Change of plans...

So after the olive tree field I drove all the way next to Riedi and spent the night in a field from a old guy I met while asking around were I could put my tent for the night. Pretty nice discussion all in Italian :) I'm starting to be good at it. I left the next day and continued south east up to Barrea in a national park. I'm staying at a camping and had a nice 1hour discussion all in Italian again with Antonio a mechanic guy here on holidays with his family and who was complaining about being bored here... He told me evrry thing abiut mafia here and how South Italy is much morr touched by the economical crisis han the north and some other stories. Today I really didn't drive much (not even 200kms) and the reason is because I'm getting bored on the motobike... I don't know what changed compare to when I did my europe trip by motorbike 4 years ago but I don't have at all the same enthousiasm even if I went through amazing places. I just find that I'm spending way too much hors on the moto and that I don't have time at all to meet people and experience the places. 4 years ago I had no problem with it and I was feeling super free and every thing but now I don't find it the appropriate way for me to travel on such big distances. Because of all this I decided to actually give up on my supposed to be big trip by moto after only 5days of it... I was not expecting it but I'm pretty sure it's gonna get hsrdrr and harder if I was to continue. So the plan now is to go back to France with the motobike to sell it there. To replace this trip I will decide on places to visit but this time with just a backpack and taking planes, trains and buses. And I'll then prepare my trip to South america which I plan for the end of the year. I'm quite surprisd and a bit disapointed not to have managed to do this adventure with the moto but I think leaving alone was a bit too much.

Italie part 1

As expected the view was super nice when I crossed the France - Italy border. Super nice road with lots of turns :) I took videos bt I don't manage to upload them on the blog from my tablet. I'll figure it out later. I got a bit afraid during the night because heavy rain and lightnings started but in the morning every thing was calm again and the road was almost compleatly dry (very important for having fun while driving a motobike!). So, lot of fun and beautiful contryside in the early morning. But then from cuneo, savona and until Genova I got really surprised by the speed limit system in Italy... It's actually super slow! It's really rare to have portions at 90km/h and sometime yiu have 30km/h on big roads which could be much faster. As well the distance indicated on the signs is something to trust very little. Once within 500m I got for the same city 62, 58,60,56,60... in this order :D So my average speed decreased quite a lot and the roads were not bery interesting. From Genova I took the same roads Laura and I took a month ago when going to cinque terre. There it's really beautiful but quite slow as well because most of the time in cities. Finally, from La Spezia until a bit further than Pisa it wss horrible. Ugly roads, lots of cars (almost all the time 10km/h bellow the speed limit) and very low speed limit. It took me forever to do this part. I did something like 500 kms but I left at 7:30am and stoped at 10pm!!! I was so frustrated! I don't think I will manage to go furher than Georgia at this rythm... For diner I went to a super small restaurant in the middle of nowhere with loal people corresponding perfectly to the cliche of Italia in the country side :) Great pizza there. Even sleeping was bad because the only place I found was quite close to a very busy road, behind a cemetery and I was too tired and it was actually not practicle to set the tent so I just slept directly on the ground wraped in a big plastic protecction that I normally use for the bike. I had to wake up after 1 hour because tones of moskitos were eating me and I had to go get my anti moskito product otherwise I couldn't sleep. This morning I woke up at 5:30am after sleeping a bit more than 6 hours and left early. I arrived quickly in very nice places in Toscana such as San Gimignano, Siena, Chianciano,... I really understand why this region is famous for tourism and for bikers as well. Very nice roads all along and with reasonable speed limits :) I'm quite proud of my Italian skills which I used a few times to ask direction :) But one thing to remember is that when you ask someone something, it will take quite a long time for them to saysomething which could be summarised as "turn right and at the roundabout turn left". There were especially 2 old ladies which took a good 5 minutes to tell me that I could take either of the two roads I was considering and that I just had to keep going south :) Every one is very nice when I'm asking for direction; I regret to not have more time to spend and just chitchat with people. Maybe I'll slow down on the number of kms per day and spend a bit of time in some places to discuss even just 10min with people... Anyway, I'm now doing a break in an Olive tree field were I just ate. I'm gonna go back on the road and try to reach the neighbourhood of L'Aquila tonight.

Pictures of the departure from my parents place.

Argh... Still in Fance :(

Damn it, I failed on my objective of reaching Italie... I'm something like 5km away from the border in the mountain.
Well, lets start from the begining. I left around 8:30am and drove something like 550km. Honestly I was hopping to do more because I didn't stop much today. The 2 lessons of the day: first I need to work on my French geography (I passed by places which I thought on the other side of France); second: Jesus the French country side is really beautiful sometimes. Unfortunately I was too stupid to charge the battery of my camera so I have almost no picture and no movie. I'll put the only pictures I have anyway. I passed a bit inland (Castre, Brandol, Gap) and passed in some canyons (when I saw it I though that it was a mini version of gran Canyon). Supercool roads with lots of turns; perfect for a motorbike :). Tonight I'm sleepin in a field few kms after Barcelonette. I have a perfect view on the valley and I can't wait to see the sunrise from here. As well the temperature is much better here as I am almost at 1900m above sea level. I'll try to drive quite a lot tomorrow as well; I would like to be bellow Firenze... The motorbike is still doing great and the back pain I had before leaving is gone. Every thing is pretty cool now :)

Real start!

Believe it or not but I left today! I finally managed to get my French driving license (it took almost a month) and the international driving license. It was a strange feeling when leaving my parents this morning; all of a sudden I realized how long and potentially difficult this adventure might be.
I left from Pau around 3:30pm and drove all the afternoon until 8:30pm with almost no stop. Now I'm in my tent somewhere in the French country side a bit after Toulouse. Perfect weather (sunburns on the arms); not too many cars; a pretty good first day. I think I did around 400kms. Tomorrow evening I want to be in north Italy so I'll wake up early and just drive all day. I managed to pack every thing I thought about in rather small luggages. Before leaving I did my first maintenance on the moto: to adjust the chain. I feel like an expert now :)
I'll try to put pictures and videos...
Good night!