Italy was calling as we rolled away from the hotel in Munich before dawn in the Beach’s van on the way to the airport. Deby and I were headed south for a very different kind of ride. This time, it would be just the two of us on rented bikes, following a self-guided route through southern Italy—no chase van, no daily briefings, just GPS tracks, pre-booked hotels, and the freedom to wander. With lodging taken care of, we could focus on what mattered most: the road, the scenery, and the quiet pleasure of discovering Italy at our own pace.

Because of a quirk in the ferry schedules, we found ourselves with an unexpected free week in Italy before the tour even began. A real dilemma—where to spend a week anywhere in Italy? Having already explored the north on previous trips, we aimed south and set our sights on the Amalfi Coast. On the advice of a few friends, we booked a week in Positano, staying above a well-known restaurant that happened to have a couple of small rooms for rent.

We spent an amazing seven days at Fattoria La Tagliata, perched high on a steep cliff just outside of the city of Positano, overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. The view from our small patio alone was worth the trip.

It didn’t take long to realize this was not a walking neighborhood—there was more than a 1,000-foot elevation change between the hotel and the town below. So, in keeping with the spirit of a motorcycle trip, we rented a scooter. It turned out to be the perfect solution.

The roads are narrow and steep leading to the few small villages on the cliff face. I walked to the nearby village of Nocelle to look for a small store to buy some supplies. The road ended in a small parking lot where a foot trail led to the village. Supplies are still delivered the old-fashioned way—loaded onto donkeys that patiently climb the same steep paths the villagers have used for generations.

The week went quickly, we met our good friends Don and Terry who took us by bus to Sorrento to explore the city and eat at one of their favorite restaurants.

Riding a bus through Italy’s narrow, congested streets is an experience in itself. It’s no surprise that Italians communicate with their hands—it’s an essential part of the language. What did surprise us was learning that this instinct doesn’t disappear when they’re on a cell phone. Since one hand is occupied, they simply adapt. Our bus driver spent most of the ride on his phone, steering the bus through impossibly tight passages while gesturing emphatically with his free hand. It was mildly terrifying to watch, but he handled it like a pro. Clearly, we didn’t die.

Here is a nice pic of Don and Terry.

Deby can never pass up anything in her favorite color. This shirt was worth taking up scarce space in our motorcycle luggage.

We had a blast exploring the colorful markets in narrow streets.

Plenty of charm (and shopping) in this historic city.

On another day we decided to ride the little scooter two-up 55 km to visit the runes of Pompeii just over the mountains. That short ride took an harrowing hour and a half on the underpowered excuse for a motorcycle but it was full of adventure.

We saw this guy on his way back from a run to Costco.

The ruins of Pompeii are huge and worth visiting. For those who didn’t pay much attention in history class (me) Pompeii was a prosperous Roman city known for trade and as a wealthy retreat until the catastrophic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, which buried it in ash and froze it in time. Amazingly, it was “rediscovered in the late 16th century and has been under excavation since. Of course, the mountain is still there, and active. It is considered one of the most dangerous in the world with it’s last eruption in 1944. Good thing we were wearing helmets.

The city is HUGE and would probably require much more than a day to see it all.

Hey Deby – go climb on one of the columns for a better picture!

Of course we had to go see the bodies.

When Mount Vesuvius erupted, victims were quickly buried under several meters of superheated volcanic ash and pumice. This material packed tightly around the victims, cooling and hardening into a solid “cocoon” that perfectly preserved the outline of their bodies. Over the centuries, the bodies naturally decomposed and left hollow voids that were later filled with plaster to create casts showing where the bodies fell during the eruption. Eerie. 

There is even a big amphitheater that has been excavated and is in use today for events.

On the way home we stopped at a wine shop for supplies. Behind Deby are the locals hanging out on the street corner.

Back at the hotel enjoying said supplies…

I put together a short video with clips Deby made from the back of the scooter.

We connected with Don one more time before we left. He said we had to visit a local place that had the best hamburgers. Hamburgers in Italy? I was skeptical. It was a little bit of a walk from Don’s house to the small restaurant so I volunteered to shuttle Deby and then Don about a mile up a steep hill (Everything is up a steep hill). It was easy with Deby but I wish I had a picture of Don and I both riding the scooter trying to make it up the cobblestone incline. Don didn’t think it was a good idea, and it probably wasn’t, but we went anyway laughing and yelling the whole way. Ha.

So… where did Don and Donn Go for hamburgers??? A place called Dongo’s of course.

Don told us he had been going there for about 20 years and was like an uncle to the young woman who served us having known her and her family since she was a baby. I went inside to pay the bill and she absolutely refused to accept a tip and firmly told me that families don’t pay tips. I wisely didn’t argue and learned a bit about Italian culture. Oh, and I have to say, the burger was indeed pretty good!

So we spent the week exploring, resting, reading, playing cards on the patio, and eating way to much at the gourmet restaurant where we got to be friends with most of the staff. I would highly recommend La Tagliata Fattoria if you are ever in the area.

Picking up big bikes in Rome

I always wanted to ride on a high speed train and this was our chance. There was a high speed train from Naples to Rome that would take just over an hour. We booked one way tickets on Trenitalia, which has Italy’s fastest trains that typically reach a speed of 186 mph. We booked a car to drive us once again over the mountain ridge separating the cities and found ourselves in the bustling Naples train station where we almost missed the train due to some confusion on how the routes were displayed. We made it at the last minute and soon we were being whisked along at full speed. I think it might have been a land speed record for me personally. We relaxed in comfy seats reading books and looking at the countryside literally whizzing by. It made me wonder if something like that would ever come to the US. Maybe.

High speed trains at the Naples train station

Rome was big city madness. The taxi ride to our hotel was crazy with weaving, honking and lots of hand gestures but our driver didn’t talk on his phone (much) and generally kept at least one hand on the wheel.

Another cab ride the next day delivered us to the garage to pick up our rental motorcycles for the next two weeks. My ride would be a fairly new BMW F900, but despite being only a year or two old, it already had plenty of kilometers on the clock and showed it. This was clearly not the polished Beach’s tour experience we’d grown used to on the last ride.

We had hoped to get Deby onto a BMW F750 like the one she rides at home, but the best the rental shop could offer was a BMW G310 single-cylinder—tall, underpowered, and not exactly confidence inspiring. A 310? The engine didn’t seem much bigger than the scooter we’d just turned in.

Nonetheless, we spent time strapping on our luggage and situating the bikes the best we could. My bike came with panniers but they were so smashed and falling apart that I decided to leave them behind. They were clearly not waterproof with huge cracks on the sides. I brought a North Face duffel bag and between that and an oversized trunk made everything fit.

Deby’s G310 also came equipped with paniers but they were so small as to be useless so we left those behind as well. Without a chase truck we had to edit our belongings on the bikes and left anything not strictly essential with our luggage.

BMW f900GS for Donn

BMW G310 for Deby

Deby’s bike was simply too tall, but she made it work without complaint. There was, however, one amusing complication—at least to me. She could only get one foot on the ground at a time, which meant sliding off the seat to one side and dropping a leg. That usually works fine, but motorcycles have their own logic. To raise the kickstand with your left foot, you need your right foot solidly on the ground. When Deby slid off to the right, her left leg couldn’t even reach the stand, making it impossible to get the kickstand up on her own.

We eventually developed a few workarounds. Parking next to a curb helped, letting her plant a foot higher while reaching the stand. Another method involved me casually walking over and making it look like I was giving her a hug—while discreetly flicking up the kickstand with my foot. We spent two weeks doing some version of this. Not ideal, but we made it work.

It was early afternoon when we finished all the paperwork, provisioned the bikes and were ready to ride into the crazy Rome traffic. We were using GPS units provided by the rental company with their suggested routes loaded and ready to go. Our plan for the first night was unusual—an overnight ferry to the island of Sardinia.

Sardinia

The GPS sent us on a slightly roundabout route to the ferry terminal in Civitavecchia, where we’d board for the eight-hour crossing to Olbia. We arrived with plenty of time, which turned out to be necessary as we wandered the busy port trying to figure out where to collect boarding passes and where, exactly, motorcycles were supposed to line up.

We’re no strangers to ferries—we ride them regularly in the Pacific Northwest—but these Mediterranean ferries are on a completely different scale. The jumbo ships on this route can carry more than 2,000 passengers and hundreds of vehicles. Ours felt more like a floating hotel, complete with multiple restaurants, bars, and even a swimming pool on the top deck, though it was closed for the season.

Here is the view loading onto the ferry, it looked more like riding into a warehouse than a oceangoing vessel.

What I hadn’t realized was that the tour company had booked us a luxury suite for the crossing. The bed was on the small side, but neither of us was interested in the upper bunk, so we made it work.

That evening we had reservations at one of the ship’s white-tablecloth restaurants, where we enjoyed a meal that was far better than expected for ferry food. Afterward, we turned in early and were gently rocked to sleep—until about 4:30 a.m. when horns started blaring and a loud announcement filled the cabin, reminding us that we were approaching port and needed to prepare for disembarkation. Arrrg… so early.

I knew unloading would take a while and tried unsuccessfully to go back to sleep, but the announcements kept coming. By 5:00 a.m., crew members were knocking on doors. Still in the dark, we waited in the hallway for permission to head down to the vehicle decks where the motorcycles were tied down. As the sun finally crept over the horizon, we rode off the ferry with about a dozen other bikes, rolling into the cool Sardinian morning.

The Island of Sardinia. The pins are locations of our hotel stops. (Click map for interactive map of the whole route)

The Mediterranean island of Sardinia is known for its rugged mountains, hundreds of miles of pristine coastline, and as one of the world’s so-called “Blue Zones,” where residents often live past 100. Our GPS units guided us along the island’s northern coast, delivering one spectacular Mediterranean view after another.

We made a detour to visit Torre di Longonsardo, a 16th-century Spanish granite tower commissioned by King Philip II to defend Sardinia’s northern coast against pirate raids. In the cool morning breeze, we hiked around the tower and explored the surrounding rocky shoreline.

From there, we poked along the coast, stopping often to admire the views and the endlessly scenic road. Traffic was almost nonexistent, the pavement was smooth and fun on the motorcycles. We made our way counterclockwise around the island at an easy, unhurried pace.

Our lodging for the night was Hotel Corte Rosada in Porto Conte. A nice hotel right on the waterfront.

We were settling into a riding groove. The weather was cool but dry, and the lightly traveled roads of the sparsely populated island made for relaxed, enjoyable riding. Before long, the GPS guided us onto one of Sardinia’s most famous motorcycle routes—the Alghero–Bosa Panoramic Road.

The road begins at sea level, tracing the coastline before climbing steadily into the volcanic mountains, eventually topping out at more than 2,000 feet. As we gained elevation, staying warm became a challenge, but the twisting pavement and endless curves more than made up for the chill.

One of the highlights of the day was a stop in the mountain town of Orgosolo which features over 150 murals decorating buildings and alleys. In 1969 an anarchist group started putting up the murals as a political protest and the tradition has continued to today. Now, Orgosolo has reinvented itself as a tourist city that attracts thousands of visitors annually. We made our way down the narrow cobblestone streets and found a place to park so we could walk around and check out the local murals.

I did like the motorcycle themed mural.

Here is one about 9/11 in the U.S.

The murals were everywhere. We wandered down small alleyways to find even more.

I asked Deby to try to get the pose right. It didn’t quite work.

Back on the road we continued through the mountains on some very narrow and steep roads.

Glimpses of the Mediterranean in the distance.

The small road led us to our destination for the night in the small village of Cala Gonone along the coast.

The tour company that booked the hotels did a good job on this one. Hotel Nuraghe Arvu was a 5 star hotel with views of the sea. We had a bit of a hard time finding it and had an unplanned tour of the coastal city and it’s steep, narrow cobblestone roadways.

Once we arrived we settled into our second floor room in time to admire the sunset from our patio.

We had one last day on Sardinia and it was a fun one. We started right away climbing back into the mountains on another impossibly steep and twisty road.

I love seeing this kind of track on my GPS.

The clouds looked threatening but we managed to stay dry and enjoyed the scenery.

Thumbs up for Deby.

A quick weather check did not look too promising.

Sure enough, by the time we got to the small town of San Vito the clouds let loose and we were in a real downpour.

We found a little covered turnoff and decided to wait out the storm which fortunately didn’t hang around too long.

Our time on Sardinia had come to an end, and our lodging for the night was another overnight ferry—this time bound for the more famous (infamous?) island of Sicily. By now we were getting the hang of the Italian ferry system, and loading onto yet another large ship was noticeably easier.

Our room, however, was a step down from the previous crossing. It wasn’t exactly luxurious, but we squeezed in and made it work. The beds were even smaller than before, and after briefly trying to share one, we quickly agreed that sleeping apart was the better option.

That ferry ride marked the end of our time on Sardinia. Up next was Sicily—louder, busier, and a completely different riding experience. I’ll dive into that in the next post, along with the final leg of the trip through southern Italy and our return to Rome.

Thanks once again for following.

Donn and Deby