April 7-9, 2023

Before ever leaving home, back in 2020, I had already made a list of my “must-see” places in Portugal. They included the Algarve, but not the beaches and beach towns that most people long for; Nazare, particularly in November, for the big wave surfing, and Lisbon, because, well, in all honesty, there was a place to store the bike there if needed while we flew home. Aside from that, I didn’t have a real “need” to see Lisbon. However, always at the top of my list for Portugal was the Douro Valley.

I’m not a wine snob; in fact, I probably know less than 99% of people about wines. I rarely even drink wine. But I’ve always been attracted to vineyards. The growing process, and the look and feel of a vineyard, have always given me a peaceful feeling. I felt the same way when I stepped into my grove of six hundred navel orange trees in southern California. There’s just something about helping nature to produce a beautiful product, and the feeling of walking among it, that speaks to me.

So even though the home of Port wine was calling me, it was the vineyards more than the wineries that I wanted to see. And the Douro River Valley teased me with that promise.

More than a year ago, while doing a little research on the area, I stumbled on an AirBnB that also spoke to me. It was a converted old mill house, on the edge of the Varosa River upstream from the Douro. There was nothing nearby. Surrounded by vineyards, olive groves and open land, it looked like a peaceful little house in a peaceful spead of countryside. I made a note to book it when we finally got to Portugal.

One thing that happens when you travel for extended periods is that you lose track of what day it is, and what date it is. So when we arrived in Vila Real, north of the Douro River, on Good Friday, nearly everything in town was closed. We walked the town, and while walking past the one restaurant that appeared to be open, a gentleman who was likely the owner ran out the door and asked if we wanted to eat dinner. He spoke only Portuguese, and when he realized that we spoke only English, he asked us to wait while he ran back inside and brought a waiter back out who spoke English. It was the only place in town that we could find that was open, and they were really wanting our business. So we said “Okay”, and they seated us at a table and brought us a menu. The first thing I saw was the prices, starting at over $100. I was about to get up, when I realized that I was looking at assorted seafood plates for large groups. The next page had individual items, and was closer to our budget. I ended up ordering a seafood tagliatelle, which turned out to be one of, if not the best meal I’ve had in the past two months.

If you enjoy seafood, this was a delicious meal, for about $14.

Diana ordered a traditional Portuguese “sandwich”, a Francesinha, which translates to “Little French”, and is based on the croque monsieur. It’s made with bread, ham, steak, linguica sausage and covered in melted cheese, then topped with a fried egg and covered in a spiced tomato and beer sauce.

Not the kind of sandwich you eat with your bare hands.

And as usual, we ordered a bottle of wine with dinner, which with the exorbitant restaurant markup, came to about $8 for the bottle.

We spent the night at the Mira Corgo hotel in Vila Real (underground parking garage and reasonably priced, including breakfast buffet), and started our loop of the Douro Valley and points beyond the next morning.

Vineyards as far as the eye can see.

There are a lot of day cruises up the Douro River. Many stop at a couple of wineries for tastings, and for lunch at Pinhao. They have to go through this lock on the river.

Considerably smaller than the Panama Canal locks, but same concept.

Up to the height of the eastern side of the river, and on to Pinhao.

We’re not using a GPS for navigation this year; instead I’m using an old iPhone 8 and the maps.me app, and it has worked great, up until now. But for some reason this morning, I made a monumental error and didn’t realize it. I had punched in multiple waypoints to form a one hundred mile loop. After watching the boat come through the lock, we continued east to Pinhao, but there were so many tourists there on this holiday weekend that we turned around and headed back the way we came to a small roadside restaurant we had passed earlier. Finding it full as well, we got back on the bike, and that’s when I noticed the app was telling me to go nearly all the way back to the dam/lock, and take a small road south. I wasn’t sure how I had missed this turn, but I did as instructed, and we rode another ten miles back and turned up a tiny side road. After two miles, it came to a dead end at St. Eufemia Vineyards, which I then remembered that I had plotted into the phone as our first stop. The vineyard was closed (Easter weekend), and that’s when I realized that, unlike the Garmin GPS, or Google Maps, maps.me does not “assume” that you want to skip a waypoint and reconfigures your route. No, it insists that you go all the way back to the point you put in, before allowing you to continue on. So now we were again heading east, past the same roadside restaurant, past Pinhao and finally south on a new road.

The lushness of the Douro Valley vineyards fades quickly once you climb out of the valley, and the terrain changed to plains, then occasional forest, as we continued south then west again.

At a gas station near the direct center of absolutely nowhere, we stopped, not for gas, but for something to drink and an ice cream. While sitting at a small table enjoying our break, a woman in an Audi sedan pulled in. I thought I smelled burning brakes, but then noticed the smoke coming from the grille of the car. She got out and walked over to the couple sitting at the next table, which was also the cashier of the gas station and her husband/boyfriend, I think. They spoke briefly in Portuguese. The man never bothered to take his feet off of the chair across from him, and made it obvious that he had no intention of getting up to look at her car. Eventually, he relented and told her to pull the car around to the side of the building. As she started the car again, black smoke belched from the tailpipe, and the transmission made a terrible sound while the engine rpms increased but the car resisted forward movement. Eventually there was a loud “BANG!”, the car leapt forward, and died. She managed to get it restarted, and again it strained to move, but eventually crept toward the side of the building with a horrible metallic grinding noise. We quickly put our helmets on and got back on the road. Karma be damned, this was one ugly episode that was not going to end well for the woman or the Audi.

We continued past Vila da Ponte and on to Varzea de Abrunhais, to the little AirBnB that I was excited to finally meet.

The bridge over the Varosa River. This photo is taken from the path to our little house on the river.

Our own little vineyard. There are more vines, and olive trees, on the terraces above us that also belong to Quinta de Reciao, the owners of this little piece of heaven.

Looking back to the house from the vineyard. The vines won’t be full of green leaves and grapes for several months yet.

If you arrive on foot or by car, this little wagon awaits about two hundred yards up the path at the road. By motorcycle, with some care, we can ride right up to the door.

Across the river sits the remains of an old convent. This land once was covered in vineyards also, but now sits abandoned. If I was rich, I’d seriously entertain buying the land and moving in. It just needs a little fixing up.

We spent a couple of days just relaxing here. I had intended to do another loop through the Douro Valley, but the peacefulness of this place took over, and aside from a ride into Lamego for dinner one night, we never left. We enjoyed it so much that before we left, we booked another three night stay here coming up in a couple of weeks.

I can’t wait to return.

April 11-18, 2023

We had already ridden four hundred miles north, from the beaches of southern Portugal’s Algarve region to just north of the Douro Valley. Now we were once again headed south, all the way back down to Troia, which is about twenty miles south of Lisbon as the crow flies. We had accepted a house sit in Sol Troia, a private community of villas right on a beautiful beach, which itself is on a tiny finger of land only about a quarter of a mile wide (and less in places) and about ten miles long that sticks up from Comporta, Portugal.

On the way south we rode over the Serra da Estrela mountain range, crossing at 1993 meters or 6340 feet in elevation. This is the highest point in mainland Portugal. I had no idea there was anything like this in Portugal. There’s even a ski area at the top.

If you’ve read some of our posts about house sitting and wondered “why would someone want to do that?”, well here’s one reason: This view, for free.

Oh, and living on this beach for a week. Again, free.

And hanging out with these three great dogs is an added benefit.

As we’ve mentioned before, doing these house sits offers us the chance to slow down and relax in one place, while planning our next moves, which helps avoid the burnout of constant travel. It also offers us the opportunity to cook some real meals in a real kitchen and do laundry. Let’s not fail to mention that it also allows us to hang out with some great pets. And of course, it also helps our budget considerably.

In this case we had the pleasure of caring for three dogs and a nice home on the beach for seven days.

The peninsula we’re on is mainly a tourist area; most of the homes are owned by part-time residents or are used as rentals. At this time of year — not quite the leading edge of tourist season — it is mostly vacant and very quiet, though a few families did show up for the weekend. There is a small convenience store about five miles away, but no real grocery store or market. So on our second day at the house, we made a trip to Setubal to go grocery shopping. Diana joked (although it’s true) that the grocery store is only about six miles from the house, but you have to cross the Atlantic to get there. We rode to the ferry landing, took the ferry to Setubal, and walked to the grocery store to do our shopping.

On the way to the store, we passed this little Citroen Ami. The whole thing looked like it was 3D printed from one piece of plastic. A little research revealed that it is not a car, but rather a “quadricycle”. It’s electric, with a small battery which is good for about 47 miles, and has a top speed of 28 miles per hour.

I also ran across this MacBor Montana 500. Made in Barcelona.

In a park in Setubal were these amusing sculptures by Maria Po. This one was called “Birdwatcher”.

“Vineyard Lady”

“Miss Livramento”, in reference to the Seafood and Produce Market we visited in Setubal.

After recharging with the pups for a week, we again headed north towards Porto, but we stopped in Nazaré for one night, spending it at Zulla Surf Village. Nazaré is home of some huge waves, and in fact the top three tallest waves ever surfed are all at Praia Norte in Nazaré, the largest recorded being 86 feet. I’ve been wanting to come here to watch the big wave surfing competition for years, but our schedule just hasn’t worked out. The big waves are mostly in winter, typically around November to February. The day we were there, the waves were only about six to eight feet.

Looking down at Praia Norte, where the big wave surfing takes place in the winter..

Looking down at the south beach from atop the hill above Nazaré.

Beautiful fiery sunset from our room at Zulla Surf Village.

“Veado”. This sculpture sits just above the viewing point of the big waves. It is a combination of a big wave surfer with a deer’s head; part of local folklore that goes back more than 800 years. It’s an interesting story, but rather than reprint it all here, you can find the story of the hunter who in 1182 was saved by a deer and attributed it to a statue here

We’ve enjoyed Portugal so much that I’m hoping we’ll get back to Nazaré at some point during the big waves.

April 19-26, 2023

The Douro Valley was calling to us again, and we couldn’t resist. This area of northern Portugal is just so beautiful and relaxing.

We would have liked to spend another day or two just chilling in Nazaré but we decided to head north to Porto, Portugal’s second largest city, and do an official tour of the Douro Valley from there. I wanted to see what we might have missed on our first trip through, as well as get some deeper insights into what not to miss as we passed through for the third time a few days later.

We checked into our apartment on the fourth floor of an office building before heading down to the heavily tourist laden area of town. A fun fact passed along from our host: after the elevator stops, count to three and it will drop about a foot; we started doing this in front of other passengers, and they looked at us like we were nuts…until the drop. Then everyone laughed and nervously got off.)

This is the Livraria Lello, “The Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World” (according to their own website at least). It is rumored to have been an influence on JK Rowling, who wrote Harry Potter while in Porto.

This is the inside of the bookstore. The staircase allegedly influenced the staircase at Hogwarts, or so I hear (I’ve never watched any of the Harry Potter movies).

This is the line to get into Livraria Lello. Yes, you have to buy a ticket and stand in line to walk through this book store. Yes, it is beautiful. No, we didn’t buy a ticket or stand in line. It’s a book store.

I have to admit that we often go to McDonalds while we travel. Not for the food, but for the wifi, so we can sit and plan the evening’s destination, etc. However, this McDonalds in Porto is a bit different. It’s in a historic cafe, complete with art deco and chandeliers. It’s commonly referred to as the “Most Beautiful McDonalds in the World”. (See a common thread here??)

We didn’t have to buy a ticket or stand in line to get into McDonalds, but we did buy some fries and sit outside and watch. It was amusing to watch the hordes of people taking selfies and posing in front of a McDonalds.

I wish I could have gotten a better photo of this incredible mural on the wall of this building, but it’s in a narrow alley between buildings so you can’t really back up enough. It has a lot of whimsical, almost sci-fi like aspects in it. I could have stood and looked at different portions of it for a long time.

We walked down to the Ribiera, or River, District and had a lunch of shrimp tacos, which are served here not in tortillas but in toasted bread. There were still good.

More interesting architecture in Porto. Many of the buildings on this street were in the process of being renovated and sold as apartments.

The Capela das Almas in Porto. This church (and several other buildings) are covered in Azulejo tiles. Azulejo tiles are hand-painted, tin-glazed ceramic tiles, and cover both the inside and outside of many buildings in Portugal.

Our tour of the Douro Valley included two wine tastings: this one in Peso da Regua.

The different types of port wines and olive oils are arranged for our tasting, with information on the mat to help us understand and remember.

Our sommelier here is holding a bottle that I would never touch or even breathe on. After explaining the winery, the vintage (1886) and the history, she asked “How much it this bottle worth?”.

Here’s the bottle: “Very Old Port”, indeed. The answer to her question: €4500, or about $4,900.

Part of the Carvalhas Vineyards, near Pinhao.

Our second stop was at the Croft Family Vineyards.

These three large tanks are used to stomp the grapes. Yep, just like in the I Love Lucy episode all those years ago.

In the tasting room at Croft.

After a couple of days in Porto, we rode east again, this time taking a meandering route north of the Douro River. Our first stop was at Quinta da Barroca, outside of the small village of Fontelo.

The entrance to Quinta da Barroca.

This place has a walking path around the perimeter and through the groves and vineyards. It’s maybe a mile and a half long.They grow a lot of fruit in addition to grapes, including Brookfield Gala Apples, Reineta Apples, and Golden Apples. These fruits are used in the making of port wine, as brandy is used to stop the fermentation process during the production of port.

On the walking path at Quinta da Barroca.

Lloyd spent his life in education after serving in the US Navy during World War Two. His background gave him a lifelong desire to continually learn (or was it the other way around?), and that contributed to his desire to travel the world. I don’t know if he ever made it to the Douro Valley in Portugal, but I know he would have loved it here.

I’m still trying to work out the details of this sign…So, you can’t sell alcohol to a 12-year-old if he is notoriously intoxicated (definition, please), otherwise it’s okay, unless said 12-year-old has an “apparent psychic anomaly”.I looked up “psychic anomaly”, and it is defined as “anything that deviates from the norm”. So, if he has a genious level IQ, or ESP, he can’t drink. Otherwise, go for it, dude.

Back at our little Mill House at Quinta da Reciao, the vines have gotten much greener since we were here a few weeks ago.

I wish I had taken some better photos. This is the actual water-driven mill next door to our apartment in the little building where we are staying. It’s been restored but many of the parts are original, and it’s still used, but only occasionally now. It’s been a mill for hundreds of years.

If you look at the center left of this photo, there is a new house in the vineyard, just down from our mill house. Henry and Francisca have nearly finished it, and I’m putting it on the short list of places I want to return to soon.

April 27-May 2, 2023

We’ve criss-crossed Spain multiple times on two wheels, beginning in 2006 in Barcelona, last year to store the bike in Malaga, and this year from Malaga to Gibraltar to Portugal and back across to Barcelona. To be honest, we’ve enjoyed Barcelona, Malaga, Manilva, Cadiz, and more, but Spain is a relatively large country, and there’s a lot in the middle that, aside from Madrid and some other attractive places, looks a lot like New Mexico in places and Nebraska in others. So we’ve decided to blast across on a mission to get to new ground.

Leaving the Douro Valley for the last time (this trip, anyway), we headed towards Barcelona again. Originally, the plan was to take the ferry from Barcelona to Sardegna (Sardinia), and island-hop to Sicily and southern Italy. After some research, we found that:

(A) We were once again arriving before the official high season, and the campgrounds on Sardinia were still closed. I emailed a couple of them begging for a piece of dirt to pitch our tent on, and was told “sorry, we’re closed” each time.

(B) Sardinia is “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” land, so the hotels and AirBnBs are way above our budget. Combined with no camping and no house sitting opportunities, this didn’t leave many options.

So we decided to take the land route around to Italy, through France. We’ve done this twice before, but we were on a different budget and staying in nicer hotels back then when we were both working. This time we were going to take a different route.

Our first night in Spain was spent in a very small, non-touristy village called Berlanga. As we rolled into town, it again looked like many other small towns we encountered in Spain: that is to say, closed. These places really roll up the sidewalks in the evenings. Aside from our hotel and the small cafe/bar attached to it, we didn’t see another business open. In fact, the hotel sent me a message while we were on the road, asking when we expected to arrive, as the front desk clerk only planned to show up to check us in, then leave again.

The hotel — a total of about six rooms — turned out to be great. The room was nice, but the woman who checked us in was extremely nice. Extremely limited English, of course, but thankfully we were back in a country where I could communicate, and my rusty Mexican Spanish was working pretty well. The online reviews for the hotel nearly all mentioned her as one of the top reasons people enjoyed their stay, and I would agree: if more hotel staff were as nice, enthusiastic and happy about their jobs as Araceli at the Hotel Rural Villa de Berlanga, it would make choosing hotels a very simple task.

Looking across the town square from our hotel. This is about as busy as it got while we were in town.

Our hotel and the cafe/bar in the background. The only other guests at the hotel were another couple that showed up on a BMW. They spoke no English, but they offered us some great tips on routes through the Basque Country, “heaven for motorcycles” as he put it. Unfortunately we were now on a schedule (I hate schedules), so the Basque Country will have to wait for another time.

The cafe/bar next door was attached to the hotel by an interior door, but Araceli explained that it was not owned by the hotel. We ordered a couple of hamburgers and took them up to the balcony of the hotel, overlooking the local castle ruins, and enjoyed dinner. I asked the ladies at the bar if they served breakfast and the response was priceless:

Them: “Yes”
Me: “What time do you open for breakfast?”
Them: (Brief glance between them)…”Eight thirty? Nine O’clock?”
Me: “Okay, Nine o’clock”.
Them: “Maybe.”

Like I said, it’s a small town, and we were pretty much it at the hotel.

They take the term “HAM Burger” seriously in Europe. Unless you see “Angus Steak Burger” on the menu, you can pretty much expect it to be ground ham, pressed into a patty, and lightly cooked (sometimes looks like it was steamed). Think SPAM, in the shape of a burger patty.

The next day we made it to the coast, just south of Barcelona, to a campground. I had emailed the campground a couple of weeks earlier and asked if I needed a reservation for a tent pitch on this specific date. The answer was “No. Just show up.”

So we just showed up. I walked into the office and asked for a tent pitch.

“Do you have a reservation?”
“No, I was told we didn’t need one.”
“You were told wrong. We are sold out this entire week.”

Huh. I walked back out to the bike, a bit irritated by the attitude. I pulled up the email exchange on my phone, and found where they had told me I didn’t need a reservation. I walked back into the office, stood in line again, and got a different employee. I showed him the email, and he checked me in. The other guy that originally blew me off was obviously irked about this, and stood up and stormed out.

Later that evening, we met a German bicycle tourist setting up his tent near ours. I struck up a conversation with him, and he said he was told that they were sold out and didn’t have space for him when he arrived. He pleaded that he was on a bicycle and it wasn’t possible for him to just go to the next campground. He said the guy checking him in then walked down to the tent area, looked, and told him that he would let him stay, but that they had a two night minimum. The bicyclist begrudgingly paid for two nights, even though he was only staying one night.

I asked him, “Was it the guy in the white shirt?”
“Yes!” he replied.
“Same guy. We were also told by him that they were sold out. But a different guy checked us in, and we didn’t have to pay for two nights.”

This is the tent area at the campground. The green tent belongs to Herman, the bicyclist from Germany. Ours is behind his, and there is one tent and a hammock to the left of the photo. So if you take our two tents out, the remaining tent and hammock constitute the “sold out” condition that caused both of us to be turned away. Hmmmm….

Fortunately the place had a cafe/bar with nicer staff that took good care of us, and the three of us shared stories of our travels over dinner and beers. Herman, the bicyclist, had recently retired from teaching, flown with his bicycle to Portugal, toured Portugal, and was now on his way back home to northern Germany, where his wife was set to retire in mid-June. He’s two years older than me, and I wish I was still in his physical condition. I might have to get the bicycle out whenever we get home.

April 29 – May 1, 2023

Having started two prior motorcycle trips through Europe from Barcelona, we had previously spent a few days touring the city. It had been about seventeen years since Diana had seen La Sagrada Familia, the amazing basilica designed by Antoni Gaudi and still under construction (since 1882!). We agreed that we would ride directly through Barcelona and pass by the building so she could get a photo of it before heading out of Spain and into France.

La Sagrada Familia. Yep, still under construction.

The plan this time was to avoid the major toll road along the Cote d’Azur and hopefully avoid the tourist traffic along the French Riviera and the Cinque Terre area of Italy (again, we’ve been there. It’s beautiful. I highly recommend it if you haven’t been. But our goal was to slow the bleeding of cash (this is an expensive area) and get to new horizons. So we took a large loop, north to Valence, France, then east to Piacenza, Italy before heading into Tuscany and on to new explorations.

By the way, the toll roads usually have Service Centers every 25 miles or so, which offer fuel and food. The last time we were in France, we stopped at several of these Service Centers on our way west to the UK. We began to notice then how badly people parked, and Diana started taking photos. During our brief ride on the toll road in southern France, we encountered more examples. Here are two to add this year’s collection:

A new take on not parking in the handicap spot…just park behind it. That way you’re not violating the rule, right? These two guys in their Porsches pulled right up behind the handicap parking spots — but not IN them — totally blocking access. It’s not like they were just running in to grab a drink; they parked there for quite a while. Side note: pretty sure that’s a Swiss license plate on the red one, so it’s not just the French.

This guy managed to take two spots in his not-too-big, not-too-expensive Nissan. His wife caught Diana taking the photo, and appeared to give him her thoughts (either about his parking, or about Diana taking the photo, or both).

We stopped that evening in Valence, France, and took a hotel as it was forecast to rain overnight and into the next day. We managed to beat the rain to the hotel. In the parking lot, there were three other bikes, one from the UK, and two from Germany, all parked into locking wheel chocks. There were four of these chocks, but the empty one sat between a loaded BMW K-bike and a BMW GS. It seemed like a tight squeeze with our large boxes on the bike, so I parked in the car parking area. I also noticed that the chain needed to be adjusted, so this gave me more room to work.

While adjusting the chain, the owner of one of the German BMWs walked up.

“Put your bike in the locking stands”, he said.
I explained that it was a tight fit, and I thought I would be okay out here with the disc lock on it overnight.
That’s when he explained that a couple of years earlier, at this same hotel, his prior BMW was stolen out of the parking lot “in less than a minute”.
Ok. I’m convinced. Into the chock it goes. We should thank the hotel for investing in these motorcycle security items. It would be nice if they were more common. Somehow I couldn’t help thinking we had gone from Morocco, where we were constantly told the bike was safe on the street or in an open parking lot, to France, where…

These locking wheel chocks were securely bolted into the ground. They are designed in such a way that you can’t get to the mounting bolts, the lock, the locking bar, or the bike’s axle. A well-thought-out piece of security equipment.

The next morning was overcast, but still not raining as we headed towards the border with Italy. Following the GPS, we turned off the main road and began climbing into the French Alps.

Then it started to rain. The temperature began to drop. We continued to climb. We passed a lighted road sign in French announcing that one of the two passes was still closed due to snow. I wasn’t sure which pass we were going over, but we continued on, hoping for the best. I turned the heated grips on, but my fingers were still going numb from the temperature.

First of May…too early to be riding in the Alps.

We rode along in the clouds and rain for what seemed like at least two hours, before finally dropping down to lower elevation and warmer temperatures. The rain stopped shortly before reaching our destination of Piacenza, Italy. I had discovered the night before that the chain on the bike was on its’ last miles, so we decided to take an extra day in Piacenza due to the bank holiday (it’s Labor Day in Italy) in order to search for a new chain.

May 2-8, 2023

When I was in eighth or ninth grade, I had to read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. That was the first time I encountered names that I couldn’t pronounce, so I just made up names that I could relate.

In the past several years I’ve found myself doing the same with city and village names on signs as we ride into town. I did this a lot in Thailand and Vietnam, mostly just for my own amusement. My eyes sees the name, and my brain immediately mis-translates it into something else. This first happened not long after entering Mexico heading south in 2015, when I passed a sign warning about driving while tired. The sign had the word “desvelado”, which means “without sleep”. For the rest of the day I was singing to the Eagles: “Desvelado, why don’t you come to your senses, you’ve been our riding fences. Open the gate.”

A couple of days ago we were riding towards Siena when we passed an exit for Acqualunga, and it happened again. Immediately I heard Jethro Tull:
“In the thundering madness
Of the Locomotive Breath
Runs the all-time loser
Headlong to his death”

Which of course are the lyrics to Locomotive Breath, and not Aqualung. Same album, different song. But hey, it’s been nearly fifty years. I can’t keep them all straight.

After a little bike maintenance in northern Italy (an oil change and chain replacement), we continued south to Tuscany in the rain. It’s been raining every day lately. Most days we only have to endure an hour or less of riding in it. Some days we make it to our destination before the heavy stuff starts. So far we haven’t had to pack up in the rain, which is never fun.

While we agreed to move quickly across Italy as well, we did have a couple of stops to make. The first was in Tuscany. We’ve been here before, but even though that was more than a dozen years ago, we’re still talking about it. Not for the scenery, which is pretty spectacular, with the centuries-old villages on top of hills surrounded by vineyards. No, we’re here for the food. One particular food actually.

Pasta.

And not any pasta, but a particular pasta that originated in Siena, and is found throughout this part of Italy, but not elsewhere. I’m talking about pici, which is kind of a fat spaghetti. It’s about two to three millimeters in diameter, and incredibly tasty. Years ago, we stopped in Sinalunga and were introduced to pici. Unfortunately, the restaurant we enjoyed so much then, is closed on this day, so our hosts recommend another place. It’s good, but not quite as spectacular as we remembered. Maybe it’s the distant memory of our first time, but I think the sauce was better before.

Regional favorite pici.

It won’t be our last chance to compare pici though. We move an hour or so east the next day, to Cortona, the town made most famous by Frances Mayes and her books “Under The Tuscan Sun”, “Every Day in Tuscany”, and more. She still lives here, and as we pass by her house, there she is, standing in the garden.

We were riding past Bramasole, Frances Mayes’ beautiful estate in Cortona, and over the intercom I told Diana to look up. There was Mayes, standing in her garden.

We spent a couple of days just hanging out in Cortona. It is without doubt a tourist destination, in no small part thanks to Frances Mayes, but it still has a nice old-world feel to it.

Looking up at the village of Cortona on the way up the hill.

The cemetery below the town.

Church of San Francisco.

Inside the church above the altar is the Reliquary of the Holy Cross.

Inside the gold filigree cross is a piece of the cross on which Jesus Christ died.

Looking out the small window at the top of the stairs of our apartment at the Teatro Signorelli .

Our apartment overlooks Piazza Luca Signorelli. This is where the “fountain scene” in the movie Under the Tuscan Sun was filmed. You might notice that there is no fountain here. That’s because the fountain in the movie was a prop, made out of styrofoam.

I liked this entrance. In between all of the three story buildings was this single-story entrance. I wish I knew what was on the other side.

Another opportunity, and perhaps our last chance, to enjoy pici.

Hanni (from Finland) and Gabriel (from Romania) served us pici in Cortona. We loved talking with them and hearing their stories of how and why they ended up in Cortona.

This Fantic Caballero 500 was parked next to the Tenere in Cortona.

After a couple of day here, we headed northeast, as we had an appointment to visit The Doctor’s office in Tavullia.

At our last fuel stop before heading into Cattolica, we pulled up to the pumps behind a white Mazda Miata. The top was down, and I could see in the car’s rear view mirror, the reflection of the driver, a woman wearing a baseball cap that said “Texas” on it. I pulled up beside her and pointed at her cap. She smiled. Then I pulled up a little further and pointed to the rear of the bike, and the Texas license plate. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “Oh my God!”

She jumped out of the car and we stood there and had a conversation. Diana asked her about the hat, and she said that Texas was a place she dreamed about going one day. I handed her one of our 2RideTheGlobe stickers, and told her that when she got to Texas, she had a place to stay. I’m not sure how many people we’ve made that offer take us seriously, but as we’ve said before, it’s karma: people everywhere have been so friendly to us, and we’re happy to reciprocate.

“It’s my dream to someday go to Texas”.

Before leaving the gas station, she asked, “Why are you here in Cattolica?”

“To visit The Doctor”, I said.

She knew immediately. “Ah, Vale”.

Yep. Everyone here knows the Doctor.

May 8, 2023

Mention Tavullia, Italy to just about anyone in Europe, and you will likely get a two-word response:

Either “Il Dottore” (“The Doctor”), or “Valentino Rossi”.

Rossi, for those Americans who may not follow motorsport like Europeans do, is the nine time World Champion MotoGP racer. His fans are, well, fanatical, and so loyal that even though he retired from racing three years ago, and MotoGP retired his career-long Number 46, there is still a huge section at each race wearing all yellow, and likely waving yellow flags with a large, black “46” on them. Rossi has done more for the sport than any other racer in modern history, and is one of the most loved Italian athletes, due not only to his skill on the motorcycle, but his fun-loving style and his ability to captivate an audience.

Rossi grew up in the tiny village of Tavullia, near Pesaro, and just a few miles inland from the Adriatic Sea. Over the past twenty-something years, the town has become synonymous with Valentino. Everywhere you look are buildings painted in his color of yellow, flags with his number 46 on them, murals of his face and him on the bike. A small children’s park has a concrete path through it in the shape of a race track, and where other parks might have small cast or plastic horses on a large spring for the kids to sit and play on, this one has small roadrace motorbikes. Since his retirement in 2021, there are large signs and banners saying “Grazie Vale!” as a tribute to all he has done, not just for Tavullia but for Italy as a whole.

Rossi is so popular in Europe (and worldwide), that his VR46 brand of clothing and other gear still outsells that of current riders. In his later years, he formed the VR46 Riders Academy in order to bring talented younger riders up through the ranks of Moto3 and Moto2, including riders like current World MotoGP Champion Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia, Marco Bezzecchi, Franco Morbidelli, and Rossi’s half-brother Luca Marini, among many others. VR46 Racing now also has its own MotoGP race team, backed by Ducati.

Thanks to a former colleague at Yamaha, we had been invited for a tour of Rossi’s company headquarters in Tavullia.

VR46 HQ houses the Riders Academy, the Moto2 and Moto3 race team shop, and the apparel company.

Since The Doctor wasn’t in, I parked in his space.

Several of Rossi’s toys are on display in the lobby.

Bodywork from one of the Moto2 Kalexes during Rossi’s retirement.

Similar to the wall at Yamaha USA, VR46 has a Wall of Fame, listing their Academy riders that have won championships and major events. They’re going to need a bigger wall.

A small selection of the VR46 trophies.

The Doctor’s actual office. The bike on the left inside his office is the bike he won his last MotoGP championship on.

We used to race YSR50s and modified 80cc bikes on kart tracks and small roadrace circuits like the Streets of Willow at Willow Springs Raceway in California. Unlike those bikes, these small race bikes are purpose-built and a serious component of bringing youth into roadracing. It takes not just talent, but a serious commitment of time, effort, and money on the part of the parents before a rider can be accepted into the VR46 Riders Academy.

I built a couple of YZ80- and YZ85-based roadracers back in 1996, and had a blast racing them in my 30s. These are used to help train younger riders as well.

Rossi’s image is everywhere in Tavullia.

VR46 has a store in Tavullia selling their merchandise.

There are also several nice displays of Rossi’s history in the store.

We didn’t get to visit Rossi Motor Ranch or the private collection of his career artifacts, but nonetheless we thoroughly enjoyed our time spent at VR46 HQ, and we hope to meet up with Giorgia and Gianluca again in the future, either in Tavullia or at a MotoGP race.

And with that, it was time to head south and catch a ferry to a new country.

May 9-13, 2023

We caught the overnight ferry from Bari, Italy to Durres, Albania. The ferry ride is about eight hours, so we spent most of the ride sleeping. In the queue before boarding we net a couple from Serbia on a BMW who were heading home on a different ferry (there are a few that all make this overnight run). We spent a while chatting with them, and afterwards I realized I once again forgot to take a photo.

Waiting to board the ferry in Bari, Italy.

On board and strapping the bike down.

Our room for the night crossing.

The ferry arrived in Durres at 8am and we disembarked and headed into town to find an ATM and some breakfast. Albania prefers cash just about everywhere, including restaurants and hotels. Credit cards are nearly worthless here. Fortunately the ATM didn’t mind giving me Albanian Lek. Although the exchange rate means we’re carrying some big notes: USD$100 is nearly 10,000 Lek.

We found our way out of town and headed east, across the entire country, which, as the crow flies is about fifty miles. On the eastern border with North Macedonia is Lake Ohrid. The country border goes north to south straight through the middle of the lake. Lake Ohrid is an amazing place: it is one of the oldest lakes on earth, being somewhere between 3 million and 5 million years old. Its maximum depth is 945 feet, and it has more than 200 endemic species.

Albania is a beautiful country, with plenty of scenery. I would love to return and spend some time riding off-road here.

Working our way down out of the hills to Lake Ohrid.

Looking across Lake Ohrid from the balcony of our hotel room to North Macedonia.

We spent a couple of nights at the Hotel Victoria, just outside of Pogradec. This hotel is a short way down a dirt road, past derelict buildings. The initial approach might make you re-think your choices, but make no mistake, it’s worth it. The hotel itself sits right on the shore of the lake and is a very peaceful, restful place. At least it was when we were there, as it was before the prime tourist season. I’m sure it’s much busier beginning about mid-June.

Hotel Victoria. Highly recommended.

Looking south from the hotel to the city of Pogradec.

The bar/lounge/dining area of the hotel. As usual (and as we planned it), we were mostly the only guests as we arrived before the high season.

We were over-spending our budget at $46 a night, but the included breakfast made it worth the price.

The hotel has an interesting history, as told to us by the owners and hosts. The building belonged to the government and the land belonged to an individual farmer. After the fall of communism in 1991, the building sat vacant for years, until the current family was able to purchase it and the land. The father’s intent was to divide the building into two large apartment homes, one for each of his sons. The renovation work including adding a third floor. While the renovation was a livable space, it was closer to the old communist lifestyle than anything modern, so the sons convinced the father to remodel the building once again into a hotel, upgrading to ensuite rooms and making the ground floor into a large restaurant. The current place is very nice, and the hosts (the son and his wife) are extremely friendly and welcoming (and speak great english).

From Pogradec, we intended to head back to the west coast and follow it south to Greece. However, the weather forecast was telling us otherwise. It was looking like a 95% chance of rain for the next several days along the west coast. As much as we wanted to explore Albania further, the thought of doing so in the rain (which would also eliminate our ability to ride off-road in the mountains) convinced us to shortcut instead. So we left Pogradec and headed south towards the east coast of Greece.

Side Note: Albania is Country Number 56 for me, and 37 for Diana, although I’ve recently been told that if you’re on a connecting flight and it lands in a country, that counts. So I could potentially add two countries: the UAE (Abu Dhabi) when I flew from Buenos Aires to Cape Town while shipping the bike in 2016, and Ethiopia (Addis Ababa) when I flew from Nairobi to London, also during my 2016 ride around the world. I’m not sure I agree with this “count”, as I prefer to count countries I actually rode through, so I’ll try to keep track of it both ways.

May 13-22, 2023

As we’ve traveled through five dozen countries, we’ve made it a habit to always try to learn a few basic words in the local language, whether Spanish, Swahili, French, Portuguese, Polish, Italian, etc. Being able to say “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “Thank you”, “Excuse me”, and “Toilet” are all important, and you can almost see the appreciation on the locals’ faces just for trying.

Maybe we’re getting tired, or burning out. When we got to Albania, I used Google Translate to look up a few basic words in Albanian. No doubt, with a little practice, it wouldn’t be difficult, but it wasn’t as easy as “Bom dia” or “Gracias” (or Diana’s “Avocado” in Portuguese). The added benefit (“easy way out”) that our hosts at the Hotel Victoria spoke excellent english made me acquiesce. And from Albania to Greece, and beyond, we just sort of gave up and became “those Americans” who don’t even try but just force english on the locals. Although we did still use Google Translate to read menus and signs, thus not forcing the staff to read the menu to us.

When most foreigners or tourists think of Greece, I believe one of two images come to mind: the Greek Isles, with their beautiful beaches, or the Acropolis, with the Parthenon and other structures from the fifth century BC.

Unfortunately we wouldn’t have time (or dollars) to tour the islands this trip, as we had already made plans to return home in June, but we had time to see the Parthenon, and we also managed to arrange a house sit in Greece for a few days to help our budget. As we rode south towards Athens with the intent of seeing the Parthenon, the difference between mainland Greece and the islands became more clear, and another thought from years ago came to mind.

Back in 2015, when I was just starting my ride south from Texas to the bottom of South America, I was camped near Oaxaca, Mexico when I overheard two couples discussing their travels. One couple had driven their truck and camper all the way to Patagonia, and were now on their way home to California. They made a comment about their anxiety over returning home and for the future: “You see and do all of this incredible stuff and you get to the point where amazing becomes the norm.”

Riding along through Greece, we discussed this. We are often asked, “What is your favorite place?” That’s a tough question to answer, as nearly every place we’ve been has been great, whether it’s a scenic vista, a food experience, or meeting locals. But one place definitely stands out: Norway. The natural beauty is mind-blowing. For good or bad, Norway has set the bar very high, and after all of the sights we’ve seen around the world, we often find ourselves passing by places now that we would have spent more time admiring before. Whereas I began my travels years ago with the thought that I should take a photo of anything that turns my head or catches my attention, now we found ourselves without any photos at the end of a day’s ride, having dismissed sights as “just another mountain”, “just another waterfall”, or “just another church”. We were feeling guilty about this. We had the opportunity that many people will never have, to travel the world, and we weren’t in awe of it at this point.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Greece. There were a number of places on the mainland that I wanted to visit, but the weather was forcing us to head south instead. The photos you see in travel guides of Mykonos, Santorini, and Crete are beautiful, with turquoise water and white sand beaches. But we weren’t headed there.

Heading south along the coast we ran across this DC3 that had made a perfect landing atop a building near the town of Methone. The owner of the coffee bar was then forced to change the name to Cafe DC3.

Actually, I think the sign says “Cafe Club Airplane”.

We spent a night at Paralia Beach, a tourist resort area. Keep reading for more about our wonderful encounter with a hotel owner here.

We arrived in Athens and checked into our downtown hotel. From here — just slightly outside the normal tourist spots — we got a view of Athens. It looked a lot like the center of downtown of many large cities: dirty, with tons of homeless people. In order to walk from our hotel to the restaurant that we ate at multiple times, it was necessary to navigate around pools of urine and sidewalks lined with dozens and dozens of homeless. We were never approached by or accosted by anyone; they just live here. This was, if nothing else, real. I don’t know if it’s always been like this, or if this was a result of the economic hardships of a decade ago, or some combination.

Oddly, we caught the subway just a few blocks from our hotel, and found the subway system to be extremely clean, graffiti-free, and easy to navigate. The underground was much cleaner than street-level. Within twenty minutes we arrived at the Acropolis. Once again, we were thankful that we had arrived before the high season. The lines for tickets and to get in were short, and while the place was crowded, it was much less so than it would be in another month.

Busy, but nothing like a few weeks later when tourist season officially starts. This hermit can handle crowds of this size; just don’t ask me to deal with any more people than this.

The remains of the Parthenon. It is continually under restoration/preservation. Unfortunately, much of the current restoration has to do with correcting improper prior restorations, when rusting rebar and improper concrete were used.

Some parts actually were taken down to be restored, then reinstalled.

On a personal note, I had somehow imagined the Acropolis to be a much larger area with many more ancient structures (it is, actually, but many of the buildings are spread out; I would definitely recommend hiring a knowledgeable guide). And I don’t know why, but I always perceived it as being on the edge of town or outside of town. Nope, it’s literally on a hill smack in the middle of Athens.

Looking southeast from the Parthenon down to the ruins of the Temple of Olympian Zeus.

Detail from the remains of the Erechtheion, near the Parthenon.

Looking northwest, to the Temple of Hephaestus.

Wishing we had more time and could jump a ferry to the islands, we instead headed north again, back to Larissa, where we met our hosts for our house-sit.

Meet Tupac ShaCorgi. This guy was always happy and smiling.

Out of a couple of dozen house sits, I think this little guy is our new favorite pup. Just don’t tell Hank the Pit Bull in Austin. We still love him too.

Maybe I’ve been a bit too harsh on Greece. We enjoyed our house sit, and we had some other great interactions with locals. The two that stand out:

First, as we arrived at our hotel in Paralia, we were greeted by the owner and his wife. She spoke very little english, but we managed to have a conversation in our normal way of mime and a few simple words. In the process, I caught the term “POS”, which I quickly figured out was not her description of the local beach, but rather the fact that their Point of Sale software (odd how POS has been adopted even in Greek) was not working. She insisted that because they couldn’t process our credit card, we could stay for free.

Wow. Let me know when you run into that in the States.

I told her that we were going to walk to dinner, and I would find an ATM and get cash to pay for the room. She insisted that it wasn’t necessary, and we could stay for free.

We did find an ATM, and the next morning I paid her in cash. As we were loading up the bike, she walked up and pointed up at the rain clouds. It was supposed to rain all day. Through our mime game, she told us that it was going to rain, and we should just stay another night. For free, of course. Amazing.

The second memorable experience we had with a local business was in Athens, at Delicious Souvlaki, where we ate dinner three times. The first night I mis-read the menu and ordered a Number 8 and a Number 9 meal. I wasn’t sure how their system worked, so at one point I got up from our table to check on our order. I think this might have been a mistake, and was perceived as me questioning their abilities. When it arrived, it wasn’t what I thought we had ordered, but we ate it anyway (we aren’t ones to send food back unless it’s REALLY bad, and this was good, it just wasn’t what we intended to order).

The next night, when I ordered at the counter, I ordered a Number 8 and a Number 10 meal, which is what I should have ordered the previous night. When the guy at the register turned around and shouted the order to the cook, the cook responded, “Are you sure? Not a Number 9?”

Smart ass. My kind of sarcasm. I loved it.

When we came back a third night, the guy at the register, who was clearly either the owner or the manager, immediately recognized us and shook my hand. “You are my new best friends.”

Good people. Good food.

Delicious Souvlaki. Yes, it is. I recommend it.

Good food, good value.

So, yeah, Greece wasn’t all bad. It just wasn’t as amazing for us as our new norm.