Tuscany

In April 2002, Norma and myself went to Tuscany for 2 weeks. The following is a short report on how we fared. All bike related stuff - I took loads of other pictures as well.

Saturday	Set off from home. Drove down to Dover to catch the 7:00 ferry. Got there early and they let us onboard the 5:30. Got to Calais and set off to Paris. But the hotel was on the Bologne road! 30 miles later, we arrived back....Picture of Norma at South Mimms services. Also, one showing how they tie down bikes on a ferry.
Sunday	Decided we would blat down the autoroutes and see how far we could get. Had lunch outside Reims. Found a nice hotel south of Metz. This is me in the hotel car park. Notice the ears on the back boxes. They stayed on at over 120 but eventually the string broke and they fell off.
Monday	Over the border into Switzerland. Wonderful scenery as you can see. Stayed the night at Como.
Tuesday	Got to our apartment in Tuscany. First job - clean the flies off the bikes. See the before and after pictures for a comparison.
Wed	Lazy day at Tuscany. Did no travelling at all.
Thursday	Off to Pisa. Chose some nice backroads to ride on. Got lost on the way back but still had a nice time.
Friday	Another lazy day. Had a walk to the next village - no bikes rides.
Saturday	Off to Florence. Took loads of piccies and had a nice time. The heavens opened on the way back.
Sunday	Another lazy day. Walked around a bit.
Monday	Went for a ride out. Found a fantastic restaurant in a little village and found some super roads to ride. The picture doesn't do justice to the fun we had.
Tuesday.	Leaving day and off to Venice for the night. This is the bikes loaded up ready to roll.
Wednesday	Drove up through the Brenner pass into Austria. Beautiful roads and friendly bikers. Found a good hotel - second picture is the view from the balcony.
Thursday	Weather turning bad - had to use waterproofs again. Got into France (just) and found a small place to stay. You can see the mist coming down
Friday	Driving up the Autoroutes - pull in for lunch and Norma's back tyre is almost flat. So, we spend and interesting 2 hours getting it sorted out. I can recommend the Yamaha dealer in Chalon sur Champagne. Got to the hotel in time for dinner though. The car park was gravel which made parking interesting !
Saturday	And home to England. Ugh - the drivers over here are crap.

In conclusion, we had a super time. The weather was really good to us and the bikes worked well all the time. Everyone should do this at least once.....

Below I have put in some of the routes we took. Lots of motorway blasts and some nice twisties once we got to Tuscany.

You can download the maps if you have Autoroute 2002 - right click on the text to download.

Blat down France
Over the mountains to Italy
A route to Pisa
A day trip out round the twisty roads