Michele checking Pietros early morning catch

Lisa's visit to the family cemetary

Lisa visited the graves of 3 generations past her grandfather, who was the one that emigrated to Australia in the thirties. It was obvious from the cemetary that life was very hard on the islands back then. The graveyard was full of children. Many people left for the lands of oportunity, being Australia, America and Argentina. Many of the graves are Tesoriero's but many are not relations. Because many poeple had the same first and surnames they also carried the christian name of their father to further help identify them.

Moto ape island tour

An island tour in the moto ape with Eilo

Moto ape madness - buckle up !!

The Moto Ape was developed in Italy to cope with the narrow roads. it is a 3 wheeled vehicle usually powered by a 2 stroke engine driving the back wheels. The most common variety hasd a tra on the back like our utes. In the cabin you drive it like a motor bike. They are expensive, a new one costing over 7000 euro. Of course I want one, whatch the video and you will too.

Images from Panarea

Elio the tour guide

No fishing during siesta

Need a taxi, he's you man

Lisas afternoon view reading book

Michael riding in moto ape

Lisa and more cousins

The spelling is probably not correct but this is from left to right Chiara, Lisa, Salvatore, Elio and lianna. This is at Elio's house over a beauiful lunch.

Lisa & Elio - 2nd cousins

It's a small world

The old guy in the fishing boat is wearing a maroubra t shirt. ??

A new twist to our journey

So now our journey has taken another turn. As I may have mentioned in
my last update, we hired a car and drove the last dodgy part of the
Italian west coast. We caught the ferry across to Messina and spent a
night there. It is a lovely city. The architecture and the warm
colours are very inviting.
Yesterday we drove accross to milazzo where we stored the car and
headed over to Panarea on the hydrofoil. Lisa had an argument with
them as they refused to take our bikes. She decided that swearing at
them ( very naughty words) and then breaking down crying might work.
It did, and our bikes came with us.
We went to the island via Stromboli. It has an active volcano that
coughs and splutters constantly. What a spin out.
We were met at Panarea by loads of Lisa's family. They all look a bit
like her. They then had an arguement about where we would stay. Elio
won and he took us away in has Moto Ape to a little restored fishing
hut that they rent in the summer. It is wonderful. We had dinner with
him and his sister ilianna. What a day. Ciao

Mikecoatesy from iPhone

Our home away from home on Panarea

View from our cottage on Panarea

1km Tunnel - Pronto pronto

This Video is of a 1km tunnel where we were overtaken by a couple of trucks in the middle. It is a little unnerving to say the least.

Day 5 - Throwing in the towel

This was to be our last day riding down the west coast of Italy. We did 55kms this morning and the riding was really shitty for the 2nd day in a row. The roads are busy and boring and the rubbish and squalor is depressing. As tomorrow is the weekend the roads will only get busier and maybe dangerous. We have decided to pull the pin and go down to the Aeolean Islands and meet lisa's family. We are going to take our bikes across and ride around the different islands.We pulled up at a regional airport and hired a car for a week. We are going to return it to the airport that we fly out of in sicily. This will allow us to get down to sicily without having to do battle with the shitty public transport system and it will give us somewhere to store our camping and extra gear while we are on the islands. We can leave the car at the ferry terminal while we are gone. Stay tuned for the next uupdate from the island of Punarea at the Hotel Tesoriero. ciao

Day 4 -A bad day on the bike

Not a good day, with a major bout of goat fornication late in the day. We rode over 105kms and we didnt get started until late morning. We got hopelessly lost and then when we finally found our camp ground it had been closed for 6 years even though it had a huge add in the camping book we used. We did over 6 hours of riding and pushing. Lisa was such a trouper and didnt complain once. We had to ride on to another small town and finally found a hotel to stay in as there were no camp grounds for another 20kms. It was one of those days that in time you will never forget but maybe you can laugh about.

Lisa is already an awesome cycle tourist. I am so proud of her. she is a legend. Caio

Maratea Religious Festival

Traffic 101

A visit to the supermarket

Day 3 highlites

Sorry this is a bit long but it was truly one of the best days cycle touring i have ever done and it deserved to be recorded. its worth a look i think

ciao michele

Day 2 Highlites

Lisa at the Poste Italiano

Caffe Espresso Machina Mobilia

Happy Birthday Nanny T

Maratea Jesus on the hill

This statue is bloody big and sits near a monastery on top of a hill that is over 900 metres above the bay.

Day 3 - climb climb climb, 5hours ride time & 75kms

We had a bit of a late start today (8am) because we were still a little punch drunk from the slug fest yesterday. The early part of the day was relatively easy and very pretty. We stopped for a magnificent series of coffees before attacking the main climb of the day. The map shows it as around 550m vert. It was about 2.5 hours of switchbacks that ended above the tree line surrounded by high mountains. That was folowed by a thrilling decent where I nearly came to grief while filming and running out of brakes at the same time. When we hit the coast again we had a loveley lunch in a park and headed of the what we thought might be a lazy afternoon along the coast. How wrong we were. climb after climb was the order of the afternoon. The scenery was spectacular as you will see when I get the video up. We were so stuffed that we pulled the pin about 15km early and decided to stay in a hotel for the night and get a bit cleaned up. The town is called Maratea and its extremely old. It includes a copy of the statue that sits above Reo Dejanero in South America. Tomorrow there is a festival in the town which we are hanging around for. I will try to get the video highlites up tomorow.

Today was one of the nicest days riding I have ever had.

Cyclista communicale

This was a very animated conversation based mainly on hand gestures.
We managed to both agree on how big the hills are and how much we both
love the biciclette.

Olive grove

This is the olive grove we camped in last night. Just heading off on
day 3. Lots of tunnels today. Does that mean less hills?

Cooking dinner

We always eat well on tour and this trip is no exception. In Italy you
have 3 choices. Pasta, pasta or pasta

Our camp site day 2.

Unfortunately we are a little early for the tourist season so the
campgrounds really suck as the pre summer spuce up hasn't happened yet.