Roughening it by the coast

The Euronimbus team slept in today and Miles got to see a doctor for his leg (finally). Earlier I noted that the incredible black and HUGE bruise on his calf resembled the map of Portugal (Miles insisted to have this remark on the blog, so here you go buddy!) but it has grown worse than that. He did not have any pain though but it did not look pretty so off he went to the the ASL clinic recommended by the campground, and rode and found a young pharmopsychiatrist doctor from Boston, I think it was. He was fine though and was told to keep his leg high when he could and not overdo things. We are yelling at him when he takes Nimbelle on and off the stand but he claims that he is fine, do not over work himself and that things 'are okay – Really'.
In due time we assembled our gear and rode off into the midday sun en route to Pisa, as a starter.

Here Miles and I wasted valuable riding time trying to find a WiFi hot spot in order to download blog material. Miles found an Internet point and was able to do some mail but they did not allow me to put my laptop onto their net so I have currently no idea if all this is going to remain on my laptop or what. It is kinda frustrating but not much to do about it. We'll hope for the best, I guess...
We rode around a bit in Pisa that has gone overboard when it comes to traffic planning, trying to find the leaning tower. Eventually we succeeded though and parked illegally by a restaurant in the vicinity. We had our shares of photos and I had hoped that we would take one with me propping up the tower. My dad had taken one of those and it would be kinda fun to have his son doing the same silly trick half a century, or so, later. To my amazement I found out that this was the oldest trick in the world. There were people EVERYWHERE trying to prop up the tower in different styles and fashion and it looked like some exotic Chinese health exercise was going on close to the tower. The thing you do is that you locate yourself at some distance from the tower, assume a leaning and propping up posture and then take a photo with the tower in the background. The effect on the two dimensional image will be that you are a giant and you either try to prop up the tower or topple it, in accordance with your personal taste.

Eventually we rode off, trying to find the road SS1 to La Spezia. Lars-Inges GPS system had had a heat stroke and lost its marbles so eventually we used my old Magellan job to find the entry to SS1. Lars-HInges GPS came back to its senses when it realized that it had competition but all of a sudden it succumbed to heat again and lead us down to the beach. Miles insisted on using a “roadmap” and we could agasin locate ourselves. We managed to get back to SS1, to La Spezia, gassed up, and went up the mountains behind it, on curly roads to Cinque-Terre. . The view was breathtaking and our Nimbii climbed like goats. It is amazing how much beating these small Danish machines can take. I realize that I am not the first one to say this, during history, but it IS amazing how much beating these small Danish machines can take. And we marvelled at this until Miles had a flat rear tyre near an overcrowded parking that was JUST out of reach at the entrance Volastra, of a little mountain village by a restaurant at full swing. Talk about bad timing! So, we had to cram the other Nimbii in between cars and three wheeled trucks and what not and unload and disassemble poor Nimbelle at the side of the road with a technology interested audience of all ages. All went well and Miles was soon on the road again. Our most faithful onlooker had been with us the whole time, first with his pop-eyed infant baby and then by himself, swore that there was a camping further down the road.

The time of day was beginning to be quite advanced though and the other boys wanted to check in at a local hotel. I was not keen to do so since my precious motorcycle will then be out of reach and I told the guys this. They took the notion of a soft hotel bed flapping of to the horizon very bravely and forth we went through MORE serpentine roads only to find that the camping had been terminated once we made it back down through 15% gradients to the sea at Monterrosa del Mare. So, off we went again, this time to what became our final destination for the day, Levento, and checked in on a camping here with a fantastic female camp hostesses. Some team members were taken by her natural charm, grace, beauty and decisiveness and we watched her very move with huge moist puppy eyes. Maybe, just maybe, we have been camping to much already.

In any event, we did have beer (a moretti!) and what Wonderlady called 'Sandwiches-e' and the day ended well except that the toilet is of the 'hole in the ground' jobs. We are all three new to these so it will be interesting...
Today a really really tough long haul is ahead and we will do our best to get on the road asap.