Passo Di Radici

For some random reason, I woke up at 3am. Normally, I cat nap until 7ish if I do this, but this morning, by 4am, my brain was on overdrive. So,I decided to drive instead. 

This turned out to be a good decision. The remaining towns between my overnight stop and Aulla, inland of La Spezia, turned out to be complicated and each seemed to have about 100 traffic lights that all went to red as any vehicle approached them.

The saving grace for this was almost zero traffic to avoid or queue in at this time of a day. Plus in between the towns, the road was like a mountain road. Tight climbs and descents up over rock promoters to link up the ports and beaches that humans need so much.

At 6am, I found a coffee shop open, so it was cappuccino and croissant time. I also realised that between speaking French for a week and learning Turkish over the last six months or so, I had zero memory of even the most basic Italian. So I fumbled my coffee order disgracefully. 

Once I started to head inland, workshops, garages and all kinds of random places started to appear on the side of the road. So I kept stopping in likely places to ask about the jack I needed. No luck finding one, but I did find the KTM dealership, so had a mooch around there for 10 minutes.

I also started to climb into the Appenine Mountains that run the length of Italy from the Alps heading south. 

Not far from my destination on the Passo Di Radici, I came across a lorry blocking one of the hairpin bends. The Polosh driver had snapped an electrical cable that connected the sensor between his 40 foot trailer and his cab, which locked up the trailer brakes. Between us we botched a repair, then as he drove forward to park, I had to manually release the pressure from the air system so he could unblock the road. He wasn't a happy bunny, but then neither were the half dozen car owners he'd held up. I left him wondered how he was going to get the rest of the way down but he said he'd be fine.

Once at my friends place, which is down a great little track descending into a Beech forest, it was time for a catch up, lunch and a tour round the place.

It's a fab project place, needing a fair bit of rebuild work, but the main structure is solid stone. That have plans for off grid living and are happily settling into the mountain life in Italy. I'll be here for a couple of days helping out and catching up, so next post will be when I set off again.