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hello....
Holy crap it seems hard to keep a running diary going. I keep falling asleep sitting up in me bed as I start to type in the evenings....soooo playing catchup now.
Well the day before Mike had a great idea....lets go check out the Duccati factory.....it's in town....
Kudo's on him cuz I did not think of it.....so he went online on the phone to try to book a reservation for the tour..... that was great cuz.....it set the start of the day. We got up packed up and off we went. Found the factory pretty easy. The heart of Duccati.....they make great bikes.
Today I am sooooooooo glad I didn't wear my usual riding shirt. It has a nice "BMW Motorrad" plastered across it. That would not go well here I suspected....so we found it.....fairly easy....naving is always fun. Nothing is straight or very long...and seriously how many streets can you have coming off one intersection.....people....90 degrees...it kinda makes life easier for the tourist but I digress........ so we found Duccati and rock star parking in front. If you have a Duccati you can park in the main yard.....BMW is spelled a lil different. So we trudged in an at the security gate they couldn't find our reservation.....that's because it didn't make it to them....I knew that....but played dumb best I could....seems to come easy......got on the phone with the gal that counts and stated the situation all nicey nice and voila they got us on the tour.
So the gal doing the tour was a sweet heart....seems we ended up in the same tour as an Edelweise (spelling ???) Duccati bike tour group. We was odd folks out. Sooo begged for forgiveness on the BMW thing and she seemed to be okay with it...I also slipped in I was seriously looking at a Duccati Multistrada....that definitely got us some mileage. Either way...the tour was great. first time been to a motorcycle factory. Very interesting how they put them together. No pics .......cuz they said so.....I should have snuck a few........cameras were okay in the museum.
Well It finished and we said goodbye to our new found friends. Almost bought a Duccati Zippo lighter....but just did not feel right...so passed. We troddled off to the bikes....and figured that Florence was our next destination......since it was close......So I made a route at the side of the road.....Off we went.....
It was a pretty cool ride....found a castle on the side of the road...had to do the goat trail to get to it but it was worth it....seems somebody left the front door open....and no one was around...so in we went. Castles always have the best views.....it's good to be the king or prince......but it never ends well LOL. Nothing is for free. No matter where you look here it reeks of history.....
So I picked a pretty good route.....we ended up carving up some serious curves and ended up climbing a pass so of course the temp changed. We ended up stopping a few times to change gear to make sure keeping war. Nice thing was ....... no rain! So carving the curves you do get a rhythm.....was carving cooollll.....and lo and behold if a few times me tires slipped out on me....crap that causes serious pucker.......the tires are lasting but I suspect it's because they are pretty hard. either way adjusted....and rocked on. Around a lil ski village called Abetone..pronunced abeeeeeeeeeeeeeeetoneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. We pulled in for a cappachino.....and ya know....the coffee here is great no matter where you get it it also warmed us up a bit as we were high and it was a bit chilly.
Soooooo leaving I changed me gear a bit......an off we went. Pretty uneventful to Florence.......but wow...we arrived......a city with sooooo much history. For those who don't know I've played Assasins Creed...and its based in italy....you wander around florence a lot the scenery in it is amazing. Got to Florence no prob...lil bit of naving issues .....even with GPS it really is a challenge at time.....god how many divorces from trying to do it with a map.
So we found the hotel...was a great buy......via booking.com......we have been getting very cheap rooms so far and in great locations. its in a really busy area...as it was near the City center. So we agin found rock star parking....wahoo. I hopped off went into make sure no probswith the booking...and about here they asked for me passport...no prob right up to the point wher.....I discovered it was missing. I searched everywhere.....ghandiiiiiiiiii.
That is a serious crap moment.in my life...I've had a few of those but this is up there. Soooo no point in dwelling on what happened...I suspect it is either at the Duccati factor or in Abetone.....So what to do....call the embassy. Welllllllll longs story short....I got ahold of the the visa office in Ottawa... nice folks and they said I needed to get a hold of the Consulate in Rome.
This is where having a local sim card soooooooooo rocks. Ended up talking to the gal in charge and seems no getting around it....I needed to be in Rome the next day for a visit to the embassy......the gal said no worries we will be here for you.
I apologized to Mike a few times if I recall right...but he was cool with it and with going to Rome...it was on his list. I also figured that we would have ended up there either way....just a bit quicker now.
So time to explore..off we went....I figured wee needed to see the cathedral.....and funny thing the assasin's creed game helped me as i recognized key land marks because of the game.....the lo and behold there it was......the cathedral......OMG it is crazy cool..... we took the token pics.....and then proceeded to find a cafe that over looked the cathedral. okkkkkk I' been around but I can say that is the most expensive beer I have ever had. 11 euros that has Singapore beat. The cathedral is amazing.......just as I recall it from the game lol.
So after being amazed by all the crap for sale in the Piazza's we troddled back to the hotel...no one got lost so all was good......Florence is very impressive...it is the only word I can think of to describe...so lucky to see it.
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Lyd&Dwayne Love the blog, making me think that Dwayne and I have to sip some Captain Morgans and rent BMWs!! keep enjoying!