Via Roma: Nice to Genova.

March 30, 2015

Friday

I am sick of computers. Used to be back in the eighties, people who watched too much television, they'd call them square-eyes; but now there's a new more harmful distraction; these flaming netbooks, tablets and phones; and I've become no less anti-social than the next man or woman, ceaselessly sitting starring at the screen instead of talking to others who are starring down also.

Some people say the internet is destroying the world; I wouldn't go that far. I like the majority depend on the internet and reap the incredible benefits; how else would I be communicating with you now. It is just the awful time it takes doing things-like journaling; for instances, I thought I'd get a journal page done yesterday evening. But no. I sat down at eight and it took a hell of a time clicking around with photos, then writing; meanwhile, the hands of the clock go into overdrive and before I knew, the time is half midnight. In short I don't get to bed until late and postponed leaving Nice for another day, deciding instead to edit what I did yesterday evening, then go for a cycle on the cycle-way along the promenade south west to Antibes, toward Cannes.

I have the usual Buffet breakfast, good because of descent bread, ham, salami and cheese, apple and okay coffee. When I've satisfied my appetite, I take more and make sandwiches for the cycle, rapping them in white serviette provided.

I am feeling good after five days off the bike. The sun is shining. There isn't a cloud in the sky. Riding on this cycle highway is fun. I've large reserves of energy and hum along with a powerful cycling engine comparatively fast and effortlessly, swerving round slower riders on those Velobleu municipal bikes. I feel like a white van-driver tailgating, whenever I get stuck behind a slow bike because of oncoming traffic. And with white lines at the side and broken white line in the centre, the cycle-path resembles a single-carriage-motorway. One rider is going that little bit faster, resisting attempts at me overtaking for quite a while, until passing the airport where there's a short steep rise which suddenly slows him, while I swing out and whir by up the incline; him dropping back in an instant.

It is warming up. I'm in civies and I realize I'll soon need shorts and tee-shirt, which I forgot to pack, it being a cold day when I left home that first day.

Then the cycle-way ends, but across the motor traffic palm lined boulevard there's a huge Geant Casino hypermarket at this point. A place to buy those Summer clothes as well as get fruit and something to drink with my sandwiches. There's everything inside and it takes me a bit to get round to the clothing. On the way I pick up headphones for eight euros, so I can listen to music on my computer; a litre bottle of cooking alcohol. I'm sure they sell it in Italy, but it is just the inconvenience of looking for it; knowing where to find fuel-alcohol in a country I haven't cycle-camped much in the past. Finally I get to clothes. There are white cotton tee-shirts, two for six euros. Good to be able to change, put on a clean shirt daily, but white becomes dirty and discoloured quickly. I see a black polyester tee-shirt with attractive blue lining at the side, a bit more of a sporting top than the former; and for four euros fifty, the only thing necessary is a medium size, which there is. On a nearby rail are nicker-bocker shorts in navy with white piping; just coming down to the knee, perfect for cycling and costing six euros. I'm kitted out

Back outside, I'm sure there's away onward and a cycle-path will reappear, but decide to turn back to Nice. It is about one and I cycle a short way until I come to a free bench to sit on. I am sweating and take off my zipper-top, before lunch. I bough four mandarins; the first one I eat is bitter; the second, perfectly sweet; the third, I didn't taste much; and the fourth, is perfect sweetness; better than the second.

I brought along The Old Patagonian Express, knowing the probability that I may want to sit somewhere and read. Here the sea is turquoise and foamy wave after wave lap in beyond the seawall where a young man is striped off; in for a dip, occasionally diving in underwater and swimming. By the wall a young mother with a baby buggy takes forth a baby in arm and rocks. People stroll by; roller-bladers roll by and on the other side of the wide traffic-full road behind me, white apartment blocks rise over the palm trees, beyond which are green hills that follow the coast. And far out on the farthest point out to sea, where the coast crescents round on my left, can be seen the airport, with cylindrical fusilages with fins sticking up and regular sonic boom of planes taking off.

The bench is two benches in one back-to-back. And just as I start reading, drifting into the world described by the author, wherein the irritating American Mr Thornberry sits in the aisle seat on a train in Costa Rica next Paul Theroux in a window seat, or rather stands leaning over the later, looking out the window, snapping photos and repeating everything he sees. "River!" "Coffee bushes." "Berries." "Pipeline!" And every so often remarking "It blows my mind" regarding the countryside, which Theroux is getting thoroughly sick off. A late middle-aged couple plunk down on the bench that backs on to mine and I instantly raise my eyes unable to give the full concentration the chapter deserves, as the couple gabble jollily away in French close to my ears. She reaches out a phone and takes a photo. Then I understand her say "je preferrez un selfie".

They soon get up and leave and I return to Theroux, reading "Mr Thornberry hitched forward. He said, 'cocoa' 'I saw some back there' 'But there's much more of it here. Mature tree.' Did he think I was blind? 'Anyway' I said 'there's some coffee mixed in with it.' 'Berries,' said Mr Thornberry, squinting. He heaved himself across my lap and snapped a picture. No. I would not give him my seat. I had not seen the coffee berries; how had he? I did not want to see them. 'The red ones are ripe. We'll probably see some people picking them soon. God, I hate this train.' He fixed that strained expression on his face. 'Blows my mind.'

There's a chill in the air so I put back on my zipper-top and approaching five I'm feeling the chill again and decide it's time to head back.

Saturday

On D6098-Between Nice & Monaco sporting my new strip.

A large group of colourless pale schoolboys from England have filled out the breakfast room this morning. Some wear football shirts with French city Toulon on the back and at one point, they break off eating and gather round one of their leaders who is handing out football shirts to wear today. There is a scrapple between two, over who should wear which number until the leader adjudicates.

It really is tee-shirt and shorts weather as I hit the road shortly after nine, not a cloud in the sky. The cycle-way ends where the promenade ends, leaving Nice east around a headland. I follow signs for Monaco-Menton and climb then drop down passing through almost continuous coastal villages with villas and boating marinas. High above I see another road carved into the near vertical hillsides and higher still, a viaduct is strung between two hills, whereon trucks move along. The traffic is steady one car after the other, many are convertible and I spot one American import with a strange number plate and later see more with the same red logo on the number plate. They are cars from Monaco.

In Beaulieu Sur Mer I pull into a small SuperU. There's a bit of a jam in the tinny car-park as a soft-top Renault and a BMW jostle for parking space. Inside I make sure to put everything in my basket I'll need for two days, it being Saturday and I perhaps won't see another open shop until Monday.

I pass into Monaco before I know it. A pair of strangely dressed policemen stand at a roundabout; uniforms with white peaked caps, looking a little like New York policemen of nineteen-forties' gangster movies. Then Monte Carlo is a short street of cafes and apartment blocks and a marina. It stroke me as a place that if you blinked you'd miss it. After a break at the waterfront the street climbs steeply up four switch-backs and I think this is the grand prix circuit, surprized cars going so fast can negociate such tight hairpin bends and remain on such narrow streets. Near the top a racing-cyclist come puffing up behind me and passes, standing on the pedals while hurling the saddle from side-to-side. Then a second, then third passes and I latch on to his rear-wheel and am drafted up the final straight. At the top they turn right and I follow, back into France as there is a yellow background plate D6098 on top of a sign for Menton.

Menton isn't far and is back down to earth. In the main big rectangle centre looking in toward the Alps, a man approaches me and askes the usual where I've cycled and so on. Telling me he is a walker, though used to cycle-tour until he couldn't because of problems with his knees. When I tell him about going on to the Balkans. He says he met a man from Yugoslavia who cycled from home to Lyon and back.

I lunch in a palm tree overhung park by the waterfront with kids kicking ball nearby and elderly couples strolling by. And a mother smiles when her toddler son looks at me curiously. Then a big man in lycra on a racing-bike stops and looks out to sea. Seconds later a woman in the same attired and bike as he catches up, they chat a moment then continue.

I thought the old chapel juxtaposed the apartment block was an interesting contrast.

The road on is signposted Italia. And soon I pass the old disused customs buildings. Italy strikes me as a little shambolic. The road surface rough and uneven; the houses more lived in with large vegetable gardens adjoining each. The towns I pass through, the architecture is a world of difference from France, being old crumbling Renaissance. Racing cyclists pass and I automatically greet "bonjour!" but thwart the ending; then one saves me embarrassment by a shout "Chao!"

In Ventimiglia I have had enough of the coastal traffic and having already checked the map, I saw a road inland therein to a place called Pigma; and, checking again, the left at the roundabout is that road. The road, SP64 follows a narrow river valley in from the coast enclosed by walls of steep green hills with rocky escarpment either side. I pass through Camporosso, a village with a castle ruin on a promontory and ancient stone bridge rising in an arch and lots of visitors milling about and in roadside cafes. After the next village a dozen kilometres further and then finally Pigma, further the road narrows and start to climb. It seems the only way is up as the valley closes in. I come to a split in the road with straight on signposted Molini Di Troru 23km (the green outlined road winding from side-to-side shown on the map) but with a concrete block barrier half across the now narrow path with some kind of a warning on a signboard.

As the way onward goes up across a steep slope, I find out very soon the meaning of the sign; where the road kinks inward to a dry-stream, there has been a landslide, looking like heavy rain sometime recently has satuated the steep ground, which has slipped and fallen down the hillside, taking half the road with it, leaving an even narrower path with a broken edge of asphalt round the inside. And further, fairly regularly, the road has cracked and fallen down the slope in a screed of rubble. It feels pretty scary as I round bends and wind further up; that scared of heights feeling as I ride along the remaining ledge with cracked and broken off asphalt edge, pass each subsequence landslide.

And it is now twilight, there isn't any prospect of level ground to camp until I climb further. I stop at a track off at a switch-back bend. It has fresh tire tracks, but I lean the bike and walk up. It ends at a fence with a sign, which I translate roughly, keep out. Further I come to yet another track off on the inside, that I find is about one-in-three gradient as I push the bike up. Although there's fresh tire-tracks, it at first doesn't look like a place of habitation; not until, I crest the final slope do I see a small house ahead. Eventually further up the slope becomes gentle and there are no more landslide sections and the road become a little wider; here, I come to a short track, with no car-tracks, but a covering of mulch and fallen leaves: a perfect place to set up the tent for the night.

Sunday

I am on the road at half eight. The day starts cloudless with perfect light. The climb further seems a relentless grind as I round a bend and find quite a bit to go to reach a gap ahead. A few cars pass, mainly coming up from the other side of the hill to weekend houses. I stop to take photos, to put more air in my front tire, a precaution for the coming descent and stop at a water fount to fill my water-bottles; all these stops rest the legs.

Once over the final ascent, the view is a deep alpine valley with a village-church bell-tower and orange tiled rooftops far below, beneath green slopes and grey-rock escarpment reaching up to an elongated snow streaked mountain-rim opposite. The way down is really steep. I'm glad I'm not coming the other way. The surface badly frost-heaved and full of potholes that would damage wheels if hit at speed, so I've to descend squeezing the rear-brake, which squeal on the rim.

The slope this side soon become gentle and if I'd have gotten this far yesterday, there wouldn't have been much problem finding a place to camp in the many level areas of crisp brown leaf mulch in among the sapling woodland to the side. The village I saw above is now level across from me on a promontory and against the skyline: the snow streaked elongated mountain having disappeared from view behind its rooftops.

Over a bridge at the bottom, the road rises to a cross; straight on is to Molini Di Troru, a steep ascent to that village on the height; right, is San Remo, back on the coast; there's another road left, but appears to be like the road via Molini, impossibly vertical, so the only easy option is San Remo, down the valley to the coast.

It is an easy ride, gradually downhill along a narrow valley with a river below on the right. I reach Badalucco on time for a coffee stop. The woman behind the counter that serves me a cappuccino has an English ascent. And as I sit outside sipping with my notebook on the table, she come out and strokes the cat that latterly climbed into a seat opposite the open door, saying "Biggles, there you are!" She return in, then moments later come out and asks am I traveling by bike. She tells me she moved here from Ryll in North Wales many years ago. I tell her all about my cycle-tour and she compliments me on my adventurous spirit and goes on to contribute by saying a friend from Barcelona is canoeing round the Mediterainean coast. And also says there is a cycle-track from San Remo, east along the coast.

Reaching the coast about midday, I pass under the viaduct autostrada, then underneath the main coast road to ride up onto and follow a three-lane cycle/pedestrian road east toward Imperia.

This evening the choice for free camping is limited to non-existent, the coast being continuous densely habitted, though each village has a campsite and I've stopped at one on the way into the town of Albenga, costing twenty euros, but suspect I could ride on to the next and be quoted a similar high figure. It is on the beach with the sound of lapping waves and the other campers are three Volkwagen campervans with Austrian plates, though the people are Norwegen: the children, nine-ten year old boys kicking a football with a father. The middle age woman in reception looked around her desk and said something, I ask what and she replies "it's a okay, I a talk to myself."

Monday

Albenga, where stage 2 of this year's Giro d Italia with start (Albenga to Genova).

The cycle-road ended before Imperia and it takes much care with cars on this busy coastal highway. It is sure to assume that just about all cars will pass without giving you much space for era. Entering an urban stretch, a bus halts at a bus-stop and of coarse in anticipation I move out well in advance to pass. But the car coming up behind doesn't think in this same logic. There's just room for a car to pass on the outside of the bus and the car-driver kind of assumes I should slow to the rear of the bus and turn squarely out and give-way to them passing.

This is not the type of road for inexperienced cyclists. You need the stamina that years of long days in the saddle has built up and resulted in strong legs that can hold the speedometer digit to at least 20 on the flat and 14 on rises. On the plus side there are no trucks on this road, they can be seen moving along viaducts strung between hills on the inland side. The road, which I later find out was built by the Romans is carved into the coastal cliffs and ever so often I turn in around a cove, or cross a long bridge at the mouth of a valley and look to the left up the valley to alpine peaks.

I reach Genova timely at five after fifteen kilometres of a rough potholed suburban arterial road, arriving at the portside quay where the road descends into an underpass. There are people everwhere, walking here and there, or lounging in the sun. I find my way uphill along a narrow pedestrian street pass a square with a church and then round the corner into a bigger square with a coloured fountain in it's centre, where I ask a lady at a booth outside a grand building the way to the tourist office and so find a hostel.

Today's ride: 244 km (152 miles)
Total: 1,958 km (1,216 miles)

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