until a rare bias towards self-preservation took over. From here, I backed tracked, picked up the primary route and was soon witnessing the construction site that I had just barely avoided. Voluminous in scale and likely conclusive for a man approaching unbeknownst, involving either bodily harm or prison or both.
Beyond the idle construction scene, it was, fortunately, a Sunday, the drama quickly subsided and I settled into my usual habits including a pick-me-up espresso, or two, during the early afternoon hours when the natural build-up of adenosine is often threatening to dislodge the conscious mind at inopportune times. Cafes in the village of Borgata Marina, Salumi Calabresi (video journal update), and Cutura, Pasticceria San Francesco, were memorable, where I sat without speaking, for the most part, as curious children, loving mothers, and many unhurried, conversations carried on nearby, locals expressing their priorities with the people they loved in an environment that nurtured their subconscious minds and generated the biomolecules that often express themselves as smiles and laughter.
In Cutura, I was already ascending towards where I would conclude the 63rd day of Europa 360, in a steep-walled valley tucked within the impressive and complex subregion of the Calabrian Alps known as the Serre Calabresi, in a former hostel that became a bed and breakfast and was recommended to me by a kind woman that by chance overheard an inefficient discussion I was having with one of her coworkers and volunteered to help in perfect English. I was in the namesake of the local provincial region, by chance in the historic part of Cosenza, on a sidewalk that led to a small park that overlooked a fast flowing, stone-choked tributary of the River Busento.
All around, restaurants beckoned their accomplices, in part by aromas that emanated from their pizza ovens, which I desired with every cell of my being to sample but off-season business hours would not allow as all hands were busily shutting down for the day. Less than a half a kilometer away, at the top of a steep climb, I encountered my host, waving to me, smiling, and standing in the road. We descended together, down a steep walkway, all stonework, between tightly packed buildings, which I negotiated carefully in my cycling shoes and steel clips. Once down a few levels, we began to climb, his hands free and my own carrying my loaded bicycle, up a narrow series of stairwells to a wooden door, ajar, and an awaiting grandmother that oversaw the entire project.
For 40 Euro or less, I flourished here, at the Old Garden Bed and Breakfast, which in the absence of the stranger back at the restaurant I would have completely missed. Under any scenario other than 90 days to complete a ca. 7000 mile journey, I definitely would have stayed longer and not only to relax in the third floor, open air gardens and its fruit trees that were part of the facility (video journal update) but also to explore Cosenza, including a well preserved, 12th century Norman castle, and the adjacent countryside that I would soon discover approximated wilderness by any measure other than proximity to a privileged minority of humankind.
The morning of day 64 was one of the most difficult on the tour as I ascended from the road below the Old Garden for two hours, fifteen miles, to over 3200 feet and a significant intermontane ridge embedded in the Serre Calabresi (video journal update) that otherwise blocked passage to a canyon and a tributary that plummeted from the same and concluded at the Tyrrhenian Sea on the dorsum of Italy's booted foot (video journal update). The Tyrrhenian Sea is a subbasin of the larger Mediterranean that comprises the seascape enclosed by Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily to the north and west, and the Italian mainland to the south and east.
The youthfulness and energetics of the region was well captured by vertical cuts through hard, compact talus at the foot of the coastal expression of the Serre Calabresi that concluded, also informative, just above the Tyrannian Sea that I passed through in the final kilometer of the descent. I stopped part-way along that descent and captured these thoughts for my Europa 360 video journal playlist. From the cut to the sea, I navigated perhaps a kilometer and no more, through infrastructure, it turned out, that would be the norm, with some marvelous exceptions, all the way to the Strait of Messina, a narrow passage between Italy's great hallux and the autonomous region of Sicily, as it is technically known.
Beyond those visceral challenges and associated, visual extravaganzas, I was looking forward to a period of what I suspected would be relatively casual cycling, just above the sea on smooth roads that rarely deviated from any flat earth hypothesis. My expectations turned-out to be only partially true, instead the casual was peppered by far too many encounters with careless drivers, the worst air pollution that I encountered, by far, on the journey, four extensive and difficult climbs, and one mishap that began when a pedal bearing imploded on my bicycle and I could go no farther without a repair.
The population on the coast between about where I entered the scene, at Amantea, all the way to the Strait of Messina is significant and at least during my transit through the area was generating enough exhaust from its automobiles that I was concerned about the short- and long-term consequences for my lungs. Between those concerns, I found myself in battle with the same autos and their drivers that otherwise wanted to own not only my road ahead but also my road below.
Some of those encounters were innocent enough, others were motivated by ignorance such as no idea how quickly I was moving towards them, and the remainder were intentionally unfriendly. I survived them all fortunately, and truth be told I also enjoyed some of those duels especially when speed was a factor and both driver and cyclist were confined by narrow village streets and nearby sidewalks which I occasionally used to gain the advantage or win the battle altogether.
Trash was also a prominent part of the landscape, a continuous stream of mostly discarded bottles and other plastic waste on both sides of the road, from the Tyrrhenian coastline at Amantea to Villa San Giovanni where the ferry departs for Messina several times a day. Sadly, the omnipresence of trash extended across the Straits of Messina, to the island of Sicily (video journal update). I'll speculate here as I did months ago when I was on tour, that the trash was very likely amplified by the recent covid pandemic. The trash was nonetheless an unpleasant distraction from scenes that were otherwise spectacular in every detail.
Amidst that stream of discarded waste but otherwise flourishing as I followed the coastline west of Amantea on essentially flat roads, normal wear and tear of a pedal bearing was about to make its debut on this bicycle tour with significant implications. My pedal stopped turning for the first time a few hours beyond Amantea and when it did I had to quickly unlock my foot from the same to avoid an unhappy conclusion for my right ankle. On that first occasion, and several thereafter, I managed to free the pedal with my hands enough to continue making progress. But eventually, the damaged bearing locked the pedal for the last time and I was forced to the side of the road where I assessed my situation and devised a plan. Fifty miles away was a Decathlon store, a French department store chain that specializes in outdoor recreation, bikes, trekking, etc. Leaving out lots of weeds that are part of this story, I eventually pushed my bike to the top of an on-ramp where I encountered prominent secondary road, leaned my bike against the nearest section of guardrail, and assumed the hitchhiking protocol that I knew from the United States.
Antonia and his coworker, both of them helicopter mechanics, showed up about 10 minutes later and we had the bike in their small utility van, a tight fit, in less than two minutes whilst making haste to avoid moderate but nonetheless fast moving, nearby traffic (video journal update). Less than an hour later, bike and bodies were dislodged, by then at the Decathlon shop in Gioia Tauro, and that's when my problem compounded significantly when I discovered that my front wheel axle had been forgotten on a road surface which was by now fifty miles away.
Amidst the sadness that ensued in the Decathlon parking lot, a shared hope materialized that I would be able to buy a replacement axle and then nothing but a modest sum of Euros would be lost. Nonetheless, I remained very concerned, and hid most of it, because I knew my bike was the product of a small bike manufacturer, Niner Bikes, and a one-of-a-kind, custom build from Brave New Wheel in Fort Collins, Colorado. Fortunately, my concerns turned-out to be partially amplified relative to the actual outcomes that followed.
We did manage to find not only the Shimano SPD pedals that I needed, that was easy at Decathlon, but also a slightly shorter axle that a locally owned bicycle shop ensured me would finish the tour. By then, a few hours into our introduction and no doubt holding up Antonio and his co-conspirator from getting to their next helicopter, we bid farewell outside of Barbaro Sport and I quickly found lodging nearby in the coastal village of Parmi where my proximate priority quickly transitioned to coming down from what had been an elevated state of anxiety, especially since discovering that my front wheel axle was resting, unintentionally discarded on a median strip amidst bits of road and humankind's mangled discard that a person would normally find there.
By the time I went to sleep, well fed thanks to the kindness of strangers, in this case pizza shop owners not far from the apartment that I rented for about 40 Euro, a plan was already crystallizing in my mind and it wasn't going to include relying on a short axle all the way to Barcelona. Along the way, I'd also recover the 50 miles that I otherwise would have ridden on the 64th day of the bicycle tour. The next morning, I refined my plan a bit more and then rushed a few kilometers to a local train station, down memorable rough tracks, where I couldn't buy a ticket because the ticketing machine was broken.
That caused no conflict, and about an hour later I was standing on a platform about a mile from where the axle was hopefully still waiting for me (video journal update). That mile included a cul de sac that I escaped and no worse for the experience. And shortly thereafter, I was on a very familiar, massive, roundabout, that in part services a little known international airport not far away and hence the train station for the same purpose; circumstances that combined with luck, including a subtle hint from correspondence via WhatsApp with a local taxi cab driver, led me to discover the airport and assemble the axle recovery plan.
Few could imagine my anticipation, a mix of dread and excitement, as I ascended the same ramp that the day before I had walked, with my head down both inside and out. As soon as my eyes crested the top of the ramp, I was already scanning and it didn't take long before a black, metal object, implying intentional design, became apparent. As suspected, the axle had been pushed off the road and in the process clipped at least one time. It hadn't been bent by those impacts, just a bit marked-up in harmless places. Once back on the bike, the wheel turned freely and so did my beating heart (video journal update).
A few hours later and two significant climbs behind me, I coasted back up to the bike shop in Palmi where I'd purchased the short axle the day before. Unfortunately, no one was in sight, and even a patient vigil at the gas station across the street whilst sipping a Coke and snacking on equally evil potato chips, for their control of seemingly far smarter creatures, wasn't enough to encounter anyone inside. Months later, that Euro-centric axle is still for sale among other items in my Facebook Marketplace store.
All the commotion the day before had concealed my proximity to Villa San Giovanni, where I was planning to catch a ferry boat to Messina, Sicily, by then just three kilometers away. So when I departed Palmi for the second time in 24 hours, I was surprised when a few hours later evidence of a proximate Strait began to make itself apparent ahead and on my right, such as many prominent nad fading ship trails on the surface of the water, as I otherwise stuck to the coastline and associated climbs along the way.
Much to my pleasure, the section from roughly Palmi to Villa San Giovanni was also quite enjoyable, far less trash, no swordplay with autos that I can recall, and gorgeous coastal views of mountains and drainages on my left, a blue and green, rocky, coastal scene on my right, and straight ahead passage through a string of beautiful and historic villages. It was a spectacular way to resolve the bad air that I'd manufactured and breathed in on this section of Europa 360.
At a prominent headland amidst the coastal village of Scilla, where I stopped to photograph, admire, and appreciate my reassembled bicycle at Castello Ruffo, I could easily see the looming mass of Sicily and beside it the wide entrance into the narrowest passage of the busy Strait of Messina. In Villa San Giovanni, I ate something that was likely repriced at checkout for a naive tourist, a deviation from a significant string of enviable luck and so I barely noticed. The same meal, however, also did not sit well and a mild GI complication followed. But all of that remained invisible to my conscious mind when I boarded the Villa San Giovanni to Messina ferry without my purchased ticket in hand, taken by the Gods no doubt as a small toll to pay for many days of devious mischief that they nevertheless allowed to go my way.
Across Sicily: The Strait of Messina did not come easily, as I approached for many miles from the crest of the famous boot of Italy, already deep inside the Italian Province of Calabria and its voluminous montane systems. Their significance cannot be overstated, at least not for a traveler on a loaded bicycle, at times stretching to the distant edge of my horizon, a vast sea of massive swells of terra firma between, blanketed in dry, sparse, low profile Mediterranean vegetation.
It's certainly my habit to book late if I book at all, preferring to, e.g., arrive to a campground unannounced when I can confirm that they're open, but my booking into the busy town of Messina was on the margins even for my habits. I was literally in the que, preparing to load the ferry boat when I hurriedly searched for and booked lodging for the proximate evening in the town on the opposite side of the Strait of Messina. About 45 minutes later, darkness by then almost complete, I exited the ship in Messina and rolled into Sicily for the first time in my life. I stopped long enough to confirm that the booking I'd made whilst in the que had gone well, pulled the address to my Google Maps routing tool, and then intermingled with the auto-clad locals on a flat coastal route, for a few kilometers, before the climbing resumed and I rode into the beating heart of a south-facing town built on hillsides above the sea.
When I arrived to my next rest stop, I was about 300 feet above the busy waterfront (video journal update). The ferry had departed the harbour and the last wash of light from a vanished sun provided enough visibility to assemble the whole, impressive seen, Messina all around, its namesake Strait and San Giovanni beyond on the Italian mainland, before moments later humankind in this vicinity was once again required to see by their own devices.
Morning never rests it seems, and so it came and I was on my way, well fed and rested thanks to a home cooked meal and other comforts provided by my own apartment, and almost immediately in a calm flow state. Enveloped in a bicycle inspired mediation, I switched back and forth, up the hillsides and soon lost sight and sound of Messina as I transitioned into sparsely populated spaces dominated by expansive forests, woodlots, and pastures (video journal update). The area looked familiar, as it should have, with each mile I climbed I was transitioning back into the South Apennine mixed montane forests that I first encountered in the Province of Cosenza in the Serre Calabresi and had brushed up against on my way from Bari to the arch of Italy's boot.
My ascent concluded at the village of Don Minico at 1400 feet and the descent that followed didn't relent, a vertical plummet at times, until I returned to the Tyrrhenian Sea, this time at Villafranca Tirrena, a municipality that is surprisingly (absurdly?) within the metropolitan city of Messina despite the expansive, semi-wild, intermontane fewmansland that separates them. The morning hours that I spent ascending and descending that intermediary space remains a highlight of the route that I rode from Messina to Palermo. Villafranca Tirrena awaits the arrival of fortuitous travelers, above the warm, blue-green wavelets of the Tyrrhenian Sea, its white sand beaches beckoning, but I didn't delay long, despite the homage I felt, preferring to maintain a pace and a schedule that was beginning to show hints of a conclusion in Barcelona even whilst I remained in no hurry, internally, to get there. Remaining hills to reach Palermo, about 120 miles west of Villafranca, were minimal and those that bound the rule were an opportunity to look east and west along a beautiful coastline and so I approached each of them with anticipation, such as the ascent to the gorgeous village of Locanda from Oliveri on the lightly trafficked SS113.
At that juncture, I was very close to an ancient amphitheatre at Tindari, among other structures that are still being unearthed, a complex of ruins left behind by the Greeks that was first mentioned in the fourth century BCE among documents that survived the ages. The town that grew up here and was subsequently abandoned was known to the Greeks as Tyndaris, its "original settlers were the remains of the Messenian exiles, who had been driven from Naupactus, Zacynthus, and the Peloponnese by the Spartans after the close of the Peloponnesian War", a war fought by Sparta and Athens for Greek hegemony.
At Locanda, I paused for images and contemplation, but otherwise did not go exploring on the hill that was clearly visible nearby, where the amphitheatre and its contemporaries are standing by in silent vigil for any curious traveler that comes exploring. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the booty or the opportunity to view these ancient remains from an on-high view that no doubt commands a view to the east and west that is only precluded by the modern, air quality implications of humankind.
On the first day, riding from Messina, I closed a wide gap arriving to Finale and a nearby campground at the end of an inspired bicycle touring day, about an hour before sunset, enough time to shop and pitch my tent before darkness made all of these activities less efficient. In the grocery store, the customer ahead of me dropped an item and a serendipitous moment was underway, I caught the glass bottle before it hit the floor and this planted a favorable seed in the minds of everyone nearby including the cashier despite my inability to speak much that would be recognizable to an Italian.
Not long after the catch, I also dropped an item, my wallet when exiting the store or the parking lot. The campground was nearby and I hadn't checked in yet, also fortuitous. When I tried to pay, surrounded by my booty of groceries, I discovered the mishap and immediately, amidst skyward rocketing anxiety, retraced my route back to the parking lot, eagerly scanning the road surface along the way as cars occasionally blew their horns to voice their complaints about my position in the road, and then the cashier that was smiling and immediately reaching for my wallet in her cash drawer.
At Camping & Village Rais Gerbi, I ate dinner below a street lamp, my USB rechargeable headlamp nearby, sitting on a bench inside the campground, not far from the entrance gate. The campground was scheduled to close the next day and so most of its facilities, including covered areas for eating, had already been dismantled or shut for the season. Nearby, only a handful of travelers remained, including humanoids that I never communicated with that were also in the camping area, a tent pitched adjacent to their preferred form of hrududu. Not far away was the famous town of Cefalù. Before I went to sleep, I was already planning to visit the place the next day and stay a second night in one of its proximate campgrounds.
I departed late, stopped in Finale for photos and a video journal update, and then made my way to Cefalù without any haste, under an immaculate blue sky. It was a wonderful change of pace after riding deep into Sicily, and certainly the sort of morning that my friend Stella Walsh would have declared "delicious" if she had been nearby. I'd come to this juncture in just five days since deboarding the ferry at bari, Italy, back on the main. Across most of 300 miles and up no less than 14,000 feet of elevation that accumulated in a handful of climbs that I could easily recall for the effects that they had on my tired mind and body. I was ready for a break to stack on top of the rest from the night before and the easy day that I was shaving now.
Cefalù was a easy choice and only 10 or so miles from Finale. By late morning, I was exploring its cobbled streets and shooting a video journal update outside its famous, 12th century Norman cathedral. I'd had a spill just before, when my left foot refused to come out of the pedal and only a few feet from guests at an outdoor restaurant. It was not my finest moment on the tour, but fortunately no harm came to my carbon fiber bicycle or my equally fragile body.
I explored the narrowest passages, as I often do in old towns like Cefalù, I stopped for some overpriced pizza and farther along, a short argument transpired with a guy in a car that showed no concern for my soft parts. Despite the spectacular scene and historic opportunities that Cefalù presented, on a promontory set high above the Tyrrhenian Sea, my desires were already elsewhere when I arrived and the slight deviations from happiness brought about by local pricing and impatient drivers didn't help.
Tipped towards departure, I rolled out from between the tourists and the street vendors and made my way perhaps less than a mile, or not much more, to a pair of side-by-side campgrounds. Conversations ensued at each and I ultimately decided to stay at Camping Costa Ponente because the woman that greeted me made it clear, in her expressions, that I'd be treated like family. Laundry, tent erection, dinner, and other conveniences and necessities ensued. Nearby, I met Rudy, a wonderful German fellow traveling in a camper van that opened his heart and mine to him as well and our friendship blossomed as I quickly fell in love with this campground. Before nightfall, I was already signed up for a second night.
For the next two days, I never went far from the boundaries of the campground (video journal update). And always by foot, wearing the red sneakers I purchased on my approach to Hamburg, Germany many weeks before. I left my bicycle unchained not far from the pool and my tent, deep inside the campground. It was a return to the leisure that I'd experienced in Dubrovnik and not too many other places on the tour, and I relished every moment, in the campgrounds palatial, stunningly clean and blue pool and a nearby white sand beach where small colorful fishes smiled back at me once in the water and I smiled at them through a mask kindly loaned to me by Rudy. On one of those swims, I captured the only partially submerged video journal update from the tour.
I departed Cefalù, Rudy, and Camping Costa Ponente with reluctance, riding west, on the 69th day of Europa 360 and without incident easily closed the gap to Palermo, Sicily's administrative capital, on the same day (video journal update). My arrival made official the realization of a dream I'd had many times before the tour started. each time wondering about and visualizing myself riding into Palermo, and now that I was here for real I felt a mutual, great sense of satisfaction and achievement.
Whilst bleeding that satisfaction to anyone nearby, I went searching for serendipity, a habit of mine since my 20s when I toured North America by motorcycle, solo, with a guitar and books written by Edward Abbey, and wasn't disappointed (video journal update). Here the piazze were surrounded by remnants of ancient and medieval architecture, all juxtaposed in our modern world including a busy harbor and all overseen by the ominous Mount Pellegrino that rises above the city just north of the port of Palermo. Some parts of the town seemed dark and unwelcoming, when I encountered those I instinctively turned around.
But otherwise, everywhere was an opportunity to find hidden treasures and I amassed many, all within the archives of my mind, before making my way to shops and roadside vendors for cheese, wine, vegetables, and fish for a nutrient and flavor dense, celebratory dinner, to honor a significant moment in my life and for the tour so far. I carried it all back, booty provided by my Italian neighbors, to an apartment that I'd booked the day before, from Cefalù. I'd be sleeping and waking only a few miles from the local ferry terminal that would be my stepping-off point for Sardinia in the morning (video journal update).
It's certainly my habit to book late if I book at all, preferring to, e.g., arrive to a campground unannounced when I can confirm that they're open, but my booking into the busy town of Messina was on the margins even for my habits. I was literally in the que, preparing to load the ferry boat when I hurriedly searched for and booked lodging for the proximate evening in the town on the opposite side of the Strait of Messina. About 45 minutes later, darkness by then almost complete, I exited the ship in Messina and rolled into Sicily for the first time in my life. I stopped long enough to confirm that the booking I'd made whilst in the que had gone well, pulled the address to my Google Maps routing tool, and then intermingled with the auto-clad locals on a flat coastal route, for a few kilometers, before the climbing resumed and I rode into the beating heart of a south-facing town built on hillsides above the sea.
When I arrived to my next rest stop, I was about 300 feet above the busy waterfront (video journal update). The ferry had departed the harbour and the last wash of light from a vanished sun provided enough visibility to assemble the whole, impressive seen, Messina all around, its namesake Strait and San Giovanni beyond on the Italian mainland, before moments later humankind in this vicinity was once again required to see by their own devices.
Morning never rests it seems, and so it came and I was on my way, well fed and rested thanks to a home cooked meal and other comforts provided by my own apartment, and almost immediately in a calm flow state. Enveloped in a bicycle inspired mediation, I switched back and forth, up the hillsides and soon lost sight and sound of Messina as I transitioned into sparsely populated spaces dominated by expansive forests, woodlots, and pastures (video journal update). The area looked familiar, as it should have, with each mile I climbed I was transitioning back into the South Apennine mixed montane forests that I first encountered in the Province of Cosenza in the Serre Calabresi and had brushed up against on my way from Bari to the arch of Italy's boot.
My ascent concluded at the village of Don Minico at 1400 feet and the descent that followed didn't relent, a vertical plummet at times, until I returned to the Tyrrhenian Sea, this time at Villafranca Tirrena, a municipality that is surprisingly (absurdly?) within the metropolitan city of Messina despite the expansive, semi-wild, intermontane fewmansland that separates them. The morning hours that I spent ascending and descending that intermediary space remains a highlight of the route that I rode from Messina to Palermo. Villafranca Tirrena awaits the arrival of fortuitous travelers, above the warm, blue-green wavelets of the Tyrrhenian Sea, its white sand beaches beckoning, but I didn't delay long, despite the homage I felt, preferring to maintain a pace and a schedule that was beginning to show hints of a conclusion in Barcelona even whilst I remained in no hurry, internally, to get there. Remaining hills to reach Palermo, about 120 miles west of Villafranca, were minimal and those that bound the rule were an opportunity to look east and west along a beautiful coastline and so I approached each of them with anticipation, such as the ascent to the gorgeous village of Locanda from Oliveri on the lightly trafficked SS113.
At that juncture, I was very close to an ancient amphitheatre at Tindari, among other structures that are still being unearthed, a complex of ruins left behind by the Greeks that was first mentioned in the fourth century BCE among documents that survived the ages. The town that grew up here and was subsequently abandoned was known to the Greeks as Tyndaris, its "original settlers were the remains of the Messenian exiles, who had been driven from Naupactus, Zacynthus, and the Peloponnese by the Spartans after the close of the Peloponnesian War", a war fought by Sparta and Athens for Greek hegemony.
At Locanda, I paused for images and contemplation, but otherwise did not go exploring on the hill that was clearly visible nearby, where the amphitheatre and its contemporaries are standing by in silent vigil for any curious traveler that comes exploring. Unfortunately, I wasn't aware of the booty or the opportunity to view these ancient remains from an on-high view that no doubt commands a view to the east and west that is only precluded by the modern, air quality implications of humankind.
On the first day, riding from Messina, I closed a wide gap arriving to Finale and a nearby campground at the end of an inspired bicycle touring day, about an hour before sunset, enough time to shop and pitch my tent before darkness made all of these activities less efficient. In the grocery store, the customer ahead of me dropped an item and a serendipitous moment was underway, I caught the glass bottle before it hit the floor and this planted a favorable seed in the minds of everyone nearby including the cashier despite my inability to speak much that would be recognizable to an Italian.
Not long after the catch, I also dropped an item, my wallet when exiting the store or the parking lot. The campground was nearby and I hadn't checked in yet, also fortuitous. When I tried to pay, surrounded by my booty of groceries, I discovered the mishap and immediately, amidst skyward rocketing anxiety, retraced my route back to the parking lot, eagerly scanning the road surface along the way as cars occasionally blew their horns to voice their complaints about my position in the road, and then the cashier that was smiling and immediately reaching for my wallet in her cash drawer.
At Camping & Village Rais Gerbi, I ate dinner below a street lamp, my USB rechargeable headlamp nearby, sitting on a bench inside the campground, not far from the entrance gate. The campground was scheduled to close the next day and so most of its facilities, including covered areas for eating, had already been dismantled or shut for the season. Nearby, only a handful of travelers remained, including humanoids that I never communicated with that were also in the camping area, a tent pitched adjacent to their preferred form of hrududu. Not far away was the famous town of Cefalù. Before I went to sleep, I was already planning to visit the place the next day and stay a second night in one of its proximate campgrounds.
I departed late, stopped in Finale for photos and a video journal update, and then made my way to Cefalù without any haste, under an immaculate blue sky. It was a wonderful change of pace after riding deep into Sicily, and certainly the sort of morning that my friend Stella Walsh would have declared "delicious" if she had been nearby. I'd come to this juncture in just five days since deboarding the ferry at bari, Italy, back on the main. Across most of 300 miles and up no less than 14,000 feet of elevation that accumulated in a handful of climbs that I could easily recall for the effects that they had on my tired mind and body. I was ready for a break to stack on top of the rest from the night before and the easy day that I was shaving now.
Cefalù was a easy choice and only 10 or so miles from Finale. By late morning, I was exploring its cobbled streets and shooting a video journal update outside its famous, 12th century Norman cathedral. I'd had a spill just before, when my left foot refused to come out of the pedal and only a few feet from guests at an outdoor restaurant. It was not my finest moment on the tour, but fortunately no harm came to my carbon fiber bicycle or my equally fragile body.
I explored the narrowest passages, as I often do in old towns like Cefalù, I stopped for some overpriced pizza and farther along, a short argument transpired with a guy in a car that showed no concern for my soft parts. Despite the spectacular scene and historic opportunities that Cefalù presented, on a promontory set high above the Tyrrhenian Sea, my desires were already elsewhere when I arrived and the slight deviations from happiness brought about by local pricing and impatient drivers didn't help.
Tipped towards departure, I rolled out from between the tourists and the street vendors and made my way perhaps less than a mile, or not much more, to a pair of side-by-side campgrounds. Conversations ensued at each and I ultimately decided to stay at Camping Costa Ponente because the woman that greeted me made it clear, in her expressions, that I'd be treated like family. Laundry, tent erection, dinner, and other conveniences and necessities ensued. Nearby, I met Rudy, a wonderful German fellow traveling in a camper van that opened his heart and mine to him as well and our friendship blossomed as I quickly fell in love with this campground. Before nightfall, I was already signed up for a second night.
For the next two days, I never went far from the boundaries of the campground (video journal update). And always by foot, wearing the red sneakers I purchased on my approach to Hamburg, Germany many weeks before. I left my bicycle unchained not far from the pool and my tent, deep inside the campground. It was a return to the leisure that I'd experienced in Dubrovnik and not too many other places on the tour, and I relished every moment, in the campgrounds palatial, stunningly clean and blue pool and a nearby white sand beach where small colorful fishes smiled back at me once in the water and I smiled at them through a mask kindly loaned to me by Rudy. On one of those swims, I captured the only partially submerged video journal update from the tour.
I departed Cefalù, Rudy, and Camping Costa Ponente with reluctance, riding west, on the 69th day of Europa 360 and without incident easily closed the gap to Palermo, Sicily's administrative capital, on the same day (video journal update). My arrival made official the realization of a dream I'd had many times before the tour started. each time wondering about and visualizing myself riding into Palermo, and now that I was here for real I felt a mutual, great sense of satisfaction and achievement.
Whilst bleeding that satisfaction to anyone nearby, I went searching for serendipity, a habit of mine since my 20s when I toured North America by motorcycle, solo, with a guitar and books written by Edward Abbey, and wasn't disappointed (video journal update). Here the piazze were surrounded by remnants of ancient and medieval architecture, all juxtaposed in our modern world including a busy harbor and all overseen by the ominous Mount Pellegrino that rises above the city just north of the port of Palermo. Some parts of the town seemed dark and unwelcoming, when I encountered those I instinctively turned around.
But otherwise, everywhere was an opportunity to find hidden treasures and I amassed many, all within the archives of my mind, before making my way to shops and roadside vendors for cheese, wine, vegetables, and fish for a nutrient and flavor dense, celebratory dinner, to honor a significant moment in my life and for the tour so far. I carried it all back, booty provided by my Italian neighbors, to an apartment that I'd booked the day before, from Cefalù. I'd be sleeping and waking only a few miles from the local ferry terminal that would be my stepping-off point for Sardinia in the morning (video journal update).
Sardinia and Corsica: In 1324, Cagliari became the capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a designation the city retained until 1848 when the islands autonomy dissolved under something known as the Perfect Fusion, an administrative change that combined an island state, Sardinia, with two mainland states, Savoy and Piedmont. But that is quite literally only skimming the impression of Cagliari's historical footprint. Below the modern city is an encyclopedia of archeology, continuous, intermingling layers that descend all the way back to the neolithic, to about 3000 BCE. To put that into perspective, there was already a thick layer of historical settlements in Cagliari ca. 500 years before the construction of Egypt's Great Pyramid of Giza in the 26th century BCE.
The all day and overnight ferry crossing from Palermo to Cagliari, a complete transect of the expansive Tyrrhenian Sea, provided plenty of time to rest and catch up on social media tasks; and in hindsight, this was the longest ship crossing on Europa 360, ca. 289 miles (video journal update). I also discovered two kindred spirits onboard, both of them European and on their own bicycle adventures. We reconvened many times on the cruise, typically on the port side where the younger of the two, a German from Bavaria, had staked his realestate claim, to share our stories. As I'd done when booking crossings of the Baltic and Adriatic Seas on this tour, I booked a cabin on my Palermo to Cagliari ticket to make the most of the time spent out of the elements, off my bike, and otherwise entrenched in luxurious, mosquito-free, etc, living.
My initial booking into Cagliari was canceled by the host when they read that I was traveling by bicycle. Sadly, touring cyclist do, occasionally, forget to bring their manners and all sorts of harm can come to property when those scenarios arise. As that implies, touring cyclist do sometimes bring their bikes indoors where they have to be vigilant to keep oil off the floor and other debri that inevitably sticks to a adventure cyclist, their bike and gear. When given that privilege, to take my bike indoors, I always take extreme care to leave the property as I found it. By the way, the host subsequently apologized and expressed their regret, perhaps based on Airbnb reviews left by hosts I've stayed with in the past.
That cancelation, however, turned-out to be fortuitous. Davide ("day veed ah") greeted me at the entryway into an apartment building, his guest house lodged inside, a few miles from the ferry terminal on the 71st day of Europa 360. Immediately, I had an ally in a new town, on a new island, an aide-de-camp to help me navigate a language that I did not speak. Davide's genuine kindness and concern for his guests initiated my thinking, combined with the historical significance of the town that I was quickly becoming aware of, about the possibility of staying for a second night, which I ultimately booked after considering days remaining to reach Barcelona and miles between. Those rough calculations suggested that I "was good on time" as my friend, and former girlfriend, in Hamburg, Germany often says. By chance, I'd be seeing her at the end of the journey, as well as my friend Andrew Mackie.
Exploration ensued, clad in red sneakers, to the gate overlooking the local Roman amphitheatre (video journal update), into the old districts among other historic ground, and the National Museum where treasures from the depths of Cagliari's archeological heaps were arranged in perfect order and restoration in glass cases and open air displays on four levels connected by handicap accessible walkways (video journal update). As much as I enjoyed those sites and the detailed museum exhibitions, I was equally inspired to simply wander the hills and narrow spaces in the old quarter of town. My mind flourished as my body's sensors sent back signals that when translated into biochemistry aligned with a spectacular model of a former age.
Not far from my room, a palatial, immaculate, and thoughtfully cared-for, space assembled by Davide, I found two pizza shops that I enjoyed. In the closest one, I became friends with the owner, he'd traveled in the US and spoke English moderately well. Before the two days dissolved, they always do, sadly, I felt like a regular bloke, moving quickly and intentionally, up and down and right to left, across the here and now, above a labyrinth tomb containing the remains of countless lives. I enjoy being a tourist but I prefer to keep that a secret. To accomplish that wizardry, I try, when I'm alone and in a new town, to move with intention and confidence, as I was doing in Cagliari, to give the impression that I knew where I was and all that follows from that conclusion.
Sardinia and Corsica are high places with so much in between that I have no doubt that a person could spend a lifetime exploring either and never stop finding treasures, especially the variety inspired by landlocked landscapes and those that converge with the sea in stunning juxtaposition. I had my first encounter with the former soon after I departed Cagliari (video journal update), 73 days after I had set-out on my bike from Barcelona's international airport. From Cagliari, I followed a secondary route, the SS125, which quickly transitioned to spaces where few traveled, this time of year, by now deep into the autumn (video journal update).
I had no idea when I started that I would be following a celebrated route, I only knew that there would be many mountains to climb and likely the whole stretch before I returned to the Tyrrhenian Sea at San Priamo, would be as close to wilderness as a person will encounter in most of Europe. High mountains all around, sharp, coarse canyons below, and a roadway that ascends and descends through all of it where hairpins and other turns abound and accidents at any of those junctures would almost certainly be fatal. For motorcyclists and car drivers, this route certainly ranks among the very best on the island. It is known as the Orientale Sarda and sometimes "the route 66" of Sardinia.
Withstanding the spectacular roadway and experience that I had on the opening section of the SS125 from Cagliari across the southeast corner of the island, it was not enough to prepare me for what would ensue the following day as I made my way from Lotzorai to Orosei on the same road through an even more impressive swath of near wilderness in a mountain range known as the Supramonte, an area encompassing 35,000 hectares that remains mostly uninhabited, it is a space that exists among the many high places that dominate Sardinia, and Corsica too, that seemed to have its own beating heart and soul (video journal update).
Just above the sea, and after a comfortable evening camping at Camping Villaggio Telis resort in Tortolì (video journal update), I began my ascent at about 25 feet above sea level and hours later, after asking the universe many times for mercy which it promised and then retracted many times on false summits, I finally began to descend from ca. 3200 feet. And like the ascent, the descent was complicated, winding, and steep at times. It was an ideal, enviable place for a bicycle and an explorer, and ideally a film crew to take on the burden of still and video photography.
At times, the scenery gave the impression of being in the Italy's dolomite region in the Alps. And throughout, at many junctures I felt closer to absolute zero, to the experience of a gravitational singularity found inside a black hole. Here I was inspired to whisper even when the closest living objects to me were very far away, across a magnificent alpine patchwork of forest, stone, and meager horticulture. Below the final ascent I took refuge and photographs close to a building that was alone in this space, exposed to the elements in every cruel detail. Above, I could see where I was going, a roadway cut below a prominent, intimidating ridge that mimicked the dolomites in color and breadth. There was a saddle just above it, the real one, eventually I arrived there, by then fully transformed by the effort and the space.
I rode into depleted resources to reach a guest house in Buddittogliu Straulas, a small village on a saddle between Budoni and San Teodoro that I climbed in the dark before grocery shopping only a kilometer from the guest house. My hosts were exceptional, greeting me at their doorstep, anticipating my arrival, concerned for my safety riding on the unlit roadways, and also impressed by the pace I had set after booking into their place only a couple of hours before. I settled into a room and a palatial balcony, ate beyond what was sensible and eventually collapsed in a bed that might have accommodated an entire family in an earlier century. My REM state was no doubt going full tilt this evening, as I otherwise lay still, comfortably and for my own good, in paralysis other than the eye movements that define the state that is responsible for so much more including the consolidation of long term memories from our short term storage banks.
The following day, I closed the gap to the ferry terminal at Santa Teresa Gallura, only to discover, after ordering the largest hamburger ever conceived by man, that the terminal was being repaired and all services had been temporarily moved to Palau, a town I had ridden through earlier in the day. By then, I had about 80 miles in my legs and ca. two hours to buy a ticket and board the ferry bound for Bonifacio, Corsica, back in Palau. I reluctantly absorbed and accepted these facts, in the midst of four people, parents, a daughter and a friend, that adopted me as one of their own on first glance.
I probably took too much time eating the World's largest hamburger before hauling it back up the many hills from which I'd come. However, no harm came of any of it, even if nearly so, as I purchased my ticket and rushed to board the ferry with only about 15 minutes to spare before the boat left the harbor and quickly entered the Strait of Bonifacio en route to its namesake in France (video journal update).
Bonifacio must be on the short list of most exciting harbor entries recorded by mariners. And the harbor front and fortified town high above add considerably to the scene. The entry is through a natural wall of stone on either side which concludes in a slightly wider opening at a harbor that must be favored by the Gods when they want to take refuge from their storms. Sailboats and other pleasure craft of many sizes flourish here, along parallel docks and peripherally, cobblestone roads, some ascending in a way that seems to defy what's possible in the presence of Newton's gravity.
I was unaware of the layout of the town or I otherwise might have rolled on the level to the harbor, and then proceeded to the town itself, Bonifacio, the walled city, perched monumental above the harbor, her lights visible for miles out to sea and for centuries beckoning sailors to visit her bars and brothels. In the absence of those insights, I instead took the direct route to the walled village, up a road that was a marginal number of degrees shy of a wall itself (video journal update), and a guest house booking that I hastily made before the ferry went beyond cell phone range coming out of Palau.
What I found was a first for my touring experiences, more walls, this time disguised as stairwells that led to a third floor apartment. Carrying and maneuvering my bicycle, even completely stripped down, was immensely difficult, but I managed, and eventually all of my gear too was moved from street level to bedroom, a few pieces at a time. Nearby, an older french couple, also guests, eventually introduced themselves in the hallway that serviced our rooms and apparently exhausted their friendliness in the process. Not long thereafter, the shared bathroom door became locked and in a panic, throughout, they blamed me for all of their hardship. And I think the owner might have been similarly inclined.
Conspiracies withstanding, I used what remained of the evening to shop in a local grocery store, make friends with a curious woman from Portugal that I found looking up at me from the street when I was hoisting my bike up the first pitch, and eat a makeshift dinner in my room. The Portuguese traveler was a treasure for the extrovert, and the introvert too, me among them.
The following morning was "delicious" as my friend Stella no doubt would have proclaimed if she had been with me, I photographed and wandered, protected throughout by narrow passages between tall stone buildings, from a 30 mph wind that was otherwise raging from the west (video journal update). All of those activities, including the espresso I sipped amidst a beautiful courtyard overlooking the sea and cliffs far below, were as nourishing for my mind and body as any other encounters on the tour.
After a brief tour of the harbor, including it's colorful fish markets, I resumed my journey, and the epic loop that I coined Europa 360, on my way at this juncture to the northeastern tip of Corsica, an island that has been part of France since 1768 when it was ceded as a payment of debts incurred by Genoa when the French military came to their aid during the Corsican revolt. For many days, I'd been plotting routes across Corsica, and by now four were on my GPS, from minimal to maximal climbing with two intermediates between.
As I ascended from the harbor to the first saddle, it was time to make a decision, or shortly thereafter, about which route to commit to. The wind and my legs were significant factors, and ultimately I chose the easiest route, a coastal journey, with few exceptions along the way. In the absence of those constraints, a far more ambitious route across the island, up the middle would do nicely I suspect, could only be envied by anyone that knew even as little as I did about the Corsican landscape. Seemingly, a mountain in every direction and a valley between, and all of it populated by only about 350,000 humanoids at the last census.
Two days came and went, among the hills and primarily along the Corsican coast, absent were the massive, complex climbs that I ascended and descended in Sardinia, and at the end of those fond memories I was rolling into Bastia after a night spent camping, at a comfortable, seaside, and nearly deserted, this time of year, Bagheera naturist holiday center in Bravone (video journal update). Those memories withstanding, Bastia offered one more chance to explore this far-flung island in a fabulously historic town.
Like many seaside towns in Sicily and Corsica, Bastia begins with an expansive harbour before architecture and cobblestone assume the visual role and take the observer on a journey up proximate valleys and hillsides that cast shadows down on all of them. On a prominent ridge above the harbour, where the town was once fortified, I wandered in search of curious spaces and memories for my golden years before collecting a few more at the harbour. As I watched the sunlight slowly fade for the last time on Corsica the stonework and the hillsides continuously changed, reflections of color, shadows and depth, as if a painter God was having fun with the curious human, standing on a nearby breakwater absorbing it all (video journal update).
When the last remnants of light were all that remained, I made my way to the ferry terminal, it wasn't far, where I picked up my ticket and then settled in for boarding. Nightfell in the meantime, by then I was surrounded by all forms of hrududus, including the Goliath, 18-wheel format, all of them bound, as I was, for Toulon and their own adventures on the French mainland. When I was comfortably on the stern and witnessing Bastia's fading lights, I recorded this video journal update for my recollection and my social media community.
The all day and overnight ferry crossing from Palermo to Cagliari, a complete transect of the expansive Tyrrhenian Sea, provided plenty of time to rest and catch up on social media tasks; and in hindsight, this was the longest ship crossing on Europa 360, ca. 289 miles (video journal update). I also discovered two kindred spirits onboard, both of them European and on their own bicycle adventures. We reconvened many times on the cruise, typically on the port side where the younger of the two, a German from Bavaria, had staked his realestate claim, to share our stories. As I'd done when booking crossings of the Baltic and Adriatic Seas on this tour, I booked a cabin on my Palermo to Cagliari ticket to make the most of the time spent out of the elements, off my bike, and otherwise entrenched in luxurious, mosquito-free, etc, living.
My initial booking into Cagliari was canceled by the host when they read that I was traveling by bicycle. Sadly, touring cyclist do, occasionally, forget to bring their manners and all sorts of harm can come to property when those scenarios arise. As that implies, touring cyclist do sometimes bring their bikes indoors where they have to be vigilant to keep oil off the floor and other debri that inevitably sticks to a adventure cyclist, their bike and gear. When given that privilege, to take my bike indoors, I always take extreme care to leave the property as I found it. By the way, the host subsequently apologized and expressed their regret, perhaps based on Airbnb reviews left by hosts I've stayed with in the past.
That cancelation, however, turned-out to be fortuitous. Davide ("day veed ah") greeted me at the entryway into an apartment building, his guest house lodged inside, a few miles from the ferry terminal on the 71st day of Europa 360. Immediately, I had an ally in a new town, on a new island, an aide-de-camp to help me navigate a language that I did not speak. Davide's genuine kindness and concern for his guests initiated my thinking, combined with the historical significance of the town that I was quickly becoming aware of, about the possibility of staying for a second night, which I ultimately booked after considering days remaining to reach Barcelona and miles between. Those rough calculations suggested that I "was good on time" as my friend, and former girlfriend, in Hamburg, Germany often says. By chance, I'd be seeing her at the end of the journey, as well as my friend Andrew Mackie.
Exploration ensued, clad in red sneakers, to the gate overlooking the local Roman amphitheatre (video journal update), into the old districts among other historic ground, and the National Museum where treasures from the depths of Cagliari's archeological heaps were arranged in perfect order and restoration in glass cases and open air displays on four levels connected by handicap accessible walkways (video journal update). As much as I enjoyed those sites and the detailed museum exhibitions, I was equally inspired to simply wander the hills and narrow spaces in the old quarter of town. My mind flourished as my body's sensors sent back signals that when translated into biochemistry aligned with a spectacular model of a former age.
Not far from my room, a palatial, immaculate, and thoughtfully cared-for, space assembled by Davide, I found two pizza shops that I enjoyed. In the closest one, I became friends with the owner, he'd traveled in the US and spoke English moderately well. Before the two days dissolved, they always do, sadly, I felt like a regular bloke, moving quickly and intentionally, up and down and right to left, across the here and now, above a labyrinth tomb containing the remains of countless lives. I enjoy being a tourist but I prefer to keep that a secret. To accomplish that wizardry, I try, when I'm alone and in a new town, to move with intention and confidence, as I was doing in Cagliari, to give the impression that I knew where I was and all that follows from that conclusion.
Sardinia and Corsica are high places with so much in between that I have no doubt that a person could spend a lifetime exploring either and never stop finding treasures, especially the variety inspired by landlocked landscapes and those that converge with the sea in stunning juxtaposition. I had my first encounter with the former soon after I departed Cagliari (video journal update), 73 days after I had set-out on my bike from Barcelona's international airport. From Cagliari, I followed a secondary route, the SS125, which quickly transitioned to spaces where few traveled, this time of year, by now deep into the autumn (video journal update).
I had no idea when I started that I would be following a celebrated route, I only knew that there would be many mountains to climb and likely the whole stretch before I returned to the Tyrrhenian Sea at San Priamo, would be as close to wilderness as a person will encounter in most of Europe. High mountains all around, sharp, coarse canyons below, and a roadway that ascends and descends through all of it where hairpins and other turns abound and accidents at any of those junctures would almost certainly be fatal. For motorcyclists and car drivers, this route certainly ranks among the very best on the island. It is known as the Orientale Sarda and sometimes "the route 66" of Sardinia.
Withstanding the spectacular roadway and experience that I had on the opening section of the SS125 from Cagliari across the southeast corner of the island, it was not enough to prepare me for what would ensue the following day as I made my way from Lotzorai to Orosei on the same road through an even more impressive swath of near wilderness in a mountain range known as the Supramonte, an area encompassing 35,000 hectares that remains mostly uninhabited, it is a space that exists among the many high places that dominate Sardinia, and Corsica too, that seemed to have its own beating heart and soul (video journal update).
Just above the sea, and after a comfortable evening camping at Camping Villaggio Telis resort in Tortolì (video journal update), I began my ascent at about 25 feet above sea level and hours later, after asking the universe many times for mercy which it promised and then retracted many times on false summits, I finally began to descend from ca. 3200 feet. And like the ascent, the descent was complicated, winding, and steep at times. It was an ideal, enviable place for a bicycle and an explorer, and ideally a film crew to take on the burden of still and video photography.
At times, the scenery gave the impression of being in the Italy's dolomite region in the Alps. And throughout, at many junctures I felt closer to absolute zero, to the experience of a gravitational singularity found inside a black hole. Here I was inspired to whisper even when the closest living objects to me were very far away, across a magnificent alpine patchwork of forest, stone, and meager horticulture. Below the final ascent I took refuge and photographs close to a building that was alone in this space, exposed to the elements in every cruel detail. Above, I could see where I was going, a roadway cut below a prominent, intimidating ridge that mimicked the dolomites in color and breadth. There was a saddle just above it, the real one, eventually I arrived there, by then fully transformed by the effort and the space.
I rode into depleted resources to reach a guest house in Buddittogliu Straulas, a small village on a saddle between Budoni and San Teodoro that I climbed in the dark before grocery shopping only a kilometer from the guest house. My hosts were exceptional, greeting me at their doorstep, anticipating my arrival, concerned for my safety riding on the unlit roadways, and also impressed by the pace I had set after booking into their place only a couple of hours before. I settled into a room and a palatial balcony, ate beyond what was sensible and eventually collapsed in a bed that might have accommodated an entire family in an earlier century. My REM state was no doubt going full tilt this evening, as I otherwise lay still, comfortably and for my own good, in paralysis other than the eye movements that define the state that is responsible for so much more including the consolidation of long term memories from our short term storage banks.
The following day, I closed the gap to the ferry terminal at Santa Teresa Gallura, only to discover, after ordering the largest hamburger ever conceived by man, that the terminal was being repaired and all services had been temporarily moved to Palau, a town I had ridden through earlier in the day. By then, I had about 80 miles in my legs and ca. two hours to buy a ticket and board the ferry bound for Bonifacio, Corsica, back in Palau. I reluctantly absorbed and accepted these facts, in the midst of four people, parents, a daughter and a friend, that adopted me as one of their own on first glance.
I probably took too much time eating the World's largest hamburger before hauling it back up the many hills from which I'd come. However, no harm came of any of it, even if nearly so, as I purchased my ticket and rushed to board the ferry with only about 15 minutes to spare before the boat left the harbor and quickly entered the Strait of Bonifacio en route to its namesake in France (video journal update).
Bonifacio must be on the short list of most exciting harbor entries recorded by mariners. And the harbor front and fortified town high above add considerably to the scene. The entry is through a natural wall of stone on either side which concludes in a slightly wider opening at a harbor that must be favored by the Gods when they want to take refuge from their storms. Sailboats and other pleasure craft of many sizes flourish here, along parallel docks and peripherally, cobblestone roads, some ascending in a way that seems to defy what's possible in the presence of Newton's gravity.
I was unaware of the layout of the town or I otherwise might have rolled on the level to the harbor, and then proceeded to the town itself, Bonifacio, the walled city, perched monumental above the harbor, her lights visible for miles out to sea and for centuries beckoning sailors to visit her bars and brothels. In the absence of those insights, I instead took the direct route to the walled village, up a road that was a marginal number of degrees shy of a wall itself (video journal update), and a guest house booking that I hastily made before the ferry went beyond cell phone range coming out of Palau.
What I found was a first for my touring experiences, more walls, this time disguised as stairwells that led to a third floor apartment. Carrying and maneuvering my bicycle, even completely stripped down, was immensely difficult, but I managed, and eventually all of my gear too was moved from street level to bedroom, a few pieces at a time. Nearby, an older french couple, also guests, eventually introduced themselves in the hallway that serviced our rooms and apparently exhausted their friendliness in the process. Not long thereafter, the shared bathroom door became locked and in a panic, throughout, they blamed me for all of their hardship. And I think the owner might have been similarly inclined.
Conspiracies withstanding, I used what remained of the evening to shop in a local grocery store, make friends with a curious woman from Portugal that I found looking up at me from the street when I was hoisting my bike up the first pitch, and eat a makeshift dinner in my room. The Portuguese traveler was a treasure for the extrovert, and the introvert too, me among them.
The following morning was "delicious" as my friend Stella no doubt would have proclaimed if she had been with me, I photographed and wandered, protected throughout by narrow passages between tall stone buildings, from a 30 mph wind that was otherwise raging from the west (video journal update). All of those activities, including the espresso I sipped amidst a beautiful courtyard overlooking the sea and cliffs far below, were as nourishing for my mind and body as any other encounters on the tour.
After a brief tour of the harbor, including it's colorful fish markets, I resumed my journey, and the epic loop that I coined Europa 360, on my way at this juncture to the northeastern tip of Corsica, an island that has been part of France since 1768 when it was ceded as a payment of debts incurred by Genoa when the French military came to their aid during the Corsican revolt. For many days, I'd been plotting routes across Corsica, and by now four were on my GPS, from minimal to maximal climbing with two intermediates between.
As I ascended from the harbor to the first saddle, it was time to make a decision, or shortly thereafter, about which route to commit to. The wind and my legs were significant factors, and ultimately I chose the easiest route, a coastal journey, with few exceptions along the way. In the absence of those constraints, a far more ambitious route across the island, up the middle would do nicely I suspect, could only be envied by anyone that knew even as little as I did about the Corsican landscape. Seemingly, a mountain in every direction and a valley between, and all of it populated by only about 350,000 humanoids at the last census.
Two days came and went, among the hills and primarily along the Corsican coast, absent were the massive, complex climbs that I ascended and descended in Sardinia, and at the end of those fond memories I was rolling into Bastia after a night spent camping, at a comfortable, seaside, and nearly deserted, this time of year, Bagheera naturist holiday center in Bravone (video journal update). Those memories withstanding, Bastia offered one more chance to explore this far-flung island in a fabulously historic town.
Like many seaside towns in Sicily and Corsica, Bastia begins with an expansive harbour before architecture and cobblestone assume the visual role and take the observer on a journey up proximate valleys and hillsides that cast shadows down on all of them. On a prominent ridge above the harbour, where the town was once fortified, I wandered in search of curious spaces and memories for my golden years before collecting a few more at the harbour. As I watched the sunlight slowly fade for the last time on Corsica the stonework and the hillsides continuously changed, reflections of color, shadows and depth, as if a painter God was having fun with the curious human, standing on a nearby breakwater absorbing it all (video journal update).
When the last remnants of light were all that remained, I made my way to the ferry terminal, it wasn't far, where I picked up my ticket and then settled in for boarding. Nightfell in the meantime, by then I was surrounded by all forms of hrududus, including the Goliath, 18-wheel format, all of them bound, as I was, for Toulon and their own adventures on the French mainland. When I was comfortably on the stern and witnessing Bastia's fading lights, I recorded this video journal update for my recollection and my social media community.
Toulon, France to Barcelona, Spain: Situated on the Mediterranean coastline about 100 miles from Nice and considered the western gateway to the French Riviera, Toulon welcomes in grand fashion to anyone approaching by land or sea including those making passage on an overnight ferry from the French island of Corsica. The ferry boat gave me a chance to rest, tucked away in a private cabin in the bowels of the ship as the ship's crew transected the Ligurian Sea, like the Tyrrhenian Sea a subunit of the Mediterranean, about 208 miles from Bastia to Toulon.
From an upper deck of the ship, I reviewed all of the significant ferry crossings from Europa 360 in this video journal update. In the background, stillness and sunshine bathe the old and new districts of Toulon, a city built on ground known by Paleolithic hunter gatherers including the artists among them that 27,000 years ago began painting in Cosquer Cave. The artwork in the cave was discovered only recently, by divers that found the entrance many years before but not the water-free sections where the artwork must have been something to behold when their eyes broke the surface and their lights illuminated the cave's walls and ceilings. As that implies, since the conclusion of the last glacial maximum, about 10-12,000 years ago, the cave, located near Cap Morgiou west of Toulon, was gradually infiltrated by the sea.
Two French cyclists accompanied me as we rolled off the ship, they'd been on their own adventure on the island of Corsica and had plenty of stories to share from their adventures. The wind had been fierce, they reported, and snow too had fallen in the highest places on the island, something I confirmed from the coastline, looking up from the places where I slept and explored on my own transect. They also, kindly, invited me for a coffee which we settled into for a while, overlooking the harbor. Beyond the pavers and a proximate sea wall, pleasure craft of all sizes, dimensions, and colors were on display. A little farther, the principle base of the French Navy was also visible.
One-hundred miles to the east, an area used by early hominids 400,000 years ago, officially founded by the Greeks in the 3rd century BCE, and celebrated in the modern age for, among other distractions, its beaches, architecture, and restaurants, was also waking up, its tourists and locals, all of them cousins of the Cro-Magnons that left their remains at Terra Amata, in Nissa La Bella, known today as Nice. The celebrated town represents the approximate midpoint, and heart of the French Riviera that concludes at the border of Italy.
When still in the route planning stages for Europa 360, I rarely deviated from Nice as the place where I'd return to the European subcontinent from Corsica, and a wide swath of opportunity to explore the French Riviera all the way to Toulon where it ends or begins depending on your direction of travel. However, by the time I was on Corsica and making my way towards the ferry terminal at Bastia, fatigue and a commitment to meet a friend, Andrew Mackie, in Barcelona on day 84 compelled me to change plans and instead arrive to Toulon. That decision made sense at the time, and I still feel that way months later, but it nonetheless will always generate a twinge of disappointment when I reflect on how close I was to a treasure trove of interconnected communities, assembled by meticulous artists and craftsmen, all embedded in the foothills of the nearby French Alps as they descend, alongside the rivers that will be their undoing, into the Mediterranean Sea.
With caffeine in the tank and fond memories tucked into my REM sourcing archives, thanks to two friends that a moment before were strangers, I made a few turns in the old portion of Toulon that was closest to the waterfront and then resumed my meditation as I propelled my Niner Bikes RLT 9 RDO, a carbon fiber, racing bike repurposed for touring by Brave New Wheel in Fort Collins, Colorado, towards a train station in an anonymous French village. Along the way, I stopped to complain about motorcycles, apparently as this video journal update implies.
Deep creases under my eyelids reflect the fatigue that I was experiencing at this late juncture on the tour; and my crankiness, especially towards primarily scooters and the endless and seemingly unnecessary noise that they generate was also a clue that my physical self and central nervous system were pulling motivation from the ether. But as bad as that sounds, my willingness to ride on and desire to explore the next mile never descended into remorse or regret or any related adjective or emotion. I was tired for sure but the flame that burns inside of me and propels me towards and into the unknown never went out on Euroa 360, from Barcelona to Barcelona.
An out-n-back journey, by train from the village of Simiane-Collongue, a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southern France, provided a nice reprieve from what ailed me, especially time spent with friends in Entrepierres (video journal update) where I had visited earlier on the tour (see Part 1 of this travelogue for more details). By this time, the tour was deep into November, and I was as expected deep into my clothing to stay warm in my tent and occasionally on the bike on particularly cool mornings.
From Simiane-Collongue, my journey and route resumed and soon I was clear of the city of Marseilles, to the north, and making my way southwest towards the coastline where I bypassed another big town, Montpellier, en route to two nights in an apartment in Sète, owned and gifted to me by friends in Entrepierres on my second visit. Before I reached Sète, I spent a night wild camping in an olive grove in the town of Fontvieille, not far from a campground where the host, despite being closed for the season, advised me on where to go, down a path nearby and how far, and also invited me to join him for coffee in the morning.
Not long before I pitched my tent below those olive trees, I was in a village, where I bought bread and other easy to eat items for dinner. In the bakery, a friend, a moment before a stranger, helped me search for an open campground for about 30 minutes, which we were not able to find. In approaching darkness, I reluctantly left her side, and her warm bakery. Outside, on the pavers, more strangers, more friends awaited, one curious woman asked questions, her friends eventually a bit pressed by her delay, as she handed me fresh olives and I shly discarded the pits into a nearby bin. All of the effort to find a nearby, was inspired by the prettiest villages in Europe, as I've come to rank villages in France including Maussane-les-Alpilles where I was unsuccessful in finding an affordable lodging opportunity despite so many local aids.
It was a long days ride from Fontvieille to Sète but one that I will always remember fondly, many parks between and primarily on smooth, well surfaced, pedestrian and bicycle-only gravel two-tracks that never deviated far from the coast. Along the way, early in the morning, I stopped at a bakery in Arles and another friendship was born, thanks to the kindness and curiosity of a stranger before I discovered the amphitheatre and other historic architecture in the heart of the town.
Like other places that I arrived to on this and my other bike tours in Europe, I was drawn into the old quarter of Arles, a big village on the Rhône, by easily detectable signs that a significant chapter in history was nearby, including unmolested cobblestone roads and contemporary architecture, visible from the primary route, between buildings, as I was negotiating the periphery of town. Serendipity was very kind to me when I chanced upon this inspired space where I delayed for perhaps two hours (video journal update) before resuming my ride along the coast (video journal update) to Sète, where I delayed two nights and explored for a full day in between the markets and other spaces in this beautiful port town on the French Mediterranean coast (video journal update).
On the 82nd day of the tour, I departed Sète and remained in the company of seagulls and other marine critters all the way to the suburbs of Perpignan where I turned inland in preparation to cross the Pyrenees for the second time and last time on the tour, beyond was the city of Barcelona two friends that were either already standing by for my arrival or packing their bags for an imminent flight to that city. My last ascent of significance for Europa 360 began at Le Boulou, on the French side of the Pyrenees, and concluded at a saddle in Le Perthus, a town with a foot in two countries, where I subsequently descended into Spain.
A few hours later, not far from Girona, less than 20 miles by now to the south, I went in search of a place to wilderness camp on my last night of the tour. Not long after I ate dinner in a bar in Camallera, I arrived to a river and a gravel track that followed the same into the forest on the right side of the road. A sign that clearly implied conservation land intended for respectful recreation was also close by.
I followed the River Ter, a unimposing waterway that flows from a glacial cirque in the East Pyrenees all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, into forests in rotation and agricultural lands amidst what must have been a river corridor that was otherwise unmolested. Camping opportunities were everywhere and I eventually chose a sight, on short stretch of former tractor track that lay abandoned and overgrown seemingly for many years, where I was out of view from the rough, two track gravel road that I'd been following for a handful of miles from the paved, country road where the exploration began.
Fortuitously, a discarded pile of limestone blocks were heaped nearby, partially concealed by vegetation. I beat and chopped, using a stick as a scythe, a place for my tent and two of the blocks which I used for sitting and spreading out my breakfast, including cold, instant coffee, the next morning. Above the old road bed and my camp, the sound of the nearby Ter was most prominent and local bird fauna. A little farther, perhaps a mile or more, I occasionally heard other sounds too, including farmers dogs, and a roadway somewhere to the west. Amidst only those sounds, I slept well and no doubt dreamed of a promenade that I had never seen in Barcelona.
The ground fog that settled into my camp and the river valley in general was wet enough to generate the sound of falling rain as dew condensed on leaves in the forest and eventually fell down to objects closer to the belly of the earth including my tent. I ate a modest breakfast and despite my proximity, ca. 80 miles, to the conclusion of Europa 360 I was in no hurry to leave the comforts of my little piece of very wet Eden. Reluctance withstanding, soon I was saying hello to two surprised runners as I was exiting my forgotten tractor track en route to the route I'd departed the night before.
Girona was next, and other than the look around that I inadvertently experienced when I lost my way in the convoluted city, I decided to keep moving. On the final stretch into the town, I followed a series of tertiary roads along the southern boundary of a wide valley closed in on my left by the impressive Parc del Montnegre i el Corredor. Part way, and not far from Montmeló, I came alongside the River Besòs, and at that juncture, with internal pleasure that spilled easily onto my lips and cheeks, I relinquished navigation responsibilities that I had otherwise held close for nearly three months on a great, clockwise exploration of the European subcontinent.
From suburbs into nurturing urban green space, following the inner contours of the dominant watershed, on autopilot with the Besòs and by now following enviable non-motorized paths juxtaposed between manicured lawns, sun worshipers, and ultimate frisbee enthusiasts, among others. I crossed the urban boundary into the city where I'd begun the tour 83 days before and with it a feeling of accomplishment flooded in, a flashpoint equivalent to a supernovae that will certainly embed countless memories in perpetuity, in my mind, feed countless recollections and no doubt provide the fuel for a few more epic journeys by bicycle.
From an upper deck of the ship, I reviewed all of the significant ferry crossings from Europa 360 in this video journal update. In the background, stillness and sunshine bathe the old and new districts of Toulon, a city built on ground known by Paleolithic hunter gatherers including the artists among them that 27,000 years ago began painting in Cosquer Cave. The artwork in the cave was discovered only recently, by divers that found the entrance many years before but not the water-free sections where the artwork must have been something to behold when their eyes broke the surface and their lights illuminated the cave's walls and ceilings. As that implies, since the conclusion of the last glacial maximum, about 10-12,000 years ago, the cave, located near Cap Morgiou west of Toulon, was gradually infiltrated by the sea.
Two French cyclists accompanied me as we rolled off the ship, they'd been on their own adventure on the island of Corsica and had plenty of stories to share from their adventures. The wind had been fierce, they reported, and snow too had fallen in the highest places on the island, something I confirmed from the coastline, looking up from the places where I slept and explored on my own transect. They also, kindly, invited me for a coffee which we settled into for a while, overlooking the harbor. Beyond the pavers and a proximate sea wall, pleasure craft of all sizes, dimensions, and colors were on display. A little farther, the principle base of the French Navy was also visible.
One-hundred miles to the east, an area used by early hominids 400,000 years ago, officially founded by the Greeks in the 3rd century BCE, and celebrated in the modern age for, among other distractions, its beaches, architecture, and restaurants, was also waking up, its tourists and locals, all of them cousins of the Cro-Magnons that left their remains at Terra Amata, in Nissa La Bella, known today as Nice. The celebrated town represents the approximate midpoint, and heart of the French Riviera that concludes at the border of Italy.
When still in the route planning stages for Europa 360, I rarely deviated from Nice as the place where I'd return to the European subcontinent from Corsica, and a wide swath of opportunity to explore the French Riviera all the way to Toulon where it ends or begins depending on your direction of travel. However, by the time I was on Corsica and making my way towards the ferry terminal at Bastia, fatigue and a commitment to meet a friend, Andrew Mackie, in Barcelona on day 84 compelled me to change plans and instead arrive to Toulon. That decision made sense at the time, and I still feel that way months later, but it nonetheless will always generate a twinge of disappointment when I reflect on how close I was to a treasure trove of interconnected communities, assembled by meticulous artists and craftsmen, all embedded in the foothills of the nearby French Alps as they descend, alongside the rivers that will be their undoing, into the Mediterranean Sea.
With caffeine in the tank and fond memories tucked into my REM sourcing archives, thanks to two friends that a moment before were strangers, I made a few turns in the old portion of Toulon that was closest to the waterfront and then resumed my meditation as I propelled my Niner Bikes RLT 9 RDO, a carbon fiber, racing bike repurposed for touring by Brave New Wheel in Fort Collins, Colorado, towards a train station in an anonymous French village. Along the way, I stopped to complain about motorcycles, apparently as this video journal update implies.
Deep creases under my eyelids reflect the fatigue that I was experiencing at this late juncture on the tour; and my crankiness, especially towards primarily scooters and the endless and seemingly unnecessary noise that they generate was also a clue that my physical self and central nervous system were pulling motivation from the ether. But as bad as that sounds, my willingness to ride on and desire to explore the next mile never descended into remorse or regret or any related adjective or emotion. I was tired for sure but the flame that burns inside of me and propels me towards and into the unknown never went out on Euroa 360, from Barcelona to Barcelona.
An out-n-back journey, by train from the village of Simiane-Collongue, a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region of southern France, provided a nice reprieve from what ailed me, especially time spent with friends in Entrepierres (video journal update) where I had visited earlier on the tour (see Part 1 of this travelogue for more details). By this time, the tour was deep into November, and I was as expected deep into my clothing to stay warm in my tent and occasionally on the bike on particularly cool mornings.
From Simiane-Collongue, my journey and route resumed and soon I was clear of the city of Marseilles, to the north, and making my way southwest towards the coastline where I bypassed another big town, Montpellier, en route to two nights in an apartment in Sète, owned and gifted to me by friends in Entrepierres on my second visit. Before I reached Sète, I spent a night wild camping in an olive grove in the town of Fontvieille, not far from a campground where the host, despite being closed for the season, advised me on where to go, down a path nearby and how far, and also invited me to join him for coffee in the morning.
Not long before I pitched my tent below those olive trees, I was in a village, where I bought bread and other easy to eat items for dinner. In the bakery, a friend, a moment before a stranger, helped me search for an open campground for about 30 minutes, which we were not able to find. In approaching darkness, I reluctantly left her side, and her warm bakery. Outside, on the pavers, more strangers, more friends awaited, one curious woman asked questions, her friends eventually a bit pressed by her delay, as she handed me fresh olives and I shly discarded the pits into a nearby bin. All of the effort to find a nearby, was inspired by the prettiest villages in Europe, as I've come to rank villages in France including Maussane-les-Alpilles where I was unsuccessful in finding an affordable lodging opportunity despite so many local aids.
It was a long days ride from Fontvieille to Sète but one that I will always remember fondly, many parks between and primarily on smooth, well surfaced, pedestrian and bicycle-only gravel two-tracks that never deviated far from the coast. Along the way, early in the morning, I stopped at a bakery in Arles and another friendship was born, thanks to the kindness and curiosity of a stranger before I discovered the amphitheatre and other historic architecture in the heart of the town.
Like other places that I arrived to on this and my other bike tours in Europe, I was drawn into the old quarter of Arles, a big village on the Rhône, by easily detectable signs that a significant chapter in history was nearby, including unmolested cobblestone roads and contemporary architecture, visible from the primary route, between buildings, as I was negotiating the periphery of town. Serendipity was very kind to me when I chanced upon this inspired space where I delayed for perhaps two hours (video journal update) before resuming my ride along the coast (video journal update) to Sète, where I delayed two nights and explored for a full day in between the markets and other spaces in this beautiful port town on the French Mediterranean coast (video journal update).
On the 82nd day of the tour, I departed Sète and remained in the company of seagulls and other marine critters all the way to the suburbs of Perpignan where I turned inland in preparation to cross the Pyrenees for the second time and last time on the tour, beyond was the city of Barcelona two friends that were either already standing by for my arrival or packing their bags for an imminent flight to that city. My last ascent of significance for Europa 360 began at Le Boulou, on the French side of the Pyrenees, and concluded at a saddle in Le Perthus, a town with a foot in two countries, where I subsequently descended into Spain.
A few hours later, not far from Girona, less than 20 miles by now to the south, I went in search of a place to wilderness camp on my last night of the tour. Not long after I ate dinner in a bar in Camallera, I arrived to a river and a gravel track that followed the same into the forest on the right side of the road. A sign that clearly implied conservation land intended for respectful recreation was also close by.
I followed the River Ter, a unimposing waterway that flows from a glacial cirque in the East Pyrenees all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, into forests in rotation and agricultural lands amidst what must have been a river corridor that was otherwise unmolested. Camping opportunities were everywhere and I eventually chose a sight, on short stretch of former tractor track that lay abandoned and overgrown seemingly for many years, where I was out of view from the rough, two track gravel road that I'd been following for a handful of miles from the paved, country road where the exploration began.
Fortuitously, a discarded pile of limestone blocks were heaped nearby, partially concealed by vegetation. I beat and chopped, using a stick as a scythe, a place for my tent and two of the blocks which I used for sitting and spreading out my breakfast, including cold, instant coffee, the next morning. Above the old road bed and my camp, the sound of the nearby Ter was most prominent and local bird fauna. A little farther, perhaps a mile or more, I occasionally heard other sounds too, including farmers dogs, and a roadway somewhere to the west. Amidst only those sounds, I slept well and no doubt dreamed of a promenade that I had never seen in Barcelona.
The ground fog that settled into my camp and the river valley in general was wet enough to generate the sound of falling rain as dew condensed on leaves in the forest and eventually fell down to objects closer to the belly of the earth including my tent. I ate a modest breakfast and despite my proximity, ca. 80 miles, to the conclusion of Europa 360 I was in no hurry to leave the comforts of my little piece of very wet Eden. Reluctance withstanding, soon I was saying hello to two surprised runners as I was exiting my forgotten tractor track en route to the route I'd departed the night before.
Girona was next, and other than the look around that I inadvertently experienced when I lost my way in the convoluted city, I decided to keep moving. On the final stretch into the town, I followed a series of tertiary roads along the southern boundary of a wide valley closed in on my left by the impressive Parc del Montnegre i el Corredor. Part way, and not far from Montmeló, I came alongside the River Besòs, and at that juncture, with internal pleasure that spilled easily onto my lips and cheeks, I relinquished navigation responsibilities that I had otherwise held close for nearly three months on a great, clockwise exploration of the European subcontinent.
From suburbs into nurturing urban green space, following the inner contours of the dominant watershed, on autopilot with the Besòs and by now following enviable non-motorized paths juxtaposed between manicured lawns, sun worshipers, and ultimate frisbee enthusiasts, among others. I crossed the urban boundary into the city where I'd begun the tour 83 days before and with it a feeling of accomplishment flooded in, a flashpoint equivalent to a supernovae that will certainly embed countless memories in perpetuity, in my mind, feed countless recollections and no doubt provide the fuel for a few more epic journeys by bicycle.