Amalfi Coast

One of our goals while in this part of Southern Italy was to bike the Amalfi Coast. Our guidebook described the route in detail, and its claims of this stretch of coastline being the most spectacular in Italy and quite acheivable by bike. We decided to ignore the looks of horror in the eyes of fellow tourists when we mentioned we would be cycling the road.

It was a cold and damp and overcast day when we left Sorrento, so the views of the highest cliffs were obscured by clouds. There were a couple of steep grades, but in general the most scenic stretches were nice and even. Many times the only thing separating us from the cliffs below was a rock wall and no shoulder. But the rock wall was more substantial than any guard rail in the U.S., and cars and scooters were also enjoying the view and moving at a reasonable speed. We just tried not to look down while moving

We passed a group of hikers also traveling the road (the red blob sharing the road with me in the photo above).

We took two days to do the coast from Sorrento to Salerno. In the midsection of the coast are towns built literally on hillsides. Roads go impossibly up, but the highest parts of the towns are only reacheable by foot. Construction materials are carried up by horse and mule. And on the slopes are terraces with groves of lemon trees

Our plan was to find the campground menitioned in our guidebook, but we could not find it. It was still early, so we continued on. We decided to just try and find a hotel or pension house along the way. By the time we got to the town of Minori it was getting late and we were cold and tired. We noticed an agriturismo sign with a tent symbol for Il Campanile -- just our style. But it pointed uphill, and we were not sure how far it would be. We ducked into a travel agency, where the agent spoke enough English to call the proprietor of the farm, and he met us at the office. We followed him by bike until it got so steep we could pedal no more, then walked the bikes to the bottom of a very steep set of stairs. From there we took off the panniers and walked a thousand steps, came back and carried the bikes up the same steps. Our host was a gentleman and carried my bike -- good thing, because I don't think I had it in me to do it myself.

The bikes were parked within the front gate, and the bags were shuttled up another thousand steps. to the top-most terrace of the town. We were surrounded by terraces of lemon trees and vegetable plots. We were shown to a grassy terrace, and at the end was a bathroom with shower and toilet. We were told dinner would be at 7 pm, on the patio where we parked the bikes (one thousand steps down).

That evening we enjoyed a home-cooked meal of local specialties overlooking the lights of the town far below -- pasta, grilled sausage and pork (there goes that vegetarianism out the door again), fresh bread, salad with tender greens grown by our hosts and topped with the juice of lemons from the groves surrounding us. They seved us wine from grapes grown on the farm and bottled themselves. By the time we finished a liter of the wine we were too drunk to say no to home-made limoncello. We stumbled up the thousand steps to bed, happy and satiated.

The next day we finished our Amalfi Coast tour, arriving in Salerno by noon. We headed for the train station, and bought tickets to Ladispoli, a coastal town north of Rome. Within an hour we were on the train, looking out the window at the landscape we had biked just a week earlier. From here we would begin the next leg of our journey, heading north towards Siena and Florence.

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Sorrento

We crossed the Bay of Naples on a half hour ferry ride to the town of Sorrento. A picturesque harbor town, it is frequented by many British and German tourists. We stayed here for four nights at a campground built on terraces with views overlooking the town. This was our base for viewing more great sites -- Pompeii, Vesuvius, Ercolano, Capri. Public buses and trains took us everywhere we needed to go, and without our bikes we once again we blended into the tourist crowds.



The bus ride up Vesuvius was itself worth the price of admission. Steep and winding, and often not wide enough for two tour buses to pass each other. Our bus driver had a showdown on our descent, making the uphill bus back up to a wider spot in the road so we could pass. The whole time cars and scooters flowed through the gap between the noses of the bus. At the end of the road it is a short walk to the rim of the crater, where steam still seeps from the rocks. It was howling wind, with 50 mph gusts, so the view below as hazy from dust and smog. Thanks to the gentleman at the curio shop at the end of the trail, we were able to locate Pompeii in the distance. He was able to point out the site in four languages, rattled off in succession when asked.



We spent an afternoon in Ercolano, a town also destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. This is a smaller site than Pompeii, but what makes it different is it was covered by mud flows, instead of hot ash. As a result, charred wood and iron grates were preserved.



Our last day we took the ferry to the island of Capri. We walked the narrow streets, like mice in a maze. Wide enough for just two people with walls towering on either side preventing a view to orient oneself, we walked for a mile, emerging just a few hundred feet from where we started. Most touists who wish to reach the high point of the island, Monte Solaro, take a single-person ski lift to the top. We opted to walk, hiking through a forest path lined with spring flowers. We had a beautiful day, and the waters of the Mediterranean were azure blue. A nice ending to our stay in Sorrento.

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Naples

From Rome we cycled three days towards Naples. We reached the coast on the second day, and passed through resort towns, quiet and vacant prior to the summer season. We passed through agricultural towns, and bought melons bursting with juice from roadside stands. There are small markets everywhere, but they all are stocked with the basic essentials of good quality -- cheese, bread, vegetables, fruit, olive oil. Food is plentiful and excellent, but we need to be sure to get it early, since shops close in the afternoon from about 2 to 4 pm.


Outside of the tourist routes foreign travelers are less common, and the people have been so kind to us. We stopped to eat our lunch of bread and cheese at a gas station and market. Sitting next to us were a couple of gentleman with lunch bags the size of a small coolers. Out came multiple courses -- bowls of salad, cheese, bread. One man pulled out a salami and started slicing off chunks. He offered a large section to us. We hesitated at the unexpected generosity and our supposed vegetarianism. But we took it, and found it to be very delicious. Apparently made by the man himself, he beamed when we expressed our pleasure.

Our goal was Naples. Having made a contact with the Langella family through WarmShowers.org, a networking site for bike tourists, we had a place to stay. As we approached the city, we encountered dense traffic and more cobblestones. We called Francesco, our host, and he met us by the docks on his bike. He then us led us throught the streets of the city to his home in the old part of town, through tunnels of buildings and narrow streets, where vendors display their wares, throngs of people walk, and scooters and cars buzz by with just a cautionary honk. For the next two nights we were spoiled by a personal tour of the sights of the city, home-cooked Napolese cuisine, and the company of our superb hosts.

We visited The National Archaeological Museum of Naples, and also the famous cloister of Santa Chiara, where the painted columns were strikingly beautiful. We met our host for a hike for a panoramic view of Naples from the Castel Sant'Elmo. We stayed up too late, ate too much, but left happy and with the joy of a new friendship. On our final morning, Francesco led us through the city of the last time to the dock, where we loaded ourselves and our bikes for a trip across the bay to Sorrento for the next leg of our journey.

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Rome

It was not our intent to cycle through Rome. But we arrived at the airport at 5 pm in fading light, and we found out that bikes were not allowed on the express train we intended to take to the hotel we booked for the first night. So we got on another train. We sat huddled with our map of Rome, trying to figure out which stop to get off on. Emerging from the station, it was dusk and the streets were wet from a recent thunderstorm. We donned our bright vests and with John's sixth sense of direction, we headed off, sharing the streets with scooters, Fiats, and Smart cars, all traveling faster and maneuvering much quicker than us.

We merged onto a street of rain-slicked cobblestones that began to curve, and as we turned we saw the Colosseum. There was a backdrop of clouds highlighted golden by the setting sun, and the arches illuminated by the last light, a collision of the ancient and modern. It was magical.

The next day we decided to avoid the train to get to our campground north of town. We got different stories -- bikes allowed after 9 pm, bikes not allowed anytime, bikes allowed only on some trains. So we cycled. It was more like mostly pushing and some pedaling through the city center. But we saw several sites, and we must have been a sight, too, based on the stares we got as we wheeled our way around with bikes fully loaded with panniers. Eventually we reached the bike trail that follows the Tiber River, passing beneath ancient bridges, and to the campground.

For the next five days we were regular tourists, without bicycles, blending into the crowd. We walked from morning until night, visiting all the biggies -- Vatican City, the Forum, the Colosseum, museums, churches, and fountains. We took public transport everywhere, and felt secure and welcome wherever we went.

The day we left Rome we headed south on the same bike trail on the Tiber River. Towards the old part of town the path turned from asphalt to cobblestone. Besides the discomfort, it also made progress slow, made even slower by the flat tire John got from glass on the trail. But we pushed on, leaving the bike trail and exiting Rome through the gates at the Via Appia. As we went south, there were fewer cars and bigger cobblestones. Most of the trail were interlocking cobbles maybe five inches square, but some sections had very large stones, a couple of feet square. These dated from the time of the Romans, and one could still see the grooves from the carts etched in these stones. It was quiet, bumping along under a canopy of trees, and we felt like we were transported back in time.

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Out of (Virtual) Hibernation

Winter has nearly passed -- just another paragraph in the book of life. The past several months have have been unexceptional – a simple prose of skiing, an occasional exclamation mark of a powder day, with parenthetical trips to Southern California for business and family visits. But this winter is nearly over. The gritty snow drifts around town are visibly shrinking in size on a daily basis. The sun is higher on the horizon, the days are warmer, and birds are singing in celebration. And so this virtual hibernation is over, spring is here, and we are on the edge of a new adventure, a new chapter.

In a couple of weeks our bikes will be packed in boxes and we will join them on an airplane to Rome. Our timing could not be better – the dollar is at an all-time low compared to the Euro. But life is too short, and we are strong of leg. We will travel simply, with everything we need on our bikes, camping through Northern Italy and Germany for the next five months, fueled by good cheese and bread. My husband says his name is now Giovanni, having diligently studied Italian for weeks so we may navigate our way through the culture. I am responsible for German, having the advantage from immigrant parents. And we look forward to reunions and new unions with family in Germany.

So, stop by again soon. You are welcome to join us for the ride.

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Shoulder Season

Our days for the past couple of months have been dictated by weather. If the wind was not blowing, and the skies were not crying, then we laced up our hiking boots and were out the door early to explore a new place in our backyard. This is the shoulder season – the time after Labor Day and before the snows of winter – when the tourists are gone, the streets are quiet, and it feels like the most sparsely populated county in California that it is.

This shoulder season was a long one. Despite some small storms in October that dusted the higher elevations, it wasn’t until last night that we received our first major snowfall. This is a great relief to the local economy, which depends greatly on the visitors that come and ski. It might be a White Christmas after all.

Here is a photo album of some of our favorite images from the last couple of months…

View looking east to June Lake Loop from the unoffically-named peak "Little Middle". Early season snow highlights the ski runs of the June Mountain Ski Area.







Vibrant autumn colors in Lee Vining Canyon, mid-October.







View of Mono Lake, looking east from the summit of Koip Peak.







A rare, graceful arch in the quartz monozonite of Yosemite, on the trail to North Dome.







Steelhead Lake, looking south towards Tioga Pass, on our way down from Shepard Crest.







Weathered stump in the pumice gravel of Glass Mountain.







Sculpted ice that was once a flowing stream emanating from Mildred Lake, Yosemite National Park.







Twisted roof pendant in Convict Canyon on December 5, just a couple of days before the big snow.







The view out our window this afternoon.

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An Oregon Coast Photo Album

Have you every read a good book really slow -- savoring phrases, and re-reading those that resonate? Or how about eating Peanut M&M's one at a time, sucking on them until the candy coating dissolves, and the chocolate melts as a creamy coating on your tongue? I wish I had more time for the first, and I gave up the second long ago. But we found a new thing to do slow -- traveling by bicycle -- which is pleasurable in its own way.

We cycled from Portland, Oregon to Klamath Falls, Oregon, starting in late August. We covered 750 miles in 16 days, with a couple of extra days of rest. We were fully self-contained, with sleeping bag, tent, and food stashed in some really nice panniers. We headed northwest from Portland to Astoria (about as far north as you can get in the state), and south along Highway 101 until we reached the border of California just north of Crescent City. We left the ocean and crossed the Coast Ranges to Ashland then on to Klamath Falls. We are new to bike touring (except for one overnighter), and with a significant investment in equipment we were anxious to see if it suited us.

When traveling by bike, subtle changes in temperature and wind speed and direction are fully experienced. One can't help notice things about the road often hardly perceived in a car -- the width of the shoulder, the quality of the pavement, the grade, and roadkill. At about 50 miles a day, enough ground is covered to have a memory bank full of images by the end of the day. We cycled through many small towns -- some quaint, some a bit depressed -- but in each we were welcomed and drawn into conversation with locals. On a bike, the barrier shell of an automobile is gone, and people want to know where you have come from, where you are going, and are open to share the best of their part of the world.

Below are a few images from our trip, with some commentary. Also a trio of videos -- riding the train, John cruising, and me rolling along. We hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed our adventure.


We drove our truck to Klamath Falls, stopping in Reno to pick up some bike boxes from the Amtrak station. We continued on to Klamath Falls, where our plan was to board the train and ride it to Portland. The afternoon before our departure we packed the bikes in the boxes at our campsite, just to make sure everything fit and be ready for departure time.



Very soon after leaving Portland we were in the countryside, passing farmhouses and fields of corn. A short stretch of bike trail outside of Vernonia was lined with apple trees and blackberry bushes.





We stopped often to pick berries throughout our trip, growing wild along the road. John at one point exclaimed "we are surrounded by food".







We reached the coast on Labor Day weekend. Inland Oregonians flocked to the coast, baring their white limbs to the sun, soaking up their annual Vitamin D requirement. This beach outside of Manzanita was pockmarked with their footprints at the end of the day.




Good weather was our fortune during most of the trip. The coastline was a series of ups and downs -- up over the "heads", where the views were spectacular, and down to sea level. This view is looking north from Cape Lookout.









John riding in the fog on a particulary lush stretch of road.






Can you say "fun Fun, FUN"?








Lighthouses from early in the century dot the coastline. Many are still operational, but most are historical structures that are open to the public. Heceta Head Lighthouse is spectacularly situated on a cliff jutting out into the sea.






The glass windows at the top of Heceta Head Lighthouse.



We were unaware when we started that the Oregon Coast is one of the premier bike routes in the country. Oregon is kind to cyclists, and the entire route was signed with well-marked and generally generous shoulders. We stayed in Oregon State Park campgrounds nearly every night. Most had a area designated for hikers and bikers, separate from the main campground and their campfires and generators. Other campers arriving by motorized vehicle must reserve months in advance for beachside sites, while we arrived and were assured a campsite without reservation at a mere cost of $4 per person. We enjoyed a hot shower every night, a welcome luxury on those late afternoons when it was cold and damp.






John walking his bike over the McCullough Memorial Bridge north of Coos Bay. The bridge was over one mile long, and due to no shoulder, and cyclists are required to walk across. We were able to ride over all bridges along the route, other than this one. But it was often a nerve-racking experience, since motorists had to wait behind us, or tried to pass with minimal buffer.










Roses at Shore Acres State Park, a botanical garden situated on the cliffs south of Coos Bay.











Morning light on seamounts south of Bandon.







A typical lunch -- Tillamook cheese and artisan bread. We only ate out a couple of times on the trip, but we did seek out local bakeries. I still salivate at the thought of the tangy whole wheat sourdough bread we bought in Nye Beach....







Leaving the coast, we spent a night in California's Jedediah Smith Redwood State Park, a place that evokes nothing but awe.







Once we left Ashland and climbed the 4,000 feet over the mountains, we were out of the coastal-influenced landscape of lush green and free blackberries. The golden rolling foothills were quite a contrast from the landscape of the last couple of weeks.








The loop was closed with our return to Klamath Falls. We got home fueled by petroleum instead of bread, cheese and berries.

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