Day 115 - Amalfi, Vulcano and Pizza

Next morning we haeded along the breathtaking Amalfi coast. A road swirls along the steep cliffs with small bays and villages in between. We had luck with the weather and it was a great ride.. Thats how italy was supposed to be. Beautiful winding roads along the mediteranian coastline...

But then the weather flipped and dark clouds came in.. 30 km into the way the road along the Amalfi coast was blocked and we had to make a detour over the mountains into Naples.

Thats what happened a few times now - sights and roads where under construction, i guess thats a normal thing when you travel after all the tourist hordes have left and all the beautiful stuff has to be put back in shape for the next season with new tourist hordes.

So we where just going up some serpentines when it started to rain. We went slow as the road was slippery but then "swoooop!" Chris and his second hand tires slipped in a hairpin curve. Unike his fall in China a car stopped immediately and checked if he is fine.. Thank god he was. The astronaut uniform paid off once again.

But as in china he fell on his right side and ripped of his spare fuel bottle. No problem... We wont need it anymore anyway. Chris gave his thumps up and we continued. The rain soon stopped and we also did - at the most famous sight close to Naples - Pompeii.

Mount Vesuv and Pompeii - not the best friends

We stumbled a little bit around the ruins. Its well preserved and you could get a pretty good picture on how the life must have been back then...

You also get a pretty good picture on how people died in the ashrain as there are real corpses frozen to stone while they tried to fight of the disaster with their bare hands. A macabre highlight for zombie action movie fans like us..

Pompeii is a very impressive sight but we got tired soon walking along the huge cobblestones with our motorbike gear and so we went back on the road - after a quick espresso break.

Great thing about italy is the coffee culture. Even food is sold in a small shed on the roadside you can be sure there is a worldclass espresso machine in there which can squeeze out a first class 1euro coffeeshot in a few seconds. Quality is key.

But not just the coffee... All the food is just top notch. In the evening we went to a small pizzaplace in Naples. Naples is said to be the birthplace of pizza as it was here that the very first Magerita pizza was prepared for the visit of queen -you guessed it- Queen Magerita.

We had to wait an hour in front of the restaurant to get seated... And it was not a fancy place - just a normal cozy busy place with football running on tv and draftbeer running into beerglasses.

But the pizza was extraordinary. Maybe it was because we where already starving or it was the first pizza on the trip... Doesnt matter - it was great.

Naples itself is a interesting city. It was a shame that we could just stay another night but its definitely worth coming back again and stroll trough the supertight alleys in this very old city.

But is also has the reputation that you cannot park your vehicle on the road unless you have a bike so shitty not even thieves wouldnt be interested in.

We where not sure in which category our precious chineses bikes fit but we could not risk to loose them so close to the finish line, so we had to pay the 15 euro per bike and night in a secure parking garage...

And that was one reason why we justed stayed one night. Italy is expensive and our next stop would be Rome - where we plan to spend a few days.

And here are a few pictures of Pompeii