Alone

So I lost the dead weight that was the Kloss and Dav Rossi show on Monday, I was finally truely off on my European adventure. The Tour De France was amazing, but we didn't really do much touristing at all, so my goal for the next month, while I tour around Europe between the Tour and RWC, is to do as much solid touristing as possible.

I dropped the lads at Charles De Gaulle around 9 AM on Monday, and immediatly turned south, with an intial goal of Antibes, but the real destination was Italia. Keeping in mind my goal of achieving as much touristing as possible I decided to use my new absolut power and visit the Vercingetorix Memorial in Alesia (which the lads had vetoed last time we were on the Autun plain). As all history nuts, or alternativly most of you Asterix nuts will know Vercingetorix was the Gaulish King who led the tribes of the Gauls in their battle to end all battle's against old J Ceaser. The Siege of Alesia, the final battle, has always been a favorite of mine, even though our only primary source on the matter is old J Ceaser himself.

However, know that I have been there I can confirm that it is a battle worthy of its place in history. the Vercingetorix Statue stands 8 metres tall above Mount Alesia, looking out over the Autun Plain. The pure, unbelievable gall (sorry about the pun) of the Romans turning up on the Autun Plain, staring up a mountain at an army, nay a race of people, hell bent on defending their homeland, and still attacking has to be respected. As a bit of a millitary history buff I was expecting to be impressed by Alesia, but the sheer magnitude of the battle ground, and the numbers of people involved were inspiring. On the hole Alesia was a perfect way to start my touristing career. A huge box ticked as well as a bit of a sense of my own insignificance, good times.

Energised as I was I jumped aboard the Messy Days and beat my way further south, early the next morning I had finished the drive and was in Antibes, there to visit Cheese and do some more touristing. As I drove into town I saw a large Blue Boat, roughly the size and shape of Seafirma, my heart dropped as I realised that J was leaving town. I spent the morning adventuring around the old town of Antibes, lots of small cobble stoned streets, and very impressive walls and ramparts. Eventually I left the old town and went looking for an ATM, unfortunatly Antibes is lousy for ATM's, so this took longer then expected. Pretty soon I was getting extremely frustrated with the entire town when a large, balding chef jumped out from behind a tree - it turned out it wasn't Seafirma leaving at all. Jason had radomly spotted me walking along the street.

Tuesday night we got together for a big night out in Antibes. First we had some Rose, Pate, and Fromage on the grass outside the boat - secretly Jas just likes to talk to the tourists who ask questions about the boat, then we had a couple of six packs up on the top sun deck, before finally we headed into town - it was all very well to do.

Jas, as it turned out had an ace up his sleave, an Absinth Bar, very quickly the evening turned messy. I can't fill you in on the full details, but briefly we went to another couple of bars, I made a friend, and the next thing I knew I was walking home towards Villnerve Loboit (where the camp site is) at 4 AM. As I passed along the rock wall on the beach I briefly sat down on what looked like a comfortable rock, next thing it was 5 AM and I still wasn't home, infact I was still on the same rock, 30 minutes later I had finally reached the Messy Days.

After a brief sleep I got up and tried to spend my day keeping busy to stave off the horrible hang over I knew I deserved, I spent time on the beach, checked out the big Fort that looks over the Antibes Harbour, even copped a work out. It was to no avail, around 5 oclock my body started to crack up as the mixture of delayed hangover and lack of sleep caught up with me. I was supposed to go meet Jason so tried to have a few heart starters to get me going. Unfortunatly, as can sometimes happen the heart starters had the reseverse effect and ended up stopping all potential momentum, a beaten man I went to sleep.

Thursday Jas was due to leave town for a month in Spain (on the boat) so I scheduled my own depature. My touristing for the day consited of a visit too the medieval town of Eze, built high atop a moutain overlooking Monaco. We are talking seriously right up on the very top of a mountain, their are no streets, just small walk ways interescting with multiple stair cases which work their way up to the Garden's on the top of the hill. It was well worth the visit, not just for the views but for the history captured in the small town.

After some lunch I kicked on and headed for Italia, I went the long way, via Menton, so I could have one last dip in the French version of the Med, parking was difficult but I finally found a spot about 150 metres short of the border I stopped and had a quick dip. Dav Rossi's multiple jokes about the likeliness of my driving around Europe in my birthday suit were still ringing in my ears, so as I took off my wet boardies and toweled off I decided to call the bluff and cross the boarder in a fairly unique outfit, I was Nude.

Shortly afterwards I pulled my shorts back on and drove off into Italia. The highway from France to Genova is horrible, its seriously 130 km of bridges and tunnels, there is no road shoulder, there is no extra lanes, its an hour and a bit of trying to squeeze past large trucks in tight tunnels and bridges, I did not enjoy it. Eventually I found a truck stop and slept for the night.

Friday dawned stormy - not a good sign for my relationship with Italia, however it eventually cleared up just as I reached my first stop in the new country, and Fridays touristing spot, Maranello. The home of the Ferrari Factory, but more importantly the Ferrari F1 team and Piste Firorano - a huge box that had been in the 100 list for a long, long time. I wandered around the small town for a while, checking out the many small stores which were all packed to the gunnels with Ferrari merchandise, all the while working my way closer and closer to a high pitched whine I could hear somewhere in the distance, I knew I was getting near to the factory, and more importanly Firoarno.

I spent some time walking around the factory, looking at the huge new wind tunnel, finally ending up at Galleria Ferrari - as the name suggests it is a Ferrari Gallery- lots of old school Ferrari's, both racing cars and production- quite enjoyable. Finally I tried to find a place where I could actually see onto the track, but to no avail - I could see one little part of one of the corners, but the cars had come off the track while I was in the Gallery, so it was no biggy.

With my days touristing done I headed off for the weekends agenda, Torre Del Lago Puccini, the Puccini Festival, where I briefly went to the beach and then headed off to see Madam Butterfly, which I have just done, there will be more to come on this in the next post.