We have made it to Italy, end of week two and have stopped for a couple of days in Pisa. Our hotel is lovely and from our HUGE roof-top balcony you can see the leaning tower. It is so close you feel you can almost touch it.

The ride from Nimes was a lot less fraught than the trip down from Calais as the wind had died right down and the sun has made an appearance.
We are still getting inquisitive looks and some people stop and ask where we are going and are surprised when we tell them.

We had our first run-in with the law. We were riding through Monaco roughly along the Formula One race route (we rode along the starting grid and over the start/finish line) and while too busy looking which direction to go, we illegally rode around that casino on our motorbikes. Hardened criminals are we. It is probably because motorbikes are noisy and they don't wish to disturb the Gucci set, although while the policewoman was perusing our licences, registration and insurances, a convoy of rather loud Ferraris drove by, I suppose you can make as much noise around the casino as you like as long as the source of the noise costs more than a quarter of a million euros.

The roads in Italy are terrible, surpassed only by the adherance of the drivers to the rules governing them. It is very much a 'close your eyes and hope' situation at times when navigating through traffic. At least it is practice for India.

On the positive side, the scenery is truly some of the most awe inspiring we have yet seen. The snow capped Italian Alps on the way down to Pisa, the point where the French Alps meet the Mediterranian Sea, the lovely coastline along the Riviera just to name a few.

We are already talking about slightly altering our course through Europe as the possibility of travelling to Dubrovnic in Croatia direct from Bari in Italy by ferry. This may be the course we take if the weather is really cold in Austria and Slovenia. We have plenty of time to figure that out though.