Day Four.
Aosta to Grosseto.
One Jolly Good thing about the Aosta euro 51 per night Holiday Inn was the generously proportioned shower cubicle. Well, it was more a sorta azzurri tiled recreational water sports area, that had me wishing for my Half-Italienne to recreate with innit ... but doubtless, you don't need to hear about that.
After curtain opening burst of the North Italian morning light, the view from my hotel room came as a bit of a surprise. Outside, (after the previous evenings receptionist had straight facedly told me that they'd only had a couple of moto's stolen recently) the 900 was still parked exactly where I'd left it! And the view beyond the reassuring sight of my beloved motorbike added even more to my sense of well being - a steep, tree covered valley side that rose all the way up to a 'I had to tilt my head to see' peaks with snow clinging to 'em. Golly! And a fair weather blue sky up there too - so, not likely to be an oversuit day.
Breakfasted in the company of hotel guests wearing Italian Goldwing Owners Club member regalia, who, it transpired, were having some sort of Italian Goldwing Owners Club grand do at a site a couple of kilometers away. Strange, but no sign of any Goldwing's parked outside the hotel … ah, those continentals and their continental ways.
The still parked outside GPz locks and alarms dealt with and my stuff re-attached to the motorcycle.
Hot morning sun means that black helmet and gloves are hot and sweaty to be in almost instantly they are put on, therefore necessitating swift progress south along A5 to pleasurably wind chill cool things down a few degrees ... other motorcyclists whizzz by along the way. One might assume that they also have hit upon the same motorcycle physics remain in motion solution to overheating.
Aosta valley is the route since way back ancient when for dour northerners and excitable southerners to travel to each other via the Mont Blanc Pass. Along the steep valley sides can be seen evidence of the ancient route that those pilgrims took, struggling as they must have, along an uncertain path through the unknown, from fortified hill-top hostel to fortified hostel on the next hill-top. Each precariously perched hill-top hostel looking to me to be more cliché outta the dark ages than the one before - and my head ain't watching the road ahead - and so I stop at a spot to be stationary and get all goose-pimply and properly appreciative at the thought of all of those intrepid souls passing through the past on foot, past where I have just parked my Kawasaki.
012-Hot-Aosta-Valley.jpg
Hot & bothered & in awe of the achievements of the ancients. Aosta Valley
It dawns on me that I too, in my own modest modern way, am on a pilgrimage, travelling from the old, cold life in the north, to the new Hotstuff in the south … oooer - I wonder what my ancestors would make of that? Certainly, if they were at all of the adventurous motorcycling persuasion, then I'm sure their advice would be - 'Return to this valley someday aboard a TransAlp or suchlike equipment. Explore the many twisty turny tiny mountain roads that the map shows winding up towards the high passes between even higher peaks between parallel Alpine valleys.'
Kwaksam says it's in the blood. I reckon it's in the Genes.
Once out of the Italian Alps, the road gets very flat traversing the plains of Piedmont, with some remarkably long straight sections that quite lend themselves to an increased cooling effect. Naturally, 900 and I progress comfortably across the wide plain, with just the trucks to weave by, whilst keeping a watchful eye on the OE Specchio Sinistra for the odd, ever so fast Italian coming up behind.
Stop for the first tank top up of the day (The first tank full way back in West Cork was euro1.20 per litre. By now, what with the international demand for oil pushing the price of a barrel of crude ever upward, the Italian pump price is euro1.60 per litre. I've not concerned myself with miles per gallon, cos if I get too rational about the cost of my jaunt … Well, flying & freighting would have been more prudent options. But then I'd've missed out on the 'Once in a life-time, if I don't do it now, I probably never will,' experience. Suffice to say that the fuel gauge needle usually started its descent after 50'ish miles).
Turn right onto the A7 at Alessandria - Tum de dum de dum straight on and on goes the road towards Genoa – then into Liguria it gradually it starts to climb - then all of a sudden gets twisty and fast and lots of fun (andprobablyeversoillegalbutI'mnottheonlyone), with dashes through hot harsh daylight between cool dark tunnels. Forza Italia! … and all of a sudden there's the Mediterranean … and I'd made myself a preflight promise that as soon as I could see it, I go and swim in it … but to hell with that - cos right now I'm having too much fun playing in the traffic and continuing twisting turning dashes through hot harsh daylight between cool dark tunnels - doppio Forza Italia! - past Genoa and happily away to the south east we go along the A12 until it gets somewhat calmer and straighter and there's more traffic.
1,457 miles from Myross. I'm trundling along wondering if I'm imagining it - is the engine really sounding just a tad's rough around the three thousand revs mark? - the 900 seems to continue to ably accelerate away into the higher revs Ok. Hmmn.
Stop for the second tank full of fuel of the day. Pay. Buy cold water to top up sweaty self.
Do a visual check of the 900, nothing missing, oil level alright, and, as far as I can tell, everything about the engine appears to be in order.
Check where I am on the map. Decide to carry on along the A12, avoiding Pisa & Firenze, to get to the sea at Livorno.
Set off again - roughness around three thousand getting rougher and maybe even spreading broader in the rev band!
A fee of euro35 gets me off of the toll road at Livorno, on the coast, where I'm gonna swim in the mediterranean.
The 900 is really getting much rougher at low revs and I'm beginning to think ohFeck, ohFeck, ohFeck what exactly is going so worryingly wrong with the one I love?
4.00pm: Come to a halt by the mediterranean beach - the engine sounding dire, not at all the smooth tick over rumble I'm accustomed to.
Dare I switch the engine off?
If I do, will I ever get it restarted?
Distracted from my mechanical quandary by the first distracting sight of what becomes a torrent of attractively bronzed and scantily clad young Italian women arriving at the beach upon all manner of bicycles, mopeds, scooters and motorbikes - Golly! It must be the after school rush hour of the local college kids to the beach. Eyes on stalks as I ogle at moto nymphets passing by - phewww! Steamy visor time.
Quickly realise that this ain't the beach scene for a pale skinned, hot and bothered 54 year-old to be landed in, so, clutch lever, first gear and chug, chug, chug away from there. Get overtaken by one Moped Nymphet whilst she's texting!
Gradually the 900 manages to pick up speed, keeping pace with the local traffic. But the sound of it just ain't right and I must forget about cooling off swimming and find a less distracting, sensible spot to stop and discover what's amiss with the engine.
Eeek! - the engine starts to die … pull in to a coast road lay-by overlooking the mediterranean and some distant island looming up outta the surface sea mist.
Helmet & gloves off - ouch but the sun is hot - bike on centre stand - it's V.hot too - spit test on two and three headers indicates they ain't so hot.
Oh Sheeeit.
What to do?
Don't Panic.
Drink some water.
Find some shade, sit and think.
Cicadas rasping away around me in the undergrowth. Scuttling, rustling wildlife disturbed in a storm drain nearby.
Wild Italy lurking unseen, a feeble stones throw from the motorway.
Hot sun beating down - air at pizza baking oven temperature …
Must conserve meagre water supply.
Rationed to one glug an hour, should last until half past tea-time … owh, anicehotcuppatea - ain't had one since Craigland, way back in dear old Blighty.
Cicadas continue tirelessly rasping away - don't those insects ever give it a rest!
I'm marooned in a sea of heat and damnably noisy cicadas.
Marooned where? Check map … orient it north south, take a sight over it to nearest recognisable geological feature, that distant island. C'mon. Get a Grip. That distant island looming up outta the surface sea-mist a mere 182 words ago, is the Isle of Elba.
Able was I ere I saw Elba.
013-Hot-Elba-In-View.jpg
Hot & bothered & Elba in view & wondering What To Do?
Hmmmn.
Ok. This is no place to hang about. I need to find shade enough for me and the 900 in which to sort out what's wrong with 2&3.
Map shows a service area some kilometers further on, that's if the engine will work to get me there.
Optimistically press the button, and with a bit of choke wiggling the engine runs roughly enough to enable us to leave the cicadas rasping ceaselessly to themselves.
With just 1&4 firing the GPz gradually, gamely accelerates up to a heady speed of 70 or so, enough to keep pace with the early evening Italian traffic, but without enough ooompf innit to attempt any overtaking.
Engine backfires on over-run as down through the gears onto service station forecourt, then splutters and falls silent as we free wheel glide towards the shadow cast by the service station building.
Enveloped by the cool shadow, it's not long before luggage, seat and tank are detached and I'm pondering the black art of sparks.
Seems to me that there's nothing usefully electrical exiting the 2&3 ignition coil to enable the plugs of 2&3 cylinders do their thing.
Swap coils and leads - Logical diagnosis - all, except the dead 2&3 ignition coil, are working perfectly.
There's no spare 2&3 ignition coil aboard.
Bugger.
Ah sure now so, it could be worse.
Check map again. Nearest sizeable town is Grosseto, Tuscany.
Ask service station staff "Mi scusi, per favore. Dov'e Kawasaki concessionario in Grosseto?"
They ain't got a clue, looking bemused, probably not understanding my dodgy Italian pronunciation.
Then a kindly soul arrives to translate. Grosseto is about 40Km away and no one knows if there is any sorta Moto concessionario, let alone a specifically Kawasaki concessionario.
Mobile blower to The Zone time. But Curses … Foiled Again! An Italian voice telling me I can't 'phone the Coate Spiritual Gpz Home … grrr!
Plan B. - text the Half-Italienne in Malta. Ask her to 'phone Craig and request he post a 2&3 coil to me in Grosseto, rather asap please.
Sweetie gets the message through just before the Zone Friday afternoon closing for the weekend time - phewww!
An we all know that once Craig closes shop, blimey, there's no telling where he might uncontactably be, and the least said the better about what might be occurring there … But I digress.
Right. The plan is now to get to Grosseto. Find a reasonable hotel and enjoy a spontaneous weekend of cultural appreciation, whilst, with any luck, Mr.Davies will have a new 2&3 ignition coil, wrapped snugly in one of his purple packages and addressed to me and speeding on its way to Grosseto Post Office for a Monday delivery.
Ah sure now so, it could be worse, indeed.
Refit coils and leads, tank, seat, re-attach luggage, drink more water.
Re-apply sweatily sticky jacket, helmet and gloves to self.
Press Ninja Go stud.
900 obligingly chugs back into a tenacious half-life and we set off on the road to Grosseto, and with fewer cars about as evening darkens, the ever impressive, well worth every penny spent on it GPz, on only the two cylinders mind, gradually builds up to speeds in excess of 80(!) before we eventually slow to enter the outskirts of Grosseto.
Peering about, can't see any signs for hotels, but soon spot a likely looking pair of lads and a girlie standing besides a large modern V.Rossi- look-alike-Yamaha. Chug up to them and stop, engine backfires and stops as well. The trio look bemused at the sight of auld fella me and the older than they are 900.
"Mi scusi, per favore. Moto Roto. Dov'e Kawasaki concessionario in Grosseto?"
Again the look of 'What the feck's he on about?' (But of course, gentle reader; imagine it thought by them in the mental comic Italian accent).
Fortunately, the Girlie can speak some english, and she soon has her lads understanding my predicament as she translates to them my request for knowledge of a hotel for the night and a Kawasaki dealer for the morning.
Seems that there's no Kawasaki dealer open in town, but the Yamaha owner offers to lead me to a cheap hotel.
So, a "Molto Grazzie!" to the other Guy and the bilingual Girlie, then the 900 is re-started stutteringly to splutter and backfire off in the wake of the wheelieing con bravura Yamaha Ragazzo.
After keeping up with a mad young Italian for five minutes, we come to a halt, 1,550 miles from Myross, outside an Hotel of Character, tucked away down what we might indulgently describe as an ‘alley.’ After parking and alarming and locking the 900 in a secluded shady spot, there follows a lengthy pantomime explanation of my predicament to the humourless miniature poodle-wielding manageress of the 40.00 euro a night cheap hotel. Cash up front, I’m eventually entrusted with the key to a room that retains the faint whiff of its previous tenants downward spiral dodgy doings.
After the door locked securely behind me, a shower to cool off from the heat, then, totally pooped from the excitement of the day, I fall asleep, unsuspectingly a perfect meal target for a marauding squadron of mean Tuscan Mosquitoes ...
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Day Five - Myross Island to Malta.
Grosseto on two cylinders a day.
Saturday 21st June, 2008.
Awake to the excitable sound of an aerial dawn chorus of Swifts and/or Swallows hurtling about outside the shutters of the hotel window.
Bah.
Insect-eating birds. Never there when ya' need 'em.
Cold shower to attempt partial anaesthesia of the many itchy mozzie bites I suffered during the night.
Dry & dress in the lightest togs I have, but soon molto caldo and in need of a second cold shower.
Exit hotel in search of some sorta breakfast.
Discover an open café for uno doppio espresso and custard filled (!) croissants.
From a public, street ‘phone booth, attempt calling the Half-Italienne, but paucity of small change and passing traffic soon put paid to that.
Wander about the early morning town and find an excellent looking hotel in the Piazza Marconi - Make enquiries and explain my predicament to the english-speaking management -
"Certo, Mr.,Graaahm, I offer you a speciale bed & breakfast rate of 34 euro per notte untila youra theeenga coma tru de posta … Si?"
I Say … Jolly Good Show! Hand over passport and enough euro dosh to pay for me to stay until the morning of Tuesday. Y’know, I mean, Like, 2008. Instant communication and real-time response with rapid transit of goods within the European community … so, purple package containing 2&3 ignition coil could arrive Tuesday, hopefully?
014-Hotel-Nuova-Grosseto.jpg
Move 900, possessions and self to the far better appointed and a special rate for me Hotel Nuova Grosseto (1,550.2 road miles from Myross Island), to settle in and get comfy for the few days wait for the arrival of the special delivery from The GPz Zone.
From my new hotel room (Camera Ottocento) ‘phone Half-Italienne to tell her where I’m at. She bashfully owns up to yesterday having not been wearing the ‘lucky’ GPz earrings when the coil went wacko. But to make up for that oversight, she’s already contacted The International Rescue Section at Zone Central with my ‘to post to’ details.
'Phone Mr.,Tracey, er, Mr.,Davies, to confirm Hotel Nuova Grosseto address. Despite being a day-off-with-the-wife-and-kid Saturday, the customer-comes-first Craig is already in the queue at the post office, purple package of 2&3 ignition coil in his hand, literally on the verge of consigning it off and away to Tuscany.
I Say … Double Jolly Good Show! And How about That for Customer Care – Hurrah - and bless him and his white wheels!
Content all in order and as under way as possible, decide that it must be just about mediterranean beach time.
Map shows that Grosseto is near the sea. However, being somewhat out of practice at it all, and having travelled 1,550.2 miles by road in the waking hours of the previous four days, and being an old fart 54 an’all, I’m really pooped, so, go back to sleep for most of the rest of the day instead, waking only to squint bleary eyed at the hotel room TV to see all three MotoGP classes doing their Donnington qualification stuff.
(The Half-Italienne comment
Oh yeah? Hmmm… How very convenient to find a hotel with TV in room to show MotoGP biz, especially as I don’t have a telly! Very Timely, eh! )__________________
Myross Island to Malta - Day Six.
Getting used to Grosseto.
Sunday 22nd June, 2008.
1,550.2 road miles from Myross Island.
Map still shows that Grosseto is near the sea. But having just travelled half-way across a continent (admittedly, one of the shorter dimensions of one of the smaller continents), I’ve kinda underestimated the distance to the wet-stuff – so, with the GPz chugging along on two cylinders, it seems to take ages to travel the twelve and a half’ish miles to the beach – but once arrived at the Marina di Grosetto, the 900 patted respectfully on the tank, parked considerately in some shade, then locked and alarmed and left, and I’m merrily skipping off onto the beach and that long anticipated First Swim in the Mediterranean !
015-Paddling-Marina-di-Grosseto.jpg Still an Italian early morning time of day, so just about getting too hot to walk bare-foot on not so crowded sands that display just the bare minimum of – ahem - scantily clad distraction.
(The Half-Italienne comment
Grosseto begins to sound molto interessante – un ‘bel’ incidente…)Seawater swimming is cool and calming.
Later - Emerge from the med, towel my pale torso dry and cover it up quickly away from the fierce heat of the sun.
Chug back to Camera Ottocento in time to watch all three Moto GP races from Donnington.
Sleep.
Awake with a yearning for some Food.
Go out into the relative cool of the Tuscan evening in search of authentic Tuscan Pizza and thirst quenching libation. Find both in Pizzeria Rusticana. Wherein I’m served a completely made-before-my-eyes and way-too-huge for my belly Quattro Formaggio on a perfect crispy base, all washed down with a litre or so (I’m a pints man, whaddahellIknow about metric) of the admirably cool and refreshing Morretti birra … hic … an up on the wall a telly tuned into the Euro’08 quarter final that has Italy innit. But after a few good glugs of the Morretti, hic, ha, ha, what do I care ... the Pizzeria Rusticana people are ooo’ing and aaah’ing, and I can tell that they are also grumbling at the tedious, Forza-less ebb and flow of the opening half hour of the match.
Stomach full almost to bursting, I pay for the delicious pizza, express my thanks and leave.
Walk-wander back to the hotel through empty streets, between apartment blocks where darkened windows all show within the same, synchronised glowing flickering of the same TV channel coverage of Spain versus Italy.
Pass a bar where the despondent looking clientele have spilled out onto the street for some half-time night air.
Check that 900 is still securely where it should be? … Yes … Good.
Ensconced again within Camera Ottocento, my hotel room TV casts the same, synchronised glowing flickering of the same coverage of Spain versus Italy.
Cheers reverberate from adjoining hotel rooms and resound about the town in response to an Italian goooal!
Then, Italy defeated by Spain at the conclusion of the penalty shoot-out, all about Grosseto, a deafening silence.
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Myross Island to Malta - Day Seven.
Another day in the life of a guy in Grosseto.
Monday 23rd June, 2008.
Wildly over optimistic, then depressed at nowt electrical for me in the morning post.
Still, there’s always Domani!
To the wet-stuff – the Gpz backfiring as it continues chugging along on two cylinders. Suddenly dies completely … oooer, I’ve gone and done it now. But after a fraught fifteen minutes, Gpz coughs back into half-life and we continue to the beach that’s much the same as yesterday - just about too hot to walk bare-foot upon not so crowded sands that continue to display scantily clad distraction.
I Say … phwaaa.
Me, I could be Benny Hill.
Seawater swimming thankfully continues to be cool and calming.
Later – Re-emerge from the med, towel my a-tads-less pale torso dry and cover it up quickly away from the continuing fierce heat of the sun (and, lets be honest here, looks of ridicule from those few attractively tanned Italians lounging about nearby).
I may be a pale northern european, stuck temporarily in Grosseto by the failure of things beyond my control, forced to spend some of my time in mediterranean waters … but life really could be a lot worse.
(The Half-Italienne comment
Che belle vacanze per un povero sfortunato! Stronzo!!! Pilgrim my ass)We chug back into town, where I set about absorbing some local supermarket culture and wine, followed by some relaxed, consumer-at-a-loose-end in Tuscany, clothes shopping therapy (cos it’s still V.’effin’ hot and my few travelling togs are beginning to get a wee bit whiffy about the armpits).
016-GrossetoComp.jpg Railway Station Square, Grosseto
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Day Eight of Myross Island to Malta.
Grrro-ferkin-sseto -
Tuesday 24th June 2008.
Awake 7am early.
If wishes were breakfast, it’d be morning time … and it is.
8.00am: Will the purple package arrive today?
8.30am: Learnt and putting to practical use a new Italian phrase - “ Quando posta arrivera oggi?”
“Posta nove a dieci oggi - it coming between nine and tena theeesa morninga, Mr.,Graaahm.”
8.45am: Bag packed and tools at the ready in anticipation of tank off and 2&3 ignition coil replacement.
9am: Imagine my fingers drumming impatiently on tubular steel balcony railing of Camera Ottocento, as I search intently for any sign of approaching Postino, Uomo, or Donna, entering the Piazza Marconi below me …
9.30am: … There She is!
Rush down to reception …
“Sorry, Mr.,Graaahm. No thinga for you.”
Bah!
Oh well … Domani.
Stoic, stuttering two cylinders, 454cc worth of engine still capable of transporting me to the by now usual beach.
017-Hot-Sand-Marina-di-Grosseto.jpg
Sheltering, sweltering in the shadows - Marina di Grosseto
From my paddling about position at head-just-above-water level, I can see along the shoreline to the north, backed by dunes and trees, expanses of sand that appear to me to be more like a familiar West Cork, Long Strand’ish Irish coastline, and also almost as familiarly totally free of any sign of humanity an’all, or of any of those blocks of Italian beach pay-per-lay loungers, laid out in regimented rows below shady canopies.
I must explore.
Exit water and stride as manfully as I can manage with stomach held in, past the usual pick’n’mix of scantily clads, to towel myself off.
900 engine still warm from earlier, coughs obligingly back into action and off we go to see what’s what.
Mad dogs and Englishmen, and I’m motorcycling in the Midday Sun in sandals, wet shorts and new from yesterday lightweight, long-sleeved red cotton top protecting pale arms from the rays.
I imagine the stern, disapproving tut-tut-ting if those old RAC/ACU instructors of mine could see me now, bowling along an Italian back-road, sans sensible full body kit of protective leather-ware. My guilty conscience has me sweating like a pig inside the full-face, while the rest of me is air-cooled to perfection ... but Ouch, the engine is a very hot, hot thing to brush a naked, slightly sun-burnt knee against … so, serves me right.
Carry on, trundle along what becomes a very long straight road under a canopy of trees, the forest either side of the highway full of cicadas doing their thing loud enough to be heard above the engine.
Stop at the side of the road where there are a couple of parked cars and a TransAlp next to a sandy path leading through the trees to the sea.
Secure the 900 in the shade, then follow the dusty path that winds as wiggly a way through the dunes as the occasional snake track that crosses the fresh footprints in it … oooer! If there were any warning hiss, you’d never hear it for the incessant racket of the cicadas all ratcheting away in the undergrowth, or those clicking themselves silly, clambering about the stout trunks leading up to their equally noisy chums cavorting in the high canopy of the pine trees.
The trek through the noisy forest to this long beach between Marina di Grosseto and Castiglione Della Pescaia is very well worth your consideration as the destination for an excursion. Just remember to take an absorbent towel, plenty of factor fifty, a couple of bottles of drinking water, some sandwiches, anti-cicada-din ear-plugs and possibly even some snake bite serum (pardon my paranoia - nasty experience with an Adder in the Kentish bracken when I was a lad … then in the teens, whilst out to lunch camping amongst bracken at Lands End … could have been a reason why subsequently I found Ireland such an attractive, snake free place to make home … now choosing poisonous viper-free Malta, courtesy of St. Paul, as a place to be … but I digress again, and you, gentle reader, are patient to the point of over-indulgence).
Now so.
Where was I?
Ah yes.
Time for a glass of red wine and an appreciation of the statue found in the foyer of the Main Post Office in Grosseto.
018-Grosseto-GPO-Statue.jpg
Mi scusi, per favore. Puo trovare qualcuno chi parla inglese?
And for those of the head-banging persuasion among you:
019-Grosseto-Brick-Bastion.jpg
Grosseto has fine, stout brick walls to bang the frustrated head against.
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Day Nine of Myross Island to Malta.
High Hopes
Wednesday 25th June, 2008.
6.30am: Awake extra early.
7.00am: Will the purple package arrive today?
7.30am: The purple package must arrive today!
8.00am: Will the purple package really arrive today?
8.30am: Oh Pleeeze let the purple package arrive today!
8.45am: Bag packed again and tools once more at the ready in anticipation of taking the tank off and doing a rapid 2&3 ignition coil replacement.
9am: Imagine once more my fingers drumming impatiently on tubular steel balcony railing of Camera Ottocento, as I search intently again for any sign of approaching Postino, Uomo, or Donna, entering the Piazza Marconi below me …
9.15am: … Oh Great Joy - Here She Comes!
Rush down to reception …
“Sorry, Mr.,Graaahm. No thinga for you oggi.”
Bah!
Oh well … Domani.
Thistles.
10.00am: Spend the next few hours sulking.
N-o-o-o … !
Wednesday 25th June, 2008 ... The Afternoon hours.
Eventually stop sulking in darkened hotel room.
Start pondering Doom and Gloom of situation I’m in.
What to do next?
Hotel cat has hidden itself beyond booting range.
Outside in the piazza the 900 still waits patiently for a replacement part.
Surely The Purple Package from Craig must arrive soon … won’t it?
But When, When, When?
Time to go for a walk in the sun to retrieve my patience.
Stroll past the local car hire shop – today they have a motorcycle in the window.
Does this mean that today they may hire out a motorcycle?
Walk into the car hire shop and commence my dodgy Italian speech …
Young Italian Fella behind the counter interrupts and says he speaks English, used to work at BAT in South London, and how can he help?
Well! Blah, blah, Kawasaki Gpz900, blah, blah, blah, 2&3 ignition coil buggered, blah, blah, blah, replacement part posted from England, blah, blah, blah, days waiting for the replacement part that ain’t yet arrived, blah, blah, blah, lost in the post, blah, blah.
The Young Italian Fella asks me - “D’ya’know that there’s a Kawasaki dealer in Grosseto …?”
“No … ! … Where?”
“Less than a kilometre from here, easy walking distance away.”
“D’oh … !”
The Young Italian Fella gives me directions. I thank him, and, after ten minutes walk I’m at Gianni Giallini, 4-Tempi-Moto-Store, Concessionario Kawasaki …
Double D’oh!
There all the time, no more than a ten minute walk away, a genuine, fully equipped Kawasaki Dealership that looks as though its been doing well enough in business there for at least
a few years.
020-Grosseto-Four-Tempi-Moto-Store.jpg
The Friday night likely looking pair of lads and a girlie (remember ‘em, standing besides that large modern V.Rossi-look-alike-Yamaha) seemed to know nothing of a Kawasaki shop in their own town … ?
Feck.
The Hotel Manager had to of no avail checked in his ‘phone book for to find some form of Grosseto moto-dealer help for me.
DoubleFeck.
And there all the time, no more than a ten minute walk away … Gianni Giallini. Concessionario Kawasaki.
TrebleFeck!
Gawd.
Enter the Grosseto 4-Tempi-Moto-Store Sales Emporium and see lots of strange shaped motorcycles in either the familiar fluorescent green or a satisfyingly sombre black.
I kinda toyed with the idea of leaving the 900 with them in Grosseto, come back for it later, meanwhile carry on to Malta aboard a brand new Kawasaki whatever took my fancy – But Gordon Bloody Bennet … these modern motorcycles look just s-o-o-o ugly, as though designed by a desperate to be different committee of demented Yes Men & Women, the spawn of the quick-change Transformer™ & Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle™ generation (ahem, a couple of the very same generation I’ve spent my time parenting during the last 18 years – so, no wonder I’m clueless about what’s stylistically Hot, or not).
Leave the 900 to its fate? Nah Mate! Just like RobRoy will sensibly come to decide, I cannot abandon the motorcycle that has supplied me with so much pleasure and independence and freedom and all sorts of fun & games.
No.
We carry on together.
Even if it means waiting ever longer for the Purple Package from the Zone.
Next time in Myross Island to Malta – Will Craig’s Purple package eventually put in an appearance?
To be continued ...