Day 1: Milan to Parma

Among the constants involved in planning this trip, one of the most significant was the notion of avoiding the creation an overly rigid itinerary. Quite frankly, there are times when I want to “go wildcard” and pull a Crazy Ivan. When that happens an inflexible itinerary just doesn't work.

The idea of creating a flexible schedule was especially true for the first day of the trip. I had decided to use the weather as an indicator to decide which cardinal direction to use to leave Milan and that Tuesday it was raining, which meant that I would go south. After interpolating Omero's suggestions with Google Maps, this is the route that I came up with:

The “Cliff's Notes” about this route is that it was absolutely beautiful in so many ways. Of note were the outstanding views and the winding roads, which could only have been made for motorcycling. I will admit, though, that a route with a distance of 280 KM and six hours of riding was aggressive. By the time that I reached Parma, the sun had nearly set and I was exhausted.

In the last post, I wrote that there were a couple of glitches with the motorcycle, which are relevant on this first day of the trip. Upon setting out in the morning, I noticed that the display cluster included a large, luminous red triangle:

[caption id="attachment_741" align="alignnone" width="225" caption="Idiot Light"][/caption]

At the same time, the bike smelled like it was burning oil. So, since the light was on and oil seemed to be burning, I sent Francesco the picture above and gave him a call. He said: "That's definitely not an oil problem. That's a tire pressure problem." Let me be clear in saying that Francesco speaks perfect English and it is impossible to misunderstand him. He suggested that I put some air in the tire at the next gas station, then check the pressure the next day to see if it remained constant or went down again. Sure, no problem. I found a gas station just outside of Pavia, aired up the tire and the red light went away.

No red lights means no worries, so it was time to properly shake the bike down on the roads just east of Tortona.

Here are some pictures, panorama style.

[caption id="attachment_749" align="alignnone" width="640" caption="Nice curves"][/caption]

These pictures represent a small portion of the roads that I travelled and the views afforded on the journey. In the next post, you'll see how I continue to struggle with modern GPS technology, and we'll learn that Parma is more than just a restaurant on Steiner street in San Francisco.