June 9, 2005: Promontorio del Garganano

It rained in Pescara all morning so I took advantage of the time to fix all the broken photos on the site - I hope you're enjoying them! I had just resigned myself to staying put another night but the sky suddenly cleared at about 2pm so I got suited up and headed south on the autostrada for a ride through the Garganano Promotory. This is a ride I've been looking forward to for a while - you can see on the map that it's basically a huge piece of limestone that juts out into the sea and there are lots of windy roads on it along the coast and through the forest in the middle.

I took the secondary road - the Adriatic Highway - to the Garganano, passing through miles of fertile plains planted with all kinds of vegetables almost right up to the sea, exited the autostrada, paid my toll and entered an absolutely empty road through a wide salt marsh on the left and groves of tended olive trees to the right. The I was riding up and up, the road became narrower and twisty and the smell of salt and marsh and olive trees changed to sea salt and pine needles and I was reminded of Sardenia a few years ago. Sometimes I think that smell is the strongest of the senses - it triggers memories gathered by the other senses - suddenly I see Sardenia but I am on the other side of Italy, almost as far away as you can get from Sardenia. Who knows....maybe it's the same dirt.

Unlike Sardenia, which has pristine road surfaces always cambered correctly and free of gravel, dirt, potholes, dead animals, trash, or any debris at all, this road became alarmingly bad and twisty, too boot. The surface wasn't always banked correctly and there was gravel in the road from people pulling over and out again to let others pass and I saw a dead cat in the other lane. And though most cars seemed to keep to their own side of the road the occasional mad driver screeched around a curve crossing onto my side, which made me glad I'd stuck to the edge of the road, though it was impossible at times because it was crumbling away. In self-defense, I started beeping on the especially hard turns.

July and August must be absolute madness here with gawking tourists and speeding motorcyclists and impatient locals but in their absence I was free to attend to road conditions with the occasional glimpse out of my helmet to the sparkling blue Adriatic and then suddenly there was Peschici, a startling white village built on the side of a cliff facing the water. Here the streets were even more alarmingly narrow and the cobblestones litered with dirt and spray, I should have just parked but I wanted to ride so I continued around the promatory starting with a hairpin turn that was flat on the lower side and a steep angle on the upper and only by revving the engine hard did I get up it without sliding back and I felt the front wheel come up a little - maybe its that duffle on the panniers with all my camping stuff - and then there was that white minivan barreling down straight at me - wow, did that get the blood flowing.

It's a shame there are no turnoffs on these roads. They're so narrow and twisty that its dangerous to stop even to take a photo from the saddle of the bike so I headed on to Vieste where I had planned to spend the night but somehow, despite its beauty (similar to the Peschici with white limestone cliffs and a charming old center) the place kind of gave me the creeps. It was beautiful place but no longer a fishing village - row after row of campgrounds and behind them, hotels. Each one I looked at was somehow not right and I kept trying even after I had that gut feeling I should not stay here, but I lingered, zipping back and forth on the beachfront road looking longingly at the sand and the sea but in the end I kept riding, it's my rule for traveling and for life - don't deny the gut feeling. Anyway, I was happy to, becasuse the road quickly got better and who wouldn't enjoy motorcycling on a warm evening at sunset on a winding road in the mountains by the sea?

Suddenly I was off the promentory and riding through Manfredonia, a big dirty industrial city. It all happened so fast and why must there be such ugliness adjacent to such beauty, belching smokestacks and trucks raining gravel? It was over quickly and the outlying area of the next town, Margherita, was quilted with small patches of vegetable gardens, each obviously belonging to a different family as they were out collecting their dinner at this hour. I sped 100 km/ hour along the road that served as a dyke between fields in and then out of Barletta, busy with the evening's activities and then on a flat road through olive groves and vegetable fields - artichokes, broccili, the same kinds of crops we have in Northern California on the Pacific Coast between San Francisco and Monterey. I loved riding and didn't want to stop but it was nearly dark and I was in Biscaglie cruising to the center to find a hotel and discovering its beautiful little bay with colorful fishing boats and the fishermen all out in front of the bars with their glasses of vino rosso watching the world go by in their city with the ancient stone sea wall where their families have lived for generations.

No camping here or anywhere nearby. Two hotels were full but I found a third on a noisy road through town with half board and for dinner they served me a fish heavily herbed with something green that I didn't recognize and baked with chopped cherry tomatoes in an empty restaurant but for the owners family who were mowing through a plateful of mussels and watching the nature channel. It was a long day, and after dinner with a glass of vino rosso I slept soundly despite the street noise, dreaming a worried dream about being lost in Sardenia, having camped there, and couldn't find my campground and my tent, riding in circles around a mountain until I decided to leave it there and keep going.