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April 9 Sunday Bicycle touring Italy from San Remo Italy to Theoule France The sky is blue, a slight breeze is blowing. We are still tucked away on a terrace in an overgrown olive patch. Next to us the trees are all neatly trimmed and the grass is cut. We are in the wild part. The road leading to our free bicycle camping spot is one lane. We are by a corner, so each car that goes around gives a little toot on their horn to warn anyone approaching. Like Sharon says: all Italian drivers go around a corner with equal pressure on the horn and gas pedal. The church bells across the valley (we're separated by a tiny river and several barking dogs) are fancy. First they gong the hour and then a different sounding gong does the quarter hour: one gong for quarter past, two gongs for half past, and three gongs for forty-five minutes past the hour. So, at 12:45, it gongs twelve times for the hour, and then three more for the quarter-hour. Get this: from midnight until 1 AM it gonged a total of 55 times! Take my word for it, it is perfect company for an insomniac. A church farther up the valley plays a little tune first and then gongs out the hour. Great. Dueling church bells. The town people around here have church bell envy. My gong is bigger than your gong. The frogs were croaking up a storm last night. And a bird that sounds like a sonar depth charger was doing its bit to add to the din of the frogs and dogs. So much for the nice peaceful countryside all those city folk talk about. The frogs sounded like alien voices conspiring to overthrow the reign of mutant howling dogs -- their croaking rising to a crescendo in the pale moonlight. At the frontier, the border guards just waved us through on our fully loaded touring bicycles. Four of them were standing by the side of the road chatting with each other. With this European community unity there appears to be little for these fellas to do, but they don't know what to do with them all. Everything in Europe seems overstaffed compared to back in North America. Like yesterday, we cycled past eight guys working on the road. They had one jackhammer between them. What do they do? Share it? They were standing there watching the one guy jackhammer. Hey, it's my turn. Turn it up to ten. Wouldn't want anyone's arms to get sore, so we supply eight guys per jackhammer. Sharon says the reason there are so many of them is so they can have lots of people to talk with so they don't get bored from standing around all day. I think there are so many of them so they can clap and cheer as we cycle past on our fully loaded touring bicycles. Which they do. Bravo! Passed through Monaco and Monte Carlo. The coral-coloured palace looked like it had a good view. The Mediterranean is more turquoise here. We pulled our bikes to a halt and ate lunch on a ledge overlooking Nice. There are more people now than when we were last here in January, catching a ferry to Corsica. The sun has more strength now, too. Roger would have his Mickey Mouse shorts on and be scoping out the beach right about now. Lots of traffic. We cycled on an eight-lane highway out of Nice and it didn't bother me. Amazing how a few days of bicycle touring in Italy will cure one's traffic phobias. And, there are less whizzing wild motor scooter drivers in France. As an added bonus, the car drivers follow the rules of the road. Cycled through Cannes, past our old stomping grounds in La Bocca, where we stayed with Roger and Suzanne for Christmas. There are way more people in La Bocca now. We cycled route N98 through the mountains and along the sea. At Theoule, at Sharon's long insistence, we pushed our bikes along a gravel road that was cut along a hillside above some train tracks to what looked like it would make a good free camping spot. There were a lot of trees, but, unfortunately, no flat spots. |
