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I said that none of the ruins felt quite real in the last blog. Han agreed with me. When faced with the stone hard corpses of people permanently preserved in their pain, she said "I find it hard to see them as people." By this time we had plenty of company, coach after coach had spewed Americans into the city during the hours we had been exploring. Most of them walked around with cameras glued to their faces, seeing the world second hand through a viewfinder. Why not stay at home and watch a film? When confronted by the victims of Versuvius they continued clicking away, barely commenting on them. The contorted cadavers made no more influence on them than the rocks they walked on. It is difficult to see those sculptures of misfortune as human, people who once walked the same streets as we walked now, it is far easier to dismiss them as artifacts, photograph them and put thoughts of fragile mortality on the back burner.
We followed up the city by riding the volcano which caused its petrification in time. Third gear? It was a huffing puffing first gear slog fightıng between burning the clutch out and
losing power on the steep, slick igneous hairpins. The Honda didn't like it and I didn't like doing it to the Honda. We could have caught the train but we already felt guilty about exploring Pompeii without her, a bit lile having to leave your favourite pet at home to go on holiday.
We finally had the summit ın sight, fifty metres left. And then she died. The bike, not Han that is. Too hard, too hot, too steep, just too tired to go one inch further. We left her resting and walked to look at the view. Miles and miles of azure coastline, behind the grotty motorway and dirty city outlines of Napoli was nothing but the sea as far as a human can imagine, stretching until it became the sky. No wonder the Ancient Greeks thought God lived on a mountain top.
There always has to be a down after an up, the ride down was an anti-climax. I coasted the majority, clutch in, letting the mountain air cool our abused motor. I only stopped the lazy left right coasting to twist around gridlocked buses angrily fighting in both directions up and down the mountain.
We now had an even bigger down - a 200 mile motorway trip to the other side of the country. We wanted to be ın Bari before the next day to get a ferry to Greece. Italy was good, but expensive. Every one day spent in Italy was five days somewhere less exotic.
After leavıng Pompeii we spent two hours looking for a direction to travel in, preferring instead to drive circles around Italian one-way systems and the corkscrew sliproads. If I had to make one certain statement about Italy I would say they have the worst motorway system in Europe (but the best B-roads).
Eventually finding the way, we headed for Eastern Italy via central. Almost immediately after leaving the coast we entered a new Italy. That's another incredibly beautiful Italy, which has so many pretty faces, a veritable Mona Lisa of expression, changing her mood constantly. From alpine slopes to St. Tropez beaches, cosmopolitan city centres to gentle rural slopes - Italy has everything. This Italy we were entering was full of rolling hills, almost Yorkshire Dales but not quite. Home with a twist, toad in the hole with salami. The bucolic scenes felt like home
but were far enough different to hold the excitement of being away. The carefully manicured crops and red tiled farm houses passed endlessly beside us, wrapped over undulating mounds. Homely but exciting. Like rising bread dough covered with novelty tea towels.
The bike cruised happily, free of slopes and head winds, passing the distance in thirty degree sunshine. The flies pinged off of my knuckles and flattened themselves on my face. Hannah says that I am an evil killer while she wipes bugs from my beard, but I claim they heard me comıng so only have themselves to blame.
We arrived in Bari and attempted to find a ferry and finding nothing available, we attempted to find a hotel. Attempted, attempted through an hour of funked up, fucked up Italian traffıc - fuck you, fuck me, get with the plan, I made the plan, who's got the plan, mia Dia, moma mia Italian traffic. Our light was dead and we had to find somewhere before dark to avoid a similar fate. We eventually stumbled on a back street three star after seemıngly trying every road in Bari. Seventy fıve Euros?! But we had no other option. We quit
our kit and left to find somewhere to eat.
We found a pizza place within just a few minutes, maybe life isn't always difficult. Then again, maybe it is - we were promptly gifted the local idiot as a waiter. Within seconds of seating us he returned to ask for our order. Feeling English and impotent, but spying a Peroni on a nearby table I thought it safe to order a pair. He looked at me confused before saying "Nevermind, I get you beer." We expected him to get our surprise beer, but he continued to stand staring at us, with a vacant grin he asked us "Antipasti?" After ten days in Italy we understood enough but bereft of a menu what do you say? To fill the gap, while he looked at us expectantly, I said "Pızza?" He answered in one hundred mile an hour Italian something that obviously meant "What type you paır of crazies?!" He obviously thought although we didn't have menus or much Italian, we may have some kind of ESP. "Margherita?" I tentatively asked. "No," he flatly denied us, "we have manys varys pizzas. I recommend them you." With that he was gone.
While we waited for the crazy's return, and Italian couple were seated next to us. He was so non-descript that twelve hours later I have already forgotten his face. She was pretty in a high-maintenance manner, but wıth petty eyes and a spoilt girls smile. She couldn't reach the coat pegs without asking to move Han's jacket, which she wouldn't lower herself to do. Han moved it for her but she just glared back at her. Yes we were dirty, I'm half coated in grease, Han's hair is helmet mental, but we are always polite and courteous. She wasn't. I will say one thing for her though - she ate olives lıke a motherfucker. Whilst her partner was in the toilet she must have packed away two dozen, stuffing them in like a hungry chipmunk, and spitting them out like a fat horse.
While we were watchıng her skills in amazement our pizzas arrived. Burnt on the edges, soggy in the middle, non descript meat on one, non descript salad on the other. Day school boy had done us well.
We ate, paid and left, to walk and reflect on a crazy packed day. A day that saw
"A bull walked down the street..."
We seemed to be the only people who even noticed that there was a horny bull wandering down the centre of the road. us walking ancient ruins and riding volcanoes, trapped in modern motorway meltdown and sat in restaurants without menus, found us stood waiting for trains that don't exist.
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