Wednesday 9/8/2006
Before the clock rang I opened my eyes. Taking a quick look from the window I saw the sky that was gloom… “No way,” I said. Even before I finished my thought, I heard a thunder roll!!! “It’ s only my impression… The sun hasn’t come up yet,” I thought and I got out of bed.
I took the saddles and the rest luggages and I put them on the motorcycle. A few minutes later Despina woke up, but I didn’t tell her about the thunders. I prepared the bike and I put on waterproof coverings to the saddles. It was right that moment, when it begun to rain.
We took our breakfast and round 8.30 we hitted the road with the company of downpoor. The water covered the road which was full of curves and for 40km we drove under those circumstances from Positano until we reached the motorway. At some point it seemed to me like I was driving in a river. Fortunately, the TDM didn’t let me down and it didn’t slip anywhere.
Until we reached Napoli there was a lot of traffic that caused us much delay. We lost about an hour. In the motorway we continued to drive under rain. Despite all that the condition of the road allowed me to drive with 120-160km/per hour.
Finally, at some point the weather got better. The time was 10.30am. To the first gas station I filled up my reservoir and I looked up the time realizing that I would lose the boat.
“Move on, my poor TDM, otherwise we are lost.” For long time the niddle was at 180-200km/per hour and the saddles were trembling, but the only thing that I was afraid was the possibility that maybe the wind would take off Despina’s head. Many times I felt that she was holding me tight and also bending towards the opposite direction in the curves out of fear. I was fearless driving steadily fast. Under any circumstances we shouldn’t loose the ship.
Round 11.45 we reached the port. I searched desperately to find Sardinia Ferries in order to take the tickets. Fortunately, we managed to get into the ship the last moment. From the ticket house of the company they gave signal to delay the departure, while they had unstrung the cables.
When I parked the motorcycle inside the ship I realized that the waterproof saddles had shred apart due to the speed. “I’m curious what we are going to do if it rains again…” I thought.
By the way I should mention that the tolls for the part of the motorway A3/A1/A12 Positano-Civitavecchia that we used costed 15€, while the tickets for the ship costed 110€ (two persons and the motorcycle).
We finally reached the island of Sardinia. We took off at the port Golfo Aranci. We searched for hotel Martini in Oldia that it was 14km away from the port. The hotel was very luxurious (price of the twin-bedded room was 150€), very good and in the city. Despina was disappointed when she saw the place. Personally, I remained optimistic. “It can’t be…” I thought.
Finally, after settling in the hotel, we wondered for a while in the city. Unfortunately, I agreed with Despina’s point of view. That city didn’t have anything in particular, beside the two main streets in it’s port that late at night they were transgormed into pedestrianized street. There the peddlers were selling their things, while the people were going out. Maybe we were influenced by our other destinations that in front of them that city looked poor, undeveloped and rather indifferent.