Monday 18.04.2011 - We left our hotel, the Locanda Del Mulino at about 8.30 am for the 40 km ride to Bologna for today was supposed to be the visit to the Ducati Factory & Museum - but we were guzzumped. No vacancies for either so it was come back the next day. All was not lost however, as the P-D needed a nice cool drink of new oil (olio) and a filter so we headed to the local Bologna Ducati dealer where we met Andrea STIVANI who kindly helped us out by ...

Sunday 17.04.2011 - For those friends who are into bikes (not bikes that you have to pedal), you would know that each Sunday, weather permitting, out come the sportsbikes. Hence the name - Sportsbike Sunday. Sadly we left Florence behind and decided to ride by the Mugello Circuit where the Italian MotoGP is held late May/early June each year. Oddly enough the circuit is not actually in the town of Mugello but in Giogo di Scarperia which is about 15 km away from...

Kerrie said she only wanted to see one thing in Florence on this visit - why then, do you ask did we need to stay 2 nights? We arrived in Florence early afternoon and booked into our hotel on the outskirts of town. The plan was to leave the P.D at the hotel and to catch a bus into the city. Once we had freshened up Greg (or should I say Gregorio) decided that we would ride into the city after all - after riding in Athens he could ride anywhere. This was a great ...

Thursday 14.04.2011 - We woke up to a delightfully sunny day; a blessing after the rainy day before. We went downstairs and for breakfast had a very healthy (not) cream (Greg) and apricot (Kerrie) croissant washed down with a tasty cappacino. We decided to continue with Plan A from the previous day and ride north following the spine of the Appenine chain with a target destination of the small town of Rieti in the provence of Lazio. We did a google search the nigh...

Tuesday 13.04.2011 - Somedays you just cut your loses and bite the bullet. Today was one of those days. We woke up in Salerno expecting bright & sunny weather like we have been having for the last two weeks. We looked out the window and saw RAIN! Off to breakfast and hoped that by eating our oats it would somehow magically become fine. It didn't work. Anyway, we set off with the intention of riding up the Appenine chain of mountains which runs north-south dow...