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In Which You Couldn't Make It Up
May 13, 2008 by Mike
Albenga
Route: Monaco - a bit of France - Ventimiglia, Italy - San Remo - Albenga
Some things I noticed in Monaco this morning, despite my hangover:
* There's a superexpensive jewellers' shop at the entrance to the Casino, and it's open until 2 in the morning. So, if you do win big, you can lose most of it before you even reach fresh air.
* This Swiss Bonnie: s/he's gone for Hepco & Becker panniers so far less room for panel shirts and books than I have, but this is the first time I've seen another Bonneville equipped to go touring. It has nearly 45,000 km on the clock.. good going.
* Due to the fact that the the Boulevard Belgique runs in to Boulevard du Jardin Exotique, and given the way maps of Monaco show the names of streets, I thought for a moment there was a road called Boulevard Belgique Exotique.. which could have been sued under the Trade Descriptions Act.
* The start of the Via Alpina, a path from Monaco to Trieste via France, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Italy, Germany, Astria and Slovenia. It's a 2,445 km walk through the mountains.. rather longer if you aim for Trieste via the Italian coast.. but they'll have more ups and downs than me.
* "Apart from the immediate vicinity of the beaches it is forbidden to walk bare-chested; wearing only a swimming costume [or] barefoot." It's illegal to be barefoot here! Outbloodyrageous!
--
Woke early: the others had a plane to catch back to London. Danny woke a little more slowly than the others.
Someone asked what had happened to the last bottle of gin.
"The carpet drank it," said Danny, on reflection.
He couldn't understand why everyone else found that funny.
I became transfixed by the sight of somebody's Oyster Card (it's London Transport payment card) in amongst the empty champagne bottles and quickly-packed suitcases. My god! That whole world, of simmering commuters and queues and delays and cancellations, which I was a part of, and now feel so far away from. It still exists, only a plane ride away.
Although, in this case, not the plane ride they were expecting. Despite waking up several days before some of them wanted to, Mandy & Co missed their flight. Nothing less than the night they'd just had deserved. Normally, no doubt, their colleagues would be raising their eyebrows at this, but while London's basking in a heatwave, it's overcast and chilly on the Riviera. Dangnabbit.
(Mandy - I don't think I've given away too much, have I?)
I, too, had no need to stay in Monaco. It wasn't going to get any better than the champagne-fuelled night I'd just emerged from.
Until I felt strong enough to leave this strange little country (which, of course, isn't a country at all, it's a Disneyfied tax-haven, a high-rise anachronism, a scam -- and unmissable) I stumbled through the Maritime Museum (actually, the royal family's model ship collection) and the Motor Museum -- the royal family's collection of fast, old, big but always *expensive* motorcars. And, as with the race track yesterday, I'm a convert -- a petrolhead. Rollers, Ferraris, Maseratis, an Hispano-Siza -- on the street I'm such an inverted snob I'll do anything not to look interested in a big expensive car; here, I can swoon and gasp and make eyes at them.
--
Italy's only 20 miles or so up the coast, but in that time I get to ride more curly coastline and, just before the border, a couple of encounters that leave me with a big grin on my face.
First, a British couple spot me.
"I used to have one of them! A '68 Bonneville. Loved it. But I couldn't keep it when we got married - he thinks all vehicles should have four wheels."
Yes - HE. It was the wife who rode the big motorbike back in the day. Fantastic.
And secondly, Jean-Claude:
Jean-Claude is slowly riding many of the same roads I have been on. He does it in stages: "I'm married," he sighed.
"I'm divorced," I sigh back.
He's already two-wheeled the Baltic coast from Tallinn south; much of the Low Countries; all the French coast; and here he is heading to Istanbul. (Not sure if he's going coastal or heading straight there.. but either way, even though he's retired and on a pushbike, the chances are he'll keep catching up with me. I hope so. There was an instant, relaxed camaraderie between us. Very different people, no doubt, and very different experiences.. but plenty in common too.
Jean-Claude -- Bon voyage.. and take care in Italy. They're nuts here.
--
And so to Italy -- that's the south of France done and dusted in just 16 days.
And it took less than ten minutes, and about four-and-a-half miles, for me to know for sure I was in a new and very different country.
A thin stretch of suburban road descending down a hill into the town of Ventimiglia. Houses and shops on each side, not much traffic, the posted speed-limit is 50kmph and I'm probably doing just over 60. But a small, turquoise Fiat is right up my tail.. he can't be more than a metre or two from the back of the bike, and he's hogging the centre of the road like he's about to overtake.
"He can't," I tell myself. "He wouldn't.."
I accelerate slightly to give myself breathing space, tap my mirror just like I've done 1000 times before. He pulls back into place. I accelerate, turn to look and shake my head. He pulls back into place. I accelerate, dab the brakes. Red lights usually do the trick. He.. overtakes. Blind corner; suburban street, kids on the pavement, the works. And then he stops his car in the middle of the road, opens the door and starts shouting at me! Well, he's Italian, so he's gesticulating rather than shouting.
By now, other cars have been forced to stop. The woman in the first car is looking at Mr Fiat with open mouth. A van coming from the other direction blasts his horn. The woman gestures apologetically to me. Mr Fiat shouts at her, then speeds off.
And all I can do is.. laugh.
A quiter moment just across the border and into Italy.
I've only been in the country for ten minutes.
Welcome to Italy.
Comments
By Mike With | May 19, 2008 10:50 PM
Hello Janet & David -- very kind of you to drop by. I'll be back in Norwich in the next, well, the next few years at this rate. If you want to borrow the bike, just let me know..
--Mike
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By Janet and David Dykes | May 19, 2008 5:01 PM
Hi Mike
We are the English couple that met you in Menton, Yes her that drove the Bonnie in 1968! We have been tracking your progress since returning to East Anglia and will continue to do so, so wishing you the best of luck. By the way we also enjoyed our stay whilst visiting the Monaco Historic racing, we will be back hopefully in two years time for the next races. Cheers. Janet and David.