as every morning, we start out just before the sun rises – we want to get the most of the day.
today, is the first of two days of driving across the width of italy. about two-thirds will be flat and then we will cross the apenin mountain region.
View to the sea, sea and back (TW560) TWIKE in a larger map
a disclaimer: as a child, i was fortunate enough to have lived in italy for about three years. this is why i speak fluent italian and have had a soft spot for this country since. i have many friends in italy i visit from time to time and i can say that i have spent most of my time visiting and not as a tourist. i know of the many issues this country faces and am certainly not a blue-eyed admirer of all things beautiful here… i say this because of the euro crisis has left deep marks everywhere. many shops, bars and sme’s are just shut and soo many properties have not been finished and are rotting away or are under foreclosure. people are cutting corners and the state is too. infrastructure, buildings and houses – many are in disrepair. it hurts to see this over and over again throughout the day.
this said, our first view of trieste is beautiful with the sun rising and bathing it in a golden light.
after having spent some time with the last blog entry yesterday – soo much to write about – i was slightly tired 🙂
italy has a wonderful remedy for this – what my chai was in india, my caffé corto is in italy. yum!
we settle into our routine and just follow our red line.
the police is usually very interested in our vehicle – they either follow us around for miles, take pictures, wave when overtaking and then wait for us just a few kms down the road to take more pictures – today was no different 🙂
then, our road took us out into the endless fields.
although relaxing, we somehow are missing some elevated reference points which would give us some indication that we are actually moving ahead and are covering some distance. you could close your eyes for 15 minutes and everything would still look the same.
we didn’t go to venice.
Q: why? this is one of the most beautiful cities in the world! you should have spent at least half a day there!
A: both jc and myself already have been to venice. besides that, it is easy to get to venice and stay some days. driving a twike across rural northern italy is something we will not be able to repeat anytime soon and we wanted to dedicate our time to this trip.
the first place we stop to see if we can charge is already perfect – no discussions, 3x16A available and a friendly owner. what more does a TWIKE owner need?
after an hour spent at the coffee place just around the corner, we’re ready to go.
for the next 2 hours everything stays the same: flat flat flat.
we have one interesting place to cross: padova. we enter the city…
get to the city centre with the basilica and all.
park the TWIKE in a stylish yet visible environment and spend some time exploring the city.
after padova, we’re back to straight roads until we suddenly see some small hills!
with only 21% left and not knowing exactly what kind of inclines are waiting for us, we decide to charge before crossing the hills at a local alfa garage. the owner and jc were happily chatting away whilst i relaxed and just lounged about.
it was a good idea to charge, we would not have made it across the hills – and we now know for sure that we prefer hills/mountains to flat environments!
unfortunately, after just 30 minutes we left the hills behind us and were back to what we had all day long 🙁
we therefore cannot report anything interesting for the rest of the day…except a very dramatic sunset.
