Beside the Seaside

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In Which It All Gets Worryingly Zen

July 4, 2008 by Mike

Route: Marina de Ginosa - Marina di Castellaneta - Taranto - Gallipoli - San Maria di Leuca - Otranto

Yesterday's entry turned out something like a photo-story from "Jackie" magazine, and today starts the same way.

On 3 August 2006 I got the Bonnie as far north and east of Murmansk as I could, before the road was blocked by some heavily-armed (and -acned) Roosian conscripts. The bike had 6,764 miles on the clock:

and it looked pretty neat:

That was the start of my voyage besidetheseaside.

Well, this morning, just one year, eleven months and two days later, the clock ticked over to 36,764 miles. 30,000 miles round the coast (plus all the trips I've sneaked inland and not told you about) later:

and if the bike is showing a bit of wear and tear, I still don't look a day over 25:

This not-terribly-historic event took place close to a signpost for the town of Castellaneta. You don't deserve to see the picture I took there without a health warning, so it's an extra click away -- because of how grim my hair looks. But it was meant to look that way. Yes! And many of you may even understand why.. I hope.

But where was I? That's right, rounding the bay towards Taranto, the top of the instep of the bottom of the foot of the heel of the boot that is the peninsula of Italy. Some people have a thing about feet. For others, they're ugly, gruesome and should never be seen. The latter is certainly true of the bleak coastal fringes of Taranto -- industrial, grey, flat, dirty.

I got a bit Zen about it all as I was riding: "Mike, it had to happen at some stage. You couldn't ride all the way round the coast of Europe expecting the whole journey to be beautiful and.. Hang on!.. Wait a, I said wait a cottonpickin' minute! Did you just say 'Zen'? Unh-uhh, sorry Mike, no can do.. Zen and motorcycling?.. It's been done -- and however long you grow yr hair and beard, no-one'll fall for it again.

So if I ask "But where was I?" once again, I promise I'm not getting all Zen on you.

I was, by this stage, out the other side of Taranto. For a lot of the way, I shadowed a cop car -- Polizia Municipale, I wish I'd got their registration number -- staying right on their tail, doing 85kmph in a 40kmph zone as we, the cops and I, were overtaken by a succession of helmetless motorcyclists doing a good 20kmph more than us. The cops, needless to say, were not wearing seatbelts. They were deep in conversation (since arriving here, I learned very quickly to watch the hands of driver and passenger to see if they were concentrating on the road or their conversation) and quite possibly flirting with each other.

But I'll get off my high horse about all this. In this traffic, I wouldn't want to put the horse in any danger.

(Except to mention the next police car I saw, driving erratically. Because.. of course.. the driver was nattering away on his mobile phone as he drove. And in classic Italian-stereotypical style, he was gesturing with his left hand while holding the phone in his right...)

I'm going off at tangents because the riding was still dull dull dull. Stretches that one local had told me were "beautiful" looked more like "Blackpool". Bodies crammed onto every available square inch of beach; the coast road a parking lot, and traffic slowed as every third car was looking for a space to pull over so the people inside could add to the throng.

Dull, I reflected, but that's OK - it's preparing me for the entire east coast of Italy, which I have been told repeatedly is ugly and boring. (By people who live on the west coast, I should point out.. there isn't just a north-south divide in this country.)

Porto Cesareo was pretty enough and Gallipoli, I was pleasantly surprised to see, wasn't full of whining Australians. In fact, it was gorgeous, complete with a road so steep and a turn so angled that you have to perform a little figure-of-eight round a special roundabout rather than making the turn in one go.

Very livable in, I could imagine. Although you'd be faced with a stiff choice:
a) a lovely home in the historic centre, with a view of ugly modern suburbia
or
b) an impersonal modern home in the 'burbs with a view of the old centre.

Rather like the flat we got in Ladbroke Grove. We had an '081' telephone number but, across the road, an '071' aspect.

Dull dull dull. Where were the cliffs, the mountains, the old towns?

In the last few miles before I reached Leuca, at the very tip of the Italian stiletto, I entered the 21st century starts to recede again. A region of stone walls and smallholdings, few towns and fewer tourists. The houses were modest and inconspicuous. This is by no means the southernmost point of Italy but it's got that feel.. like it's been forgotten about. Down at the very tip of the stiletto: a grotto, a lighthouse, a complicated one-way system through a compact little town. Everything was shut. No symbolic dog-dirt to be seen.

But, turning my nose northwards and setting sail for Venice, in other words on the dreaded east coast for the first time, everything got suddenly and dramatically beautiful again. The low stonewalls became an intricate lattice chasing themselves across the fields, the houses stone too, and the seaside took on handsomely craggy proportions.

The other side of Gagliano del Capo, the road scurried over and above small coves and precipitous promontories, flying low to the spumy sea. Inland, in almost all of the fields now, small conical stone buildings -- a kindly soul wrote their name down, pajala, but I can find no trace of that word via Google -- used for storage, animal shelters and yes, I was told, the locals would sleep in them if they'd worked late in the fields. Or drunk too much to crawl home, thinks I. Not quite big enough or white-walled enough to be my dream home, maybe -- but they're round which, as any self-respecting Moomin will tell you, is what all good houses should be.

And this is the point when I realise that I may have got my prejudices about the east coast slightly wrong. They have been informed by west coasters, after all. And while I'm on the subject of prejudice, many of the west coasters also warned me about Sicily: "It's beautiful," they said, "but the Sicilians.. sheesh.. they're all Africans!"

What I had hoped, in my bleeding heart liberal kinda way, was that the term 'Africans' referred to the fact that Sicily is closer to Africa than the rest of Italy. An endearing epithet. But there are more African-born people in Sicily than I've seen elsewhere - and my opinion of those west coasters is sinking by the hour.

.. and at the same time, my opinion of the east coast rises. Castro is beautiful -- and what a great name for a leftie; San Cesara Terme was cute and Otranto worth stopping in. Or near. The campsite is a mile along the cliffs, under a csanopy of tall trees and the LOUDEST choir of cicadas I have EVER heard. UnbeLIEVable. I took my helmet off.. realised just how loud they were.. and burst out laughing. I don't think I've ever burst out laughing at how loud insects are before. But I'm very glad that it's happened to me at least once in my life.

Beside the Seaside

In Which It All Gets Worryingly Zen

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