Ragthered And The Very Interesting Journal

13 Oct 2024 – a day of disaster and miracles (taken from an upcoming blog)

What a nightmare of a day this turned out to be! We set off to head towards a campsite in Tuscany and decided to call in to a hardware store to pick up an electrical cable for camping. All was going well, we had the usual pictures taken by onlookers, had a snack and used the facilities before the 4-hour ride ahead of us. While riding, I noticed quite a few open fields and decided to leave the highway to find a place to let the dogs off for a run around. Eventually we came across a gravel track that led downhill to the fields I was looking for. I didn’t like the look of the track but we decided chance it anyway. I will never ignore my intuition ever again; it wasn’t long before Zsofi came off her bike on the gravel. Then while I was trying to manoeuvre her bike, I dropped it again.

We finally got the bikes parked on the field and it was at this point Zsofi said, “where is my leg bag?” This would be the leg bag with here credit cards in! After a bit of hunting around the area that the bikes had gone over, the dawn of realisation swept over us that we had left it behind at the hardware store, which was an hour and a half away. Phone calls were made to the store but nothing had been found. I remembered seeing that Zsofi had put her bag on the pannier of the bike and knew we must have ridden away with it still there. There was nothing for it but to ride all the way back and hope for the best but finding it ever again was very unlikely.

It was my turn to come off my bike on the gravel track as I hit a rut. I was lucky not to land in the ditch but we still couldn’t pick it back up. Nothing else for it but to unload the bike to get it back up. Eventually we got the bike back up and reloaded it minus Molly, who Zsofi would walk up the hill. I can honestly say this was the hardest thing I’ve ever done on a bike! The bike was just sliding backwards down the hill and Zsofi was doing her best to hang on to it. After a couple of failed attempts to get traction, I decided the best course of action was to just power out of it, I’ll either come off again or make it to the top of the hill. Thankfully, it was option 2.

On the way back to the hardware store in the vain hope we would find her bag, I remembered the time I lost my wallet while riding and found it again by circling back a few times and watching the roadside. I decided to keep my eye out when we were about 15 minutes away, I figured that it would never have lasted any longer than that laying on the pannier. I also considered that if we were ever to see it again, it would have to have fallen off where no one walks, very unlikely. Riding in silence, we both ran the scenarios of what we would need to do next; cancel all the cards, replace the cards and driving license, have them sent to Zsofi’s parents, fly home to get them or even were we going back to Budapest for the winter? 20 minutes away from the store we hit a stretch of road and I thought ‘this would be an ideal place for it to be, a country road with no footpaths. Low and behold, out the corner of my eye, I spotted the bag on the grass verge! A slightly illegal U-turn later and the bag was safely retrieved with all its contents intact. Finding a bag that fell off a bike at speed over 3 hours previously, well you don’t get much luckier than that.

8 Oct 2024 – leaving Sicily behind

After travelling around Sicily for a couple of weeks. it was with some sadness that we started to head back to mainland Italy. We will miss our friend Natale, who was a great guide during our stay.

We even had an interview with one of the major Sicilian newspapers about our adventure!

If you have never been to Sicily, you really need to go! The people, the sights and especially the food, oh my god!

The traffic is a bit mental in the busy towns and cities but you kinda get used to it after a while. We have seen so much and I must admit, I was very tempted to stay there for the winter as the temperature is similar to Spain in the colder months.

We have also been bitten by the camping bug and have loved stopping over for a night without the need to unpack all the bikes. As we push further north in Italy, we have noticed it getting harder to find campsites that are still open. On the plus side, we have just found a cracking accommodation an hour away from Naples for the next few days that cost us the same as the camping did.

2 Oct 2024 – Update about Greece

I finally finished part 1 and 2 of the Greek blogs, hoorah! We are now in Sicily and have had ropey WIFI for about a week so its been slow going as far as the website is concerned. I’ll release part 1 of the Greece blog now and part 2 will follow a little later. I hope you enjoy reading it.

With a bit of luck and good WIFI, I hope to start putting the Italian blogs together. I can’t tell you how much fun Sicily has been, the food the people and the landscape are amazing. The traffic is a bit mental but you kinda get used to it after a while.

We are currently on the west coast and in a few days will start our way back over towards Messina to catch ferry back to the mainland.

9 Sept 2024 – Ioannina

We arrived at the beautiful ‘The View Hotel’ which overlooks the town of Ioannina and Lake Pamvotida. The hotel has only been open 6 months and has a very new feel to it. The staff are very polite and there is garage parking for our bikes. Getting back out of the garage will be interesting as the steep downhill driveway with several twists would test any car driver, let alone a couple of fully loaded bikes carrying dogs! I may have to video it just to do it justice.

Speaking of dogs, while trying to navigate our way out of Kalabaka, I stopped to fix Molly’s goggles on a bad section of road and ended up dropping the bike. Normally there wouldn’t have been any damage but my pannier hit the curb on it’s corner, so now i have a big dent in it. I might see if I can borrow a hammer and knock it back out tomorrow.

Had a text message come through warning us about severe weather and not to travel, which you would normally just shrug off but when everyone else in the restaurant gets it too, you suddenly become very alert, especially with a dog terrified of thunder but so far so good and all we have seen so far was a bit of rain. Oh and on that subject, Sophie laughed at me for packing my umbrella!

9 September 2024 – Kalabaka

Built on a bloody big hill, Kalabaka is not what we imagined! we thought it would be a bit of a one horse town with one of those shops that opens when it feels like. Well, we were close…if it was a one horse town full of tavernas, shops, cafes and vibrant night life! Oh, and cats and dogs that have no boundaries! This is a place in a region known as Meteora, home to a group of Monasteries perched on top of huge escarpments. We were here only 2 nights but we did get a chance to ride the bikes to all the different view points and the scenery is simply stunning!

This morning, we will head further across Greece to the town of Ioannina, where will spend another couple of nights before heading towards the west coast.