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April 8 Saturday Bicycle touring Italy from Celle Italy to San Remo Italy Sharon was worried they may lock the metal door leading into the fort, but it was still as we found it last night ... albeit with sheep turds a little more trampled than when we first found them last night. We had discovered an exit over the top of the wall anyway, even if we did happen to get locked in. The road we are bicycle touring on continues to roll up and down the coastline. It is gentler climbing than the interior of Italy or the coast of Oregon. The Mediterranean is more placid, too. But its colour is nowhere near that of Sardegna -- it's mostly dark blue. Lots of air pollution from cars and factories. Smoggy. Hazy. The water doesn't look too bad though. I expected it to be worse. Stopped at a bike shop. By the time the shop had finished with Sharon's bike yesterday, it was near closing, so they didn't have time to do my bike. The mechanic at this shop was busy, it being a Saturday. He sent me twenty kilometres down the road to Reale Bikes in Albenga. We found out the place sells Cannondales (which is what I'm touring on). To replace the cluster and chain, the guy quotes $100, with no grease job. They are busy. I say no thanks. I can't make him understand that I don't care if the replacement parts are not Shimano; the Shimano cost twice as much as anything else. The old part of town was neat. Haven't seen many narrow cobblestone streets lately. It was pedestrian only. We ate lunch standing at a rock wall, overlooking a mostly dried-up river while watching a few ducks swim, or huddle camouflaged in the old brown and new green grass, by the bank. Right now it's cool and my fingers are freezing. Good thing I haven't retired my worn-through wool gloves yet. San Remo was packed wall to wall with tourists. If the Italian Riviera's time has come and gone like some guide books would try to have us believe, they sure forgot to tell a lot of people! Saw two bicycle tourers stopped in a park. We pulled our bikes to a stop to talk with them. Sharon spotted a little Canadian flag sewn on one of their rear panniers. John and Denise (finally, names I can say again) are from Winnipeg. He is a principal; she is a resource teacher. They took a year leave. They flew to Faro, Portugal to begin their bicycle tour. Denise laughs as we recounted stories of our cycle tour there. She figures she did her bit for women's lib by cycling there, too. So did Sharon and Susan -- even venturing into the male-only bastion bars. They had their bikes loaded, but no camping gear. When I asked about camping, Denise said, "This was the first time we've tried camping on a cycle tour." They stayed the winter in France, soaking up the culture. Their two kids visited them at Christmas and they sent their camping gear back. Now they are pampering themselves, they say. Actually, if they paid for camping, small hotels are not much more in price -- in fact, some are cheaper. They are cycling Hwy 1 -- there isn't much choice -- to Pisa, then across to Florence. They want to cycle in Greece, Malaysia, New Zealand, and Australia, then finish up by lying on a beach for two weeks in Tonga and Samoa, home mid-July in time to go back to work next September. Passed another two cycle tourers as we were flying downhill and they were grunting up. They didn't look too happy. Both had helmets, so we figure they must be North Americans -- European tourers aren't fond of wearing helmets. We cut inland to try and find a free spot to camp. We spotted a dead end road, but for some reason I talked Sharon out of going on it. Instead, up and up and up we climbed on our fully loaded touring bicycles. Finally, we reached a vantage point where we looked across the valley to terraced olive trees and a small group of trees. Ideal. There is nothing but humanity around us. Guess what? To get across to the ideal spot, we had to go back down and head up that dead end road.... |
