Squirrels and storms

I spent, as I ha d planned, another day and night in La Mas having a wonderful time doing nothing. I popped out for a short ride to pick up some shopping and stopped off for a slice of pizza from a bakery overlooking some a big patch of coastline being battered by some pretty high winds. Unfortunately my pitch was sheltered by the headlands, so I spent another night sweltering away! I broke camp for an early start the next morning and aimed inland towards a town called St. Martin de la Craux. I had left my camera in the campsite office the night before and rather predictably I had forgotten to pick it up when I checked out. I realised this about ten km into my mornings ride (after heading up and down a rather large hill) when I went to take a quick photo. Adding 20k onto my ride did not leave me in the best of moods, and after all that I even forgot to take the photo when I reached the same point again! The heat of the day soon asserted itself as I neared Martigues, so I stopped off for an hour to enjoy a late breakfast at a roadside break area before heading off again into the heat (mid 30's). Although still very hot, the humidity here is much lower than Italy so at least it feels a little cooler and isn't quite so draining when out on the road. That day's ride was great, including a huge straight stretch of road with barely another user and a huge tailwind behind me meaning that I averaged my speed out at around 35kph for a considerable time - not bad going when laden as heavily as I am! The campsite was a real find - only about 35 pitches, but family run and with a lovely swimming pool on the side. I pitched up in the shade and headed for the pool and was pleasantly surprised by the lack of small children running about screaming their heads off, something I have come to expect on most campsites recently. I spent a couple of days in Camping Le Craux, taking advantage of plethora of bars in the village and a handily located Super-U within walking distance to stock up in the necessities. After a couple of days spent primarily by the pool, and watching an army of ants devouring a piece of roast chicken near my tent I packed up my bits and headed off again, this time towards Lunel for a campsite called Bonne Ports. I had high hopes for the site, and passed up the opportunity to stop off at a couple of others in my haste to get there. This proved to be a serious mistake, as the campsite was awful. Expensive, crowded, noisy, bad (and expensive) wifi connection etc. etc. etc. They even managed to screw up making a pizza, deciding that instead of pepperoni on an Americana it should in fact be a bolognese sauce topped off with potatoes and half cooked. Not good. The only real positive to take from it was the local wildlife and I spent a lovely quart of an hour or so being shouted at by the resident squirrel whilst trying in vain (me, not him) to grab a couple of decent photo's... The scenery around here is great - vast tracts of sun-scorched wilderness surrounded by lush vineyards at the heart of the Languedoc wine region. The scores of singis offering wine tasting are a sore temptation, but unfortunately probably best avoided whilst travelling a velo! Early next morning we had a pretty serious thunderstorm, with some monumental rain meaning that my departure was delayed until late morning, but the break in the heat meant that I could forego my midday break and cycle strait through, which I duly did, taking in a little bit of Montpellier before arriving in Frontignan for the evening. If you take a look on the map around the area, you will see how the land lies - a spit of land jutting out from the coast, barely connected to mainland at either side. My campsite was in the middle of this spit of this beautiful outcrop, with the roaring sea on one side and a lagoon on the other - stunning. I had taken a look at a couple of other places during the day - the first was (far) too expensive whilst the second boasted no facilities other than a basic toilet block (by this time the temperature was creeping back up and I was gagging for a cold beer). The third was a camping village/resort of a type that I typically try to avoid, but seeing that my GPS battery was running very low it seemed prudent to at least take a look. Thank God I did! Although the basic tariff for high season started out at €50 a night, I w met by one of the owners who offered me a much more reasonable rate of €16 a night, for the placement, wifi and use of their rather lovely swimming pool. A bargain I think you'll agree! Sure enough, I made good use of the pool, the bar, the restaurant and the wifi. I had planned to stay for another night, but the weather reports going forward looked pretty dire so I headed out again towards Agde, between Frontignan and Narbonne which is where I find myself now! After a pretty tiring ride I fell upon the highly recommended Camping La Neptune gratefully. Last night brought forth a truly awesome thunderstorm - about half an hour of flashes of lightning in the distance before the storm moved overhead for about quarter of an hour accompanied by a deluge of heavy rain and bolts of lightning falling pretty close to where I lay in my tent, including one crash that seemed only metres away - feeling the earth shake, hearing the distinct crack of the fork rather than a distant rumble and with the air itself fizzing in the aftermath, then listening to the sounds of the storm receding off in to the distance! Really awe-inspiring stuff! Today is, as expected after a show like that, much cooler with almost complete cloud coverage. It's still low 20's, but with the scattered rain showers I'm pretty glad for my day off! Next in my sights is Narbonne, then heading across the bottom of the Pyrenees towards some old friends in Biarritz - I'll let you know how it goes, but that's ciao for now!

Back to life, back to insanity.

From Florence to Rome to Dublin to Cork to Rome to Marseille. It's be an interesting couple of weeks! I'll start off in Florence, where I left off last time. After the Pitti and the Bargello there was only really one feasible next stop - the Uffizi Gallery. It's one of the most incredible collections of art that the World has ever seen, containing pieces from Ancient Greece, Rome, early religious pieces, Renaissance, Old Masters and much more - Caravaggio, Van Dyke, Titian, Holbein, Raphael, Michaelangelo &c. &c. The list goes on and on. The queue for entrance when I arrived was approximately six hours long - such are the prices to pay for being cultural in the height of the tourist season. Thankfully the price for skipping the queue was only an extra three Euros on top of the entrance fee! I had thankfully heeded advice and called ahead to reserve my ticket, and after 20 minutes of rushing round like an idiot and joining a few of the wrong lines I thankfully found the right one, quickly acquired my ticket and went straight on in. Reservations over the phone are an absolute must for those of you who want to visit it. I was absolutely astounded that more people didn't take advantage of this, but it's their loss! I spent far too much time in the gallery, about five hours in total but it was fantastic and a real eye-opener and well worth the time. Afterwards I made a quick visit to an exhibition held by a shoe-shop of all places! They had supplied many of the shoes for Marilyn Monroe back in the day, and now, 50 years after her death, were holding an exhibition - my Godfather had lent several of his pieces to them, so I felt a little familial obligation to pop in on his behalf! After heading back to the campsite and spending another evening trying to ignore the Olympic water-polo (it was exceptionally boring) I packed up my bits in readiness for the morning and when that arrived I loaded up my bike and headed back in to Florence to grab a train to Forano, just outside Rome, to see France in readiness for heading back to Ireland for Christian and Leonie's wedding. I spent a couple of days stuffing my face with local Italian goodness before jumping on a train and a plane to Roma Da Vinci airport and jetting back off to see my family. The re-union was great, and reminded me how much I've missed my family in my short time away. We spent a couple of days with Leonie's family feeling the warmth of their ever-present hospitality before my Dad and I hired a car to drive around the west coast of Ireland taking in Connemara, the Cliffs of Moher, a truly stunning pass through the mountains, the Ring of Kerry, Tra Li, Galway, Kenmare and much more. Ireland really is a beautiful place and it's easy to see why they call it the Emerald Isle. As the locals said, if they had the weather to match it would be the nicest place in the World! The wedding itself was epic, with everything that was planned (and there was a heck of a lot of it) going perfectly. Huge congratulations again to everyone involved, and especially the (very) happy couple. After the wedding (and a much needed day of recovery) I jumped on a bus down to Cork and flew back out to Rome. When I was greeted by Franco I was told of the weather that had been brewing in my absence - a heatwave that the locals had nick-named "Lucifer". According to Franco (an Italian native who lives in Jersey) he had never seen anything like it - temperatures hitting 40-45c in central Italy, and not much better on the coast. All Rome needed was Nero with a fiddle... With this sort of weather I knew that there was no way in hell of carrying on travelling down and with great reluctance and a tinge of disappointment I jumped on a train and headed up north. After a lovely 24 hours of travelling including bedding down in a train station with about a hundred other travellers for a couple of hours between 1.30am to 5.00am I arrived, tired and tetchy in Marseille. I grabbed a bite to eat early on and headed off for a lovely little 40km ride out of the city to my first campsite back in France, Camping La Mas near Sainte-Croix on the Cote Bleu, which is where I am now! After that ride I know that I made the right decision. Although the weather was a full 10c lower than the weather I would've encountered in Italy and the humidity significantly less, it was still incredibly taxing. The water in my bottles was fit for making tea by the time I had finished, and I had to stop for an hour and a half's siesta in the early afternoon as it was too hot to even read in the bus shelter by the side of the road. I'm planning on staying here for another night - doing a little shopping and a little swimming in the gloriously blue mediterranean sea, as well as planning for the next few days and heading off again. I'll let you know in due course where I get to! Ciao once again for now.

To Toscana

As the title suggests I am now in Tuscany, just outside of my new favourite city - Firenze (that's Florence to any non-Italians out there). This is another truly beautiful part of Europe, and definitely another place that I will visit again in the future. This segment starts where the last left off - on Lake Maggiore in the North of Italy. I spent a couple of days on the lake soaking up the sun and the atmosphere - I arrived there on a Sunday, so the beach next to the campsite was predictably full of Italian families taking advantage of the weather and being as unrestrained as only Italian families can be. After being told that the campsite didn't accept credit-cards (as an aside, it seems that pretty much nowhere except big shops in Italy accept payment by card - small wonder why their tax collectors are so inefficient...) I went in search of a Bancomat which resulted in a lovely little tour of the area and surrounding towns (the first was out of order, the second had been demolished, along with the bank it had been attached to, the third had run out of money so it was only the fourth on my list that was of any help, hence the slightly exaggerated tour of the surrounding area!). I left Maggiore after a couple of days with a slightly heavy heart - it was truly stunning, and being so close to the lakes was just great, but the next part of my trip was one that I'd been looking forward to since the planning started in Jersey - Tuscany. I had done a little research on the possibility of cycling down through Northern Italy, but this was a no-go. It's not just the Appenines stretching across the middle of Italy that caused issues, but the fact that there appear to be no campsites between the lakes and Tuscany! Rough-camping is very much against the law in Italy and I didn't really fancy a fair few days worth of travelling with no facilities at the end of the day, so I hopped on a train (well, technically four (five if you include the one I was thrown off)) down to La Spezia. Arriving at about seven in the evening I had looked forward to a couple of k's ride to the campsite for the evening - unfortunately I had worked this out from a different train station to the one that I had alighted from, so I had a good hour-long ride minimum before I could settle down for the night. Once again my GPS provided me with a couple of little traps that I hadn't considered, sending me half-way up a hill full of little steps before I came to the path that it was sending me which was straight up a load more incredibly steep steps - a total no-go which resulted in me having to work out my own route up to the campsite, swinging round the hill in almost the opposite direction - not fun. Arriving at the campsite at around nine o'clock wasn't ideal, but the fact that it led directly down into the Med was a real fillip - being an islander and not having seen the sea for two months, this was a big deal. I therefore set up my tent (after being fed a lovely cold beer by a Swiss chap that I never saw again) and donned my swimming shorts and headed down for a late-night swim off the rocks in the warm salty water of the Mediterranean. Heaven. Unfortunately the rest of the night wasn't quite as much fun - no wind, stifling heat, a full moon and enough mosquitoes to put vampires out of business culminated in a grand total of 0 hours sleep and a night spent counting the hours slip by. Not fun. I had planned on spending a couple of days here (just outside La Spezia) to try and plan the route down through Tuscany but the hellish night, high tariff and lack of WIFi quickly put pay to this notion. Instead I loaded up the bike as quickly as possible and headed off to Viareggio. The ride was great - a big slug of downhill as I left La Spezia and the Apennines followed by a long straight road following the beach for mile after mile in the hot sun. I stopped off at a rather strange establishment - a motley collection of chairs, swings, hammocks and the likes all arranged underneath a load of leafy trees providing as much shade as could be wanted. Their only fare was freshly made fruit juices so I settled down for a lovely banana, peach, strawberry and orange juice which provided enough energy to finish the trip to Viareggio. Once there I realised that in my rush to leave La Spezia I had left my battery with the office to charge overnight. Rather than backtrack for a few days (and spend another night of no sleep) I called them and they agreed to pop the battery in the post down to where I was. It really was no hardship to wait for it however, as Viareggio was lovely. I spent a day in the town shopping for a few bits and pieces that I needed (mosquito repellent, t-shirts to replace mine that were falling apart etc.) and took advantage of a couple of days off by visiting a very accomplished Italian barber for a trim! I also met a lovely German couple, Leonard and Miriam) camped in the tent next to me - we got on like a house on fire and spent a long night cooking a barbecue (very slowly as it happened), listening to music and generally just chilling and beering until three o'clock in the morning! After my battery arrived I headed off to Pisa - the ride was pretty short, but very pleasant and arriving at the campsite in the early afternoon gave me plenty of time to cycle the 12k to Pisa and spend the afternoon in the city. After visiting their stunning cathedral and, of course, climbing the tower of Pisa, I headed back to the campsite to prepare for the next ride. Unsurprisingly these preparations included a lovely big pizza, lots of white wine, several beers, a group of French students and a Polish couple motorbiking through Europe. Leaving early the next morning I got as far as the front gate before realising that I was missing my GPS, resulting in me unpacking ALL of my gear outside the main entrance to the campsite which went down well... Thankfully it was only hiding in one of my shoes, so after hastily repacking I jumped on the bike and aimed in the general direction of Florence. The ride was pretty hard truth be told, but rewarding. After a stonkingly hot day (36c) and climbing to several hundred metres above sea level I arrived at Camping International Firenze. After setting up camp and showering I settled down to an evening in the cafe/restaurant for a few beers. Bliss. I spent the evening in the company of a lovely Kiwi girl chatting for hours and trying not to fall into a coma whilst watching the Olympic water-polo (they didn't even have horses - what a con). Today was spent in my new favourite city of Florence, spending my morning in the Museo del Bargello, crossing the Ponto Vecchio, lunchtime in a lovely little cafe overlooking the Palazzo Pitti and then my afternoon soaking up the Medici and Renaissance culture. After all the slagging off of my GPS that I've done, I think that I'd better come to its defence a little - it is a great piece of kit and although it tests my patience sometimes, it is a life-saver at others, especially on days like today when visiting a new unknown city and flitting from landmark to landmark. Tomorrow will be spent in the Uffizi, one of the best galleries that the World has to offer, and then it's off to Rome in preparation for heading off to Ireland for my Brother's wedding! So that brings me to where I am now. I'll see some of you in Ireland in a week or so, but until then, ciao!