An Unusual Honeymoon: by Motorcycle to the North Cape

first day

FIRST DAY: GALLICANO (LU) - DACHAU (MUNICH) FRI 26/07 Nothing special, a quiet trip and above all without rain. We think we haven't forgotten anything at home... who knows if that will actually be the case. Having arrived in MUNICH after 4 p.m., we wanted to go visit the Dachau concentration camp, and we asked a passerby how to get there: his directions were accurate and we arrived in front of the entrance gate, but right at the exact closing time (5 p.m.): it doesn't matter, we'll go tomorrow before leaving for northern Germany. We looked for a hotel nearby (Hotel Bavaria), left our bags in the room, paid our 75 € cash and then had dinner at the Italian pizzeria right next door at 6 p.m. (not even my grandfather!). By 7 p.m. we were already in the room and after a bit of TV we fell asleep (I after nine, Mario the sleepyhead even earlier).

We only woke up to go get something to drink from the vending machine and then maybe around five to turn over to the other side and say: two more hours of sleep.

Second day

SECOND DAY: MUNICH - HAMBURG SAT 27/07 We got up around seven and had breakfast in the company of the young athletes of the Australian national team of some sport we're not quite sure which (I think rowing), then we went (finally) to visit the Konzentrierungslager of Dachau. We only paid for parking, and indeed it would have been a huge contradiction to charge admission to a place of memory. We saw the reconstruction of a barracks-dormitory and then the large square where twice a day the prisoners were called for roll call, and even though it was now totally empty, you could imagine a crowd of poor wretches completely annihilated as people who, with eyes full of terror and bodies reduced to skin and bone, had to stand motionless at attention in any weather for more than half an hour.

We then moved on to the crematorium and the gas chamber, and I must say that besides the lump in your throat, you also felt a certain oppressive sense of suffocation. The last part of the visit we reserved for the museum, where you could read documents about the birth of the Third Reich, the establishment of the various prison camps and what life was like at Dachau. After leaving the camp, we put on our rain suits because the drizzle that had accompanied us since we woke up (and for which Mario had teased me a lot, since I dared to open my umbrella, thus not showing myself worthy of being a true centaura) had increased quite a bit. Getting out of Munich was a bit of a struggle, and in our pointless wandering we took an unforgettable sightseeing tour around the airport that made us lose over half an hour.

Anyway, then we found the right way and also the good weather, since the further north we went, the more the temperature rose (almost always around 30 degrees). We clearly took off the rain suits almost immediately, and the only mishap of the trip was the intercom breaking, which clearly had to happen during the longest and most boring leg, all on the highway, the one therefore during which the only pastime could be talking a bit. Not many observations to make about today's leg: 1. the further north you go, the sparser the service areas become (let's remember we're in the former GDR!), so much so that twice we exited the highway afraid of running out of gas; 2. what you see from the highway is nothing exciting, and the only novelty for us travelers from the hot and sunny south of Europe are the wind farms, which clearly get denser as you approach the windy North Sea; 3.

everyone said that in Germany motorcyclists greeted each other warmly; well, that must have happened only in three or four cases, while Mario waved his arms every time and clearly, at the lack of response to his greeting, he invariably got pissed off; 4. we didn't encounter a single Italian license plate. We had lunch at a service area (Bratwurst and Kartoffelsalad) and had dinner and stayed overnight at a motel near HAMBURG.

Third - fourth day

THIRD DAY: HAMBURG – COPENHAGEN SUN 28/07 FOURTH DAY: COPENHAGEN MON 29/07

Around 8:30 (or maybe earlier) we left the motel to reach PUTTGARDEN and from there take the ferry to Denmark. A very peaceful trip under a scorching sun (who said it's cold in the north?) and almost without noticing it we found ourselves aboard the ferry to RØDBY (we had paid for the ticket at the Motel and at Puttgarden there was a ferry about to depart right away). Fifty minutes of sun and fine wind and by 11 we were in Denmark full of enthusiasm and impatience to reach Copenhagen.

This enthusiasm and impatience also made us forget to fill up with petrol, no small oversight given that the road from Rødby to Copenhagen is indeed full of rest areas with toilets and refreshment points but has only two petrol stations (at the beginning and at the end) and since we completely ignored the first one we had to exit the main road halfway to avoid any risk and make our first fill-up in Danish kroner (a detour that immediately showed us how quiet and well-kept Danish villages are). Once we arrived in COPENHAGEN we refreshed ourselves at a McDonald's and there I tried to call the only Danish friend I was still in touch with but on the other end I only heard his voice on the answering machine mumbling something unintelligible. No big deal, we rushed to the tourist office and there we booked a hotel near the station for 650 DKK per night (€88.19).

When I asked the lady at the reception where we could park the motorbike, the answer I got was that we could easily bring it into the inner courtyard passing through the lobby…. Unbelievable! I helped Mario push it inside because starting it seemed a bit too much, and so it stayed there safe for two days.

While the motorbike rested, Mario and I certainly didn't do the same because in two days we covered heaven knows how many kilometres through the city streets and all strictly on foot because we had also tried to borrow a bike since in Copenhagen you can even borrow a bike simply by inserting 20 DKK into the chain it's tied with (which you then get back when you return it, it works like supermarket trolleys), but then the attempt failed miserably since we had indeed found two free bikes, but one had a saddle that according to Mario was a lethal weapon and the other had a chain that did whatever it wanted. Well, we certainly didn't complain since it was all completely free. Here are our thoughts on the Danish capital: • 1. We found Copenhagen beautiful, full of life and very very sunny and positive.

The only downside is that life here is really expensive (but we already knew that) and so here are some examples: small bottle of water at the supermarket 14 DKK (€2.04), pizza + salad + coffee + water 184 DKK (€25.03), 7 apricots + 4 peaches 40 DKK (€5.44), medium beer 40 cl 50 DKK (€6.80). • 2. In Copenhagen we found the highest concentration of pregnant women we'd ever seen, generally quite young or alternatively already mums with the baby in the stroller (they basically transport them like that until they're 4 or 5 years old and so you see them all scrunched up, by then they no longer fit in the means of transport). Another way to transport children is the so-called Christiania bike which has three wheels and a big basket in front also used for shopping. • 3.

I've already mentioned the loaner bikes but another novelty we found here are the rickshaw Taxis, basically pedal taxis for transporting at most two people, also used for tourist rides (25 DKK at the start plus 7 per minute – practically 10 minutes cost almost €13!). • 4. Danes undoubtedly trust each other because bikes are left on the street simply by putting the wheel lock on and without padlocks and chains like back home (lucky them to have neighbours so little inclined to theft!). • 5. Mario believes Danish women are on the whole quite pretty but have the flaw of a low arse (his words!). • 6. The integration between different races is very advanced here and we often happened to see the tall blonde woman with the black man, the Asian woman with the Viking and therefore beautiful dark-skinned children, rasta and blondish. • 7.

The Little Mermaid is indeed small but not microscopic as I expected (she's a life-sized woman!): perhaps because everyone had told me they had expected more before seeing her I was so prepared for little that she seemed enormous to me and also quite evocative. The only thing is that after seeing her from behind from the boat we wanted to see her from the front too and we had to walk a lot since she's in the north-east part of the city. • 8. Having seen the Strøget (the very long pedestrian and shopping street of the centre) and Nyhavn (the most vibrant and picturesque neighbourhood of the city) we also wanted to see something alternative and so we went to visit Christiania, practically a city within the city where the rebels and social outcasts live.

You can't take photos inside the neighbourhood but no one bothers you, busy as they are with their own business, which is simply lazing about completely and doing nothing except selling grass (they grow it themselves) or pieces of hash… it's not our world but it was undoubtedly interesting to see since it's also a reality of Copenhagen and clear proof of its extreme tolerance. • 9. Last thought on the hotel that hosted us (Angarshotel, near the station on a street with an unpronounceable name): we had kindness in abundance but the room was truly a dump, two metres by three with a Smurf-sized bathroom where the sink was inside the shower curtain (and by the way, to get the shower to work we had to ask the lady at the reception since we had no idea we had to turn on the sink taps and then pull a certain lever hard to get the longed-for water and wash ourselves a bit).

Fifth - sixth day

FIFTH DAY: COPENHAGEN – STOCKHOLM TUE 30/07 SIXTH DAY: STOCKHOLM WED 31/07 We woke up in Copenhagen to the sound of a heavy downpour…. "here we go, the great northern rains are coming" we said to each other instead of good morning, but in reality it was just one of the scattered thunderstorms that even Mario's weather forecast received via mobile had predicted, better that way! At exactly a quarter to nine we left the hotel and then Øresundbroen (a 16 km bridge-tunnel connecting Copenhagen to Malmö and therefore Denmark to Sweden – 120 DKK = €16.32) and Sweden. Hot there too but also strong wind, so much so that the right side of my head hurt like crazy. In Sweden we started filling up petrol by paying at the automatic pumps because there was often no opportunity to pay at the till.

During this transfer leg Mario and I only allowed ourselves a salad and an ice cream and sped as fast as possible towards STOCKHOLM, where we arrived around 4:30 pm. Once in the city we didn't linger contemplating the many things to see but rushed to the Hotellcentralen to look for an available hotel room. We found a windowless bunker even smaller than the one in Copenhagen, practically similar to cruise ship cabins, with the second bed that even had to be folded down from the wall. The price though was good, 500 SEK per night (€54.28) and also the location right in the centre next to the World Trade Centre. What can I say about Stockholm? Very very beautiful but also very very chaotic.

It's smaller than Copenhagen (700,000 inhabitants versus more than a million) but feels much more like a metropolis since it spreads over 18 different islands and is full of people in a hurry moving on four wheels (in Copenhagen the most used means of transport was the bicycle!). And let's draw a veil over its roads because they're a whole tangle of one-way streets, roundabouts, tunnels and overpasses so that reaching a place that as the crow flies is only a few metres away means covering heaven knows how many kilometres, especially if (like us) you don't know the roads and make a few misjudgements. I must say Mario was nevertheless very good at finding his way and then with the motorbike everything is simpler.

For the motorbike we had bought a parking space in the hotel garage (100 SEK per day = €10.85) more for safety than anything else since on the street parking for motorbikes is in any case allowed in the designated spaces. We practically covered all of Stockholm with the motorbike, from which I also did several shots with the video camera, while on foot we covered Normholm (the commercial and administrative centre of the city) and Gamla Stan (the old medieval citadel with the royal castle, the cathedral and a whole succession of very picturesque little alleys). Thoughts: • 1. Beautiful buildings that are however often next to modern buildings that are obscene from an architectural point of view (our Routard guide spoke of Stockholm as the city of paradoxes and it was undoubtedly right). • 2.

Flocks of people running non-stop, if in Copenhagen tranquillity was instilled in you here it makes you nervous. • 3. We practically didn't meet any street artists and this took a lot away from the overall atmosphere. • 4. Who had said that the most beautiful women in the world live in Sweden? They're plainer than the Danish women seen in Copenhagen and perhaps also rounder, in short Mario didn't like them! They too have children very young and you often see them pregnant pushing a stroller. • 5. Here too multiethnicity at maximum and families of all colours (of skin I mean!). • 6. The taxi drivers (here naturally only and exclusively on four wheels) all have Asian features. • 7. If rainy days prevail in Stockholm we only saw a half-hour thunderstorm.

Seventh day

SEVENTH DAY: STOCKHOLM – SKELLEFTEÅ THU 01/08 This morning we woke up early, I wasn't very rested because I didn't really sleep much (strange dreams… this trip obsesses me!). We went down for breakfast and before nine we were ready to leave but I couldn't find my fleece neck gaiter and so I took the room key again and went back up to check if I had forgotten it. No luck but at least I found the receipt for the payment made at the Hotellcentralen for the room booking and so I went back to the reception to get back the 100 SEK I had already paid as a deposit and that the kind young lady hadn't wanted to give me back before claiming I had nothing in hand to prove it.

We took the E4 towards Sundsvall and as we went along we noticed how the landscape was becoming more and more Nordic and picturesque: fewer and fewer birches and more pines and firs and also increasingly typical brick-coloured wooden houses with white window frames and fluttering flags, in short our entry into the Great North was truly complete. We travelled beautifully making only one stop for lunch and another for a coffee (besides of course the ultra-fast ones for refuelling during which I went to pay without even taking the helmet off my head). The weather was on our side again today and we only caught a few minutes of rain shortly after departure while going on the sky was increasingly free of clouds.

We had set ourselves to reach Umeå but then we went about a hundred kilometres beyond, taken by the enthusiasm for a spectacular panorama with a blue horizon before us and layered clouds above, which gave us the illusion of being in front of a sea dotted with islands, unforgettable! We found a campsite shortly before SKELLEFTEÅ facing a pretty little lake (Ljusvattens Camping). Unfortunately they didn't have two-person hytter but only four-person ones but we took one anyway for 350 SEK (€38) plus 70 (€7.60) for dinner consisting of a piece of pizza and some undressed salad which was nevertheless manna from heaven since we were starving and also quite tired to look for anything better.

• Damn! It's 10:30 pm, in the hytte the curtains are drawn and I can still write without turning on the light!!!! If I didn't fall asleep first I'd be curious to see when it gets dark, maybe never? Maybe we've already crossed the Arctic Circle without noticing? • Ah! I forgot to say that the temperature has also dropped quite a bit and from the over 30° of Stockholm it's gone down to 17/18. Today I wore the balaclava for the first time and tomorrow I'll also put on the fleece and the padding in the trousers (ah, for the record my husband's warm stuff was until today in totally summer gear with t-shirt, long-sleeved cotton shirt and unlined jacket, practically the gear I had abandoned since Austria!). • 3:15 AM: it's even more daytime outside (evidently it never gets dark here already) and I can't sleep with all this light! I'll try putting the bandana over my eyes… let's hope it works!

Eighth day

EIGHTH DAY: SKELLEFTEÅ – NORDKAPP FRI 02/08 NINTH DAY: NORDKAPP SAT 03/08 Well yes, we've reached the legendary Cape and I'm now writing with the famous globe in front of me which to be honest you can't really see that well because there's a thick fog…… but let's go in order. The night at Ljusvattens Camping had therefore passed without us seeing nightfall, we got up very early and at a quarter to eight we were already in the saddle with the intention of getting as close as possible to North Cape taking advantage of the good weather and the fact that the day was such for almost 24 hours. We still didn't believe we could reach it in the day even though Mario had thrown out the idea, I think more out of a desire for a challenge than conviction.

Around midday we crossed into Finland and already by two we were at what according to the original plans was to be the day's destination (ROVANIEMI), but it was too early to stop. We had lunch at a service area, we visited Santa's house at the Arctic Circle (Napapiiri), we took the ritual photos, we sent ourselves the postcard that we'll receive for next Christmas and we saw that to Nordkapp there were "only" 680 km left…. why not do them? The decision was therefore made! What can I say about Finland? A world apart compared to the other Scandinavian countries, first of all for the language which isn't Germanic and you notice: up to Denmark I got by with German, in Sweden I switched to English and this worked well down to southern Finland, but further north it wasn't that they understood even that much...

perhaps it would have gone much better with Russian (since in the INARI area the Russian highlands were really a stone's throw away and the very appearance of the people reminded us of this geographical proximity) but I just don't have that language and so I tried to make myself understood as best I could.

In Finland we met the first reindeer (in Sweden in fact it was full of signs warning of their possible crossing but not even a shadow of one had been seen): at the first sparse ones we even stopped to take photos, we didn't know that shortly after we would find them in herds! The presence of reindeer also marked our entry into what is generally called Lapland but what more precisely is called the Sami Region, the nomadic people who move following the reindeer herds that are the basis of their economy (my goodness, this is no longer quite true because over time the Sami have progressively lost much of their identity as a separate people, they have become more and more Swedish, Finnish or Norwegian and we can see them in traditional clothes only in the souvenir shops they run!).

In Lapland we also started to encounter bad weather (it was fair enough after four thousand kilometres covered under the sun, no?) and it must be said that the black rain-laden clouds seemed to come precisely from the north towards which we were heading. The fearless ones had however decided to go on and it must be said that up to 100 km from North Cape we didn't even catch much water. It was a great pleasure especially to cover the stretch of road from KAAMANEN to KARIGASNIEMI. It's a straight road with continuous ups and downs that divides the landscape in two: during the climbs we had the illusion of approaching the end of the horizon but when the road began to descend again new panoramas opened up before us….

Spectacular! We only crossed eight cars and one motorbike along our route but I don't know how many reindeer crossed our path, which is by the way also quite dangerous because the surface was slippery, our arrival often dazed them and they would stay there for a moment looking at us motionless and frightened that in the end we were just unwanted visitors and noisy invaders of their territory.

At Karigasniemi we also crossed the second border of the day and passed into Norway. The first inhabited centre encountered was that of KARASJOK, where we rushed to a bank's ATM since we were totally without Norwegian kroner to use as cash. Here we were looked at like aliens by a group of children busy playing, which made us think a lot about how difficult it is to live in these border places of the extreme north where the harshness of the territory and the climatic adversities certainly don't favour exchanges with the rest of the world. At Karasjok we took the E6 towards LAKSELV and there we officially made our entry into the Norway of the fjords. But this first fjord was far from being the canonical one with high rocky cliffs and the sea wedging into it (it was in fact much more like a marsh).

To immortalise the moment, made even more evocative by the magical light with rosy tones of what I can call the "luminous" polar night, I wanted to film with the video camera but my hands were too numb and when I then decided to defy the cold and take off my gloves we were already further inland and goodbye fjord. It was ten in the evening and we were witnessing the sun's struggle not to disappear behind the horizon and when its splendour abandoned us, because it sank behind a hill or a cloud, we almost instinctively wanted to try to remove with our hands or blow away the obstacle that each time hid it from us. Then the sun left us definitively (last 100 km before the Cape) and the rain arrived together with the wind and great cold.

There I must say we were truly heroic to want to go on because tiredness was beginning to make itself felt and we already knew that at North Cape too the sun certainly couldn't be shining. We met very few cars and no motorcyclists, only the reindeer didn't care about the bad weather and continued grazing peacefully on the roadside. At exactly midnight we entered the North Cape tunnel (7 km and 109 NOK of expense – €14.82) and at the exit, when I was at maximum cold and the temperature was around 5°, the oil warning light came on. Moment of total panic…. Mario put his feet on the ground with the Yamaha instruction booklet already in hand and even asked for my assistance poor darling, but numb as I was I was shivering and could barely move my hands. However we managed to top up the oil even though the warning light was certainly the automatic alert that comes on every 5500 km.

The light went off and we set off again still with daylight (which when it's night makes the landscape take on almost lunar characteristics) but also with wind and gusts of rain.

Ninth day

At exactly one twenty-three we arrived at Nordkapp but at the toll booth for paying the parking fee (here the magic of the moment was ruined!) we learned that at exactly two the Nordkapphalle would close its doors (and we thought we could stay inside all night! We had gathered a lot of information about the much-longed-for destination but this detail had escaped us!).

They let us in anyway and without paying the ticket (we did that the next day anyway – 185 NOK = €25.10), but the fog was such that you couldn't even see the globe, let alone the sun! We even asked about the possibility of sleeping in the observatory and in fact there was a room (suite 71° 10' 21") and for the "modest" expense of about €333… well, it may also have been our honeymoon but we just didn't feel like throwing our money away like that and we clearly said no, we drank a super-quick hot chocolate surrounded only by people bustling about for the closing (who was counting the money, who was cleaning the tables, who was putting the chairs up…) and then out again with a big weight on our heads: where on earth do we sleep tonight? They had told us the campsites were open all night around there but in reality they were all closed, so we tried the hotels: the first was open but no one an

swered my ring at the reception bell (there by the way there were comfortable armchairs that tempted me quite a bit), at the second same story but you could even glimpse the rooms, all free with the door open. I had already decided to throw myself onto one of those inviting little beds when I noticed a notice in various languages and also in Italian saying that anyone entering who saw a room to their liking whose key was still hanging on the board could very well settle in and would then settle the bill in the morning…. No sooner said than done after five minutes we were already in our bunk beds.

It was three in the morning and in a single day we had covered 1150 km, did we deserve it or not? At first I couldn't fall asleep, numb as I was from the cold that had seeped into my bones and also disturbed by this light that gives you no respite even at night, but then I crashed and we woke up this morning at ten. We had a good shower and devoured everything that had been offered for breakfast since the night before we hadn't even had dinner, taken as we were by the haste to reach the Cape, then we tried to solve the petrol problem since the tank was practically dry: to reach the promontory again we had to cover 10 km, do another 10 to come back down and then about 25 to reach the petrol station at Honnigsvåg (the only one on the island) and this, unless we managed to multiply the little in the tank, was an impossible undertaking.

The very kind lady of the Mini Price Motellet (in Skarsvåg, the northernmost fishing village in Europe – this now the name of the little hotel) then pointed us to the house of a certain man who might be able to sell us a couple of litres of fuel, but we didn't find him and so we changed our plans and to risk nothing we went straight down to Honnigsvåg where we put in a good 12 and a half litres of petrol (we were really dry!). To go back up and reach NordKapp again we found a wind the like of which not even the night before and then the magical fog that, "dear" friend, kept us company all day (we had returned to the Cape around half past one).

We thus resigned ourselves not only to not seeing the midnight sun but not even the sun in general, and we took the photos at the globe in the rare moments when the wicked fog lifted for a few seconds (but above it there were anyway pitch-black clouds acting as a shield). We met a group of very likeable motorcyclists from Bologna (the second encounter of the day because just arrived at the planetarium we had met a girl from the Garfagnana – too funny: you go to the end of the world and you run into your neighbour!) and we also swallowed bitter when they told us that their first time at NordKapp the year before, on 9 August, they had not only seen the sun but also enjoyed a temperature of a good 26° that even allowed them to stay on the promontory in a t-shirt (imagine, I'm cold today even though I'm wearing my entire luggage!).

Anyway if their story initially made us a little envious then it must have brought us a bit of luck because not only did the fog go away but the clouds also opened a passage and there was the celestial vision of the sun peeking out. It was ten past nine in the evening and Mario more excited than ever took I don't know how many photos and video shots. For a while we enjoyed the spectacle hoping the miracle would last until midnight (or thereabouts since the total absence of sunset at NordKapp is only until the end of July), but after ten, when whole fleets of tourists were getting off the coaches and rushing to the globe or simply taking their places in front of the glass window that allows viewing in the warm, the sun went back into hiding behind the clouds, this time I think definitively, but we're content that it managed to give us its wedding gift anyway.

It's a quarter past eleven on 3 August and I think we won't even wait for midnight up here and we'll go back to our little hotel to rest and thus prepare ourselves in the best possible way to face the next leg which we still don't know where it will take us since Tromsø is perhaps a bit too far. All that's left are a few thoughts on the Cape: • 1. It gave us great emotion regardless of the sun which for a while showed its presence, because by reaching it we fulfilled a dream and set foot on the northernmost point of Europe. • 2. The fact then that the feat was accomplished by motorbike made us even more proud and satisfied with ourselves since it's too easy to come up comfortably by ship or plane and then take one of the many tourist buses that go up to the promontory without having 4500 km on your shoulders and without defying the cold, wind and rain that rule here. • 3.

We enjoyed the magic of the place especially before the arrival of the dozens of organised tours that took a lot away from this magic, but what can we do? It's also thanks to tourism that we too were able to reach NordKapp which is indeed a remote place, located in one of the most inhospitable areas of Europe (the cold and wind really impressed us as did this landscape made of nothing but precisely for this reason extremely fascinating) but the little villages around here have nevertheless created structures to welcome these fearless ones who want to reach the Cape and we too took advantage of them, just as we too squandered numerous kroner on postcards and small souvenirs that in some way demonstrate our presence here (Mario clearly wanted to buy the attes

Tenth day

TENTH DAY: NORDKAPP – STORSLETT SUN 04/08 And so we left North Cape, but not as early as we intended: at 10:30 we woke up, had a rich breakfast, put our things together and only at 12 were we ready to leave again. Not much to say about today's leg, we hadn't set a destination but only a direction (E6 southwards) and we simply stopped when we no longer felt like travelling and that happened halfway between Alta and Nordkjosboth, near STORSLETT, where we took a hytte for 250 NOK (€34) at the Fosselv Camping (really nothing nice). We left North Cape with much better weather than what had greeted us on our arrival, it wasn't clearly warm but it wasn't raining and there was no fog, maybe today the sun would stay longer at the promontory.

We crossed Finnmark, kingdom of reindeer (and indeed we saw a great many) and reached Troms covering about 400 km which isn't many given the much longer legs we were used to covering but which becomes so if we consider the conditions of these roads (which are a zigzag between fjords!) and the very low speed limits that here in Norway you're forced to respect exactly if you don't want to triple the cost of your holiday with hefty fines. It was not an exciting leg, marked by cold (and to think that after the Cape I thought I'd quickly return to acceptable temperatures) and I think tomorrow's will be equally so, which will take us as close as possible to the boarding for the Lofoten (we have in fact discarded the Tromsø option albeit reluctantly because it implied a detour of about 150 km, which among the fjords is an awful lot!).

In these islands they speak of quite mild temperatures due to the beneficial influences of the Gulf Stream… we'll see.

Eleventh day

ELEVENTH DAY: STORSLETT – GULLENFJORD MON 05/08 We covered more kilometres today than yesterday but the leg was much more relaxing also thanks to the temperature which has risen quite a bit and a nice little sun that warmed us for almost the entire journey. I reiterate that these Norwegian fjords are truly beautiful but what an effort to travel them at a snail's pace! Tonight we're at a pretty campsite in GULLENFJORD, north of Lodigen, in the strip of land preceding the Vestrålen islands which we'll reach by land tomorrow and then move on to the Lofoten by ferry. The hytte this time is very pretty and even has lace on the curtains and a vase of flowers on the balcony. About today's leg I can say it really relaxed me: we finished crossing Troms and passed into Nordland and this passage was marked by an evident reinvigoration of the vegetation, much greener and richer in trees.

Before Narvik we left the E6 and got onto the E10 which runs alongside a sea with Caribbean streaks.

Twelfth day

TWELFTH DAY: GULLENFJORD – LOFOTEN ISLANDS TUE 06/08 (Henningsvær) And so we reached these magical islands and it must be said that everything beautiful that had been said about them was true without any exaggeration. They strike you right from the ferry (we took it at Melbu at 11:10) when they present themselves as a mountain range with sharp peaks rising from a splendid sea and then as you travel through them you discover a new pleasant surprise in every corner.

The landscape varies enormously and we noticed this already crossing the first of these islands, that of AUSTVAGØY: at first you find yourself travelling under very high peaks that even still have small snowy parts, then you discover very green little lakes, like alpine ones, you skirt rounded rocks with transparent seabeds around them and finally you have before you tongues of very white sand with crowds of bathers defying the latitude and bathing in real natural pools. We too put on our swimsuits and went down to the beach and we too tried to swim but we contented ourselves with just wetting our feet, leaving the total immersion to our towel companions who in most cases were northern Europeans far more accustomed than us to freezing waters. Maybe tomorrow we'll try again too, may a week and a half of stay in the Great North have increased our organism's resistance to low temperatures.

We ended up in HENNINGSVÆR, a picturesque fishing village, where we rented a typical rorbu on the pier for the night. The rorbuer are stilt houses built on the little harbours of these islands used in winter by cod fishermen. In summer they are much sought after by tourists and clearly we too wanted to try one. After two failed attempts we found one for 500 NOK (€67.84): it has its own private pier, two bunk beds (we've now resigned ourselves to going back to sleeping in the same bed only after our return home), a kitchen corner, shower and toilet facilities. So tonight we cooked ourselves a freeze-dried fish soup bought at the supermarket together with a strange preparation of sausages and vegetables and we had dinner by candlelight with a view of the other little houses of the port.

My goodness, not that the candle created any particular atmosphere since outside the sun was still high, but we tried anyway, are we or are we not on our honeymoon? We had coffee at the pub next door, the Finnholmen Brygge, where we also treated ourselves to a beer for two, the first of the Great North (33 cl, 54 NOK = €7.32, not bad huh?). Tomorrow we'll go exploring the southernmost islands, we'll look for new accommodation for the night (if the weather holds I'd also like to try wild camping on some little beach but Mario seems perplexed) and the day after we'll ferry to Bodø. • P.S. Mario just couldn't resist and bought himself a fishing rod. He thought he'd got a bargain but in reality who knows how the reel turned the wrong way and so what was supposed to be a source of relaxation became a cause of stress since the line kept getting knotted….

it was truly a spectacle to see him cursing whoever had sold it to him and even raging against the poor seagulls that, heedless of his misfortunes, continued peacefully with their songs (the kindest outburst was: "Hey seagull, go jerk off!"). • P.S.S. I woke up at three in the night to go to the bathroom and outside there were unforgettable colours…. I threw something on and went out to take photos promising myself to do it again the next night if I could since it's really the nights that colour these places with magic.

Thirteenth day

THIRTEENTH DAY: LOFOTEN ISLANDS (Å) WED 07/08 I must say that here the surprise is endless and today I'm even more ecstatic than yesterday. We left Henningsvær before nine and moved on to the islands of the archipelago that are further south, first of all VESTVAGØY, where we found another very white beach (that of Aukland, near Utakleiv) where however we didn't stop because the sun was still struggling a bit to peek out from the clouds, then FLAKSTADØY and finally MOSKENESØY. In this island, the southernmost of the Lofoten, we made I don't know how many stops to photograph and film especially at HAMNØY and REINE. We then landed at the last little village, with the very short name, Å, which is however an authentic jewel with an end-of-the-world atmosphere. It's all perched on the rocks where numerous rorbuer have been built that largely make up the local youth hostel.

We took accommodation in a private rorbu, the last in the village, run by a very kind and very likeable lady who took us for mad when she learned we came from Italy and had been to NordKapp. She even gave us a discount (300 NOK instead of the expected 400, €40.70) for a real suite equipped with four beds, a little sitting room and even a big television, which I don't think we'll turn on anyway since time here must be enjoyed in other ways and certainly this unspoiled nature is the best possible television programme. If Lapland was the kingdom of reindeer Å is the kingdom of seagulls that nest undisturbed on the roofs of the rorbuer in the centre and huddle on the rocks all around.

They're quite a noisy company and I doubt that tonight we'll easily fall asleep but this is their world, we're the disturbance, so let's leave them to their trills which at the end of this holiday will certainly also belong to the liveliest and most unforgettable memories. Today too Mario got his new fishing rod working but as yesterday no results were seen and so tonight we'll satisfy our craving for fish by going to eat it at the restaurant (Brygga Restaurant, right in front of our rorbu)… we'll let you know. • P.S. I had the smoked whale meat carpaccio and I must say I liked it a lot apart from the colour which disturbs you a bit (it's in fact a sort of black bresaola!). Mario instead had catfish (tasty too) and in total we spent 340 NOK… well, more than €45 for a starter (mine) and Mario's main course, but once in a while we can treat ourselves to a little luxury or not? • P.S.S.

Ah, I forgot to say that besides continually meeting the Italian motorcyclists met at NordKapp today we also saw again an Italian with a car with a Gorizia number plate that we had overtaken on the motorway after Stockholm, who even told us he had slept in our same hotel in Skarsvåg the night after our departure (he had noticed our names written in the guest book). Funny huh?

Fourteenth day

FOURTEENTH DAY: Å – VERDALSØRA THU 08/08 (90 km from Trondheim) Oh, what an intense and very long day we had today, starting with the alarm at 5:30 (we had the ferry to Bodø an hour later) and ending in a campsite 90 km from Trondheim around eight in the evening, when we finally got off the saddle starving and also quite tired after a good 650 km covered almost without stops. But let's go in order: the ferry to BODØ cost us 319 NOK (€43.28) but saved us quite a few kilometres and allowed us to be ready at exactly 9:30 to start the day's leg, a leg I repeat very long which took us through NORDLAND, an uncontaminated and solitary land covered with mountains and splendid lakes of glacial origin and to reach TRONDLELAG.

What can I say about today's leg? We once again witnessed first-hand those climatic and landscape changes that had so often been repeated to us at school in geography class, and so, as we went down in latitude and got closer to the Arctic Circle and then crossed it, we saw the temperature rise and gradually passed from a landscape without shrubs consisting only of mosses, rocks, glaciers and small lakes, to the green and imposing coniferous forests that formed a picturesque frame for immense

Fifteenth day

FIFTEENTH DAY: VERDALSØRA - TRONDHEIM - LESJA FRI 09/08 Again this morning around 9:30 we were ready for departure and we comfortably covered the 90 km that separated us from TRONDHEIM, a lovely city of modest size (we visited it in half a day). Especially splendid was the cathedral (Nidarosdomkirke), with a beautiful Gothic interior, where we even had the chance to attend a short organ concert. We also climbed the tower of the building and after 172 very steep steps we had the consolation of admiring the whole city from above. Ah, right inside the cathedral we ran into the guy from Gorizia again, and while we were parking, a couple of motorcyclists from Verona with whom we had ferried to the Lofoten. The world really is small, or rather, whoever comes down from North Cape then makes the very same stops.

After leaving Trondheim we did over 200 km at a fairly brisk pace, with cars ahead of us acting as pace cars (before stopping us the wicked police would have had to stop them!). In DOMBÅS we did our shopping and for the first time we treated ourselves to something better than the usual sandwiches: salad and slices of salmon to grill on those disposable barbecues that we had never seen outside Norway (and which I highly recommend to anyone who, without wanting to be fleeced at a restaurant, wants to treat their stomach well). We then stopped at a country campsite in LESJA, we took a very cheap hytte, this time even for 220 NOK (€29.85), and after a refreshing shower we prepared our Lucullan little dinner.

Sixteenth day

SIXTEENTH DAY: LESJA - GEREINGERFJORD - LOEN SAT 10/08 (Nordfjord) Today we did a leg that showed me for the first time what in my imagination was the true image of Norway, that is, a narrow emerald-blue fjord wedged between high mountains rich in waterfalls; this was the Gereinger Fjord, a dreamlike spectacle, but let's start from the beginning because the spectacle was not only Gereinger but also the before and the after. After leaving the campsite we continued along the road to Åndalsnes. Along the way came the first pleasant surprises in the form of narrow waterfalls that rushed down from both sides of the valley and then the majestic TROLLVEGGEN, the Troll Peaks, the highest sheer cliff face in Europe (1300 m).

Before Åndalsnes we took road 63 and there the surprises came one after another and almost without time to calm our wonder at one we found ourselves immersed in awe at the next. The road began to climb (15% gradient) and we began to travel the so-called TROLLSTIGEN, the Troll Road, which with its 11 hairpin bends is practically screwed to the mountainside and adorned with splendid waterfalls such as the Stigfossen, which plunges 180 m down into the valley. The last hairpin bend brought us to the Stigrøra plateau where we stopped to admire the Troll Road in its entirety. We then set off again for the stretch of road 63 that takes the name of the EAGLE ROAD, which offered us from above a first supreme glimpse of the Gereinger Fjord, magnificent! A pity that the weather had become a bit cloudy and therefore the colors could not express themselves in their full splendor.

From Gereinger we climbed again towards Dalsnibba with the spectacle of the Jostalbreen, the largest glacier in Europe, before us and then down through a series of long tunnels to STRYN in the Nordfjord. Our intentions were to join the E39 and push on to Førde so as to be already quite far along the next day in reaching Bergen, but in LOEN Mario saw a campsite on the fjord and very democratically decided that today's leg had to end with a good fishing session. For the record, not even a shadow of a fish was seen afterwards, but by then the decision had been made and the boss's decisions are never to be contested.

Seventeenth day

SEVENTEENTH DAY: LOEN – BERGEN SUN 11/08 The weather today wasn't great so we decided to reach Bergen by taking the less scenic but shorter road, so from Loen BYRKJELO, FØRDE, LAVIK (where we took the ferry to Oppedal and ran into the four Germans who have been travelling the same roads as us for two days) and from there still on the E39 to BERGEN (with the last 70 km in the rain). In Bergen we went straight to the tourist office to look for a room: almost the whole city was booked up (or at least all the cheaper alternatives to the hotel) but we found a double room a kilometre and a half from the centre for 820 NOK (€111.26).

The hardest part, though, was getting to the hotel because what looked like a piece of cake on paper actually turned out to be an arduous undertaking: after finding the street (Sandviksveien) we realised that it ended before the house number we were looking for, the moral of the story being that we covered who knows how many kilometres and even went through two very long tunnels that took us back out of the city (luckily on Sundays you don't pay the entry toll), we cursed in who knows how many languages, asked locals who were even less informed than we were, only to discover that the continuation of the street was right there beside us, behind a hedge. We put our things in the room (really nothing nice) and then got back on the bike to reach the centre and eat something (it was half past three in the afternoon!).

We ended up at the fish market, on the Torget, right in the centre, which is a feast for the eyes and the palate: there are loads of stalls where mostly young people from all over the world work (so among the fish stalls you hear a bit of every language) offering you fresh fish, canned fish or even ready to eat in the form of sandwiches stuffed with prawns and salmon, boiled crabs, fish soup, smoked whale meat and much more besides. Totally fascinated by this crowd of lively young people so eager to work, and also very hungry, we threw ourselves on two salmon sandwiches (discovering that the salmon was more of a token presence!), we drank a fish soup and then we were reeled in by a young man from Florence with a Norwegian mother who had us taste some excellent prawns which we then bought and peeled and shelled right in front of the stall…..

a real delight! We then visited Bryggen, the old quarter of the German merchants, made up of a row of colourful little wooden houses, unfortunately not original since the fires destroyed those, and we started going in and out of souvenir shops to buy a new troll to take home to keep the others we own company. Dead tired (I won't hide it, me especially) we took the funicular up Fløyfjellet, the hill that dominates the city, a real spectacle even without sun. Back at the base we saw the guys from Bologna waiting for us by the bike, we stopped and chatted for a bit and then went to have a pizza at Peppe's Pizza. Well, I really wouldn't recommend it to anyone because for a pizza for two topped with ketchup we paid a good 153 NOK (€20.75)!

Eighteenth day

EIGHTEENTH DAY: BERGEN – HONEFØSS MON 12/08 (50 km from Oslo) It was our first almost entirely wet day. We woke up in the hotel to the sound of rain (and it certainly wasn't a welcome good morning) but when we went back to the centre to do the last rounds (and take the last photos before leaving the city) we didn't get caught in any more rain, in fact the weather seemed to have decidedly improved, though I stress the seemed because as soon as we left Bergen (another arduous undertaking because we inevitably took the wrong road, we inevitably ended up back in the city to make up for the mistake and for once we even had to pay the entry toll again of 10 NOK) we were chased by huge black clouds that even started dumping rain that wasn't always very heavy but almost always continuous from two in the afternoon to half past seven in the evening, when we stopped at a campsite in HONEFØSS, about

fifty kilometres from Oslo. All in all, not bad, but it has to be said that until today the sun had almost always escorted us, which for a trip in Scandinavia is nothing other than a very welcome but not very widespread optional extra. In tonight's hytte we repeated the grilled fish experience and then spent our time drying our wet clothes with the hairdryer, since there was heating but it was out of service.

Nineteenth day

NINETEENTH DAY: HONEFØSS – OSLO – HIRTSHALS TUE 13/08 So here we are today reaching the last of the Scandinavian capitals we had set out to visit. Dulcis in fundo, as they say, but in our case the saying doesn't fit because OSLO is the city of the three we liked least. Not that it's ugly, mind you, but we arrived at a quarter past ten in the morning, at half past seven in the evening we took the ferry to Denmark and the time at our disposal was more than enough to see everything worth seeing.

Oslo too has its pedestrian and shopping street (Karl Johans Gata), which is however much shorter than Copenhagen's Storget or Stockholm's even more numerous pedestrian areas, it has its castle guarded by royal guards, its cathedral, quite simple on the outside but much more sumptuous inside, it also has its good dose of questionable mixture of ancient and modern style (something we had already found in Stockholm) and so for example the futuristic buildings of the Akker Brygge docks stand next to the Renaissance-style Akerhus Festning. Some merit we must grant it though: it's a city extremely rich in museums (we visited the Eduard Munch one and I must say that seeing the famous Scream in the flesh really moved me) and packed with parks, which shows the importance nature holds in the Norwegian mindset.

At half past seven we boarded for Denmark (we'll arrive in Hirtshals at eight tomorrow morning) with 1520 NOK less in our wallets (€206.24) since we were forced to take a cabin, but maybe it's better this way because being able to sleep peacefully tomorrow morning we'll be in top form to push as far as possible and get as far as possible. Mario's intention is to reach halfway through Germany, but I think he's exaggerating a bit…… For now goodnight because we've already gone to bed in the cabin after gambling away our last NOK in our possession at the slot machine… needless to say we lost them. • P.S.

a mark of demerit for Color Line, with which we're crossing: I think it's the only shipping company that gives no priority to motorbikes in the boarding operations (and therefore also disembarkation): in fact we were the last to get on along with a cyclist and so tomorrow morning at departure we'll even have to put up with all the exhaust fumes from the dozens of trucks parked in front of us…. Scandalous!!!!!

Ventesimo giono

TWENTIETH DAY: HIRTSHALS – GERA WED 14/08 At six o'clock sharp a sweet little voice came out of the loudspeaker in the cabin to wish us good morning and announce that shortly the restaurant for breakfast and the Tax Free Shop for last purchases would reopen, but we turned over on the other side since for breakfast we had our now much-loved Go Morgen yogurt with muesli while we didn't have even the shadow of a krone left to spend. Shortly before disembarking we went down to the garage and a Danish truck driver told us that during the night a man had thrown himself into the sea from the upper deck, the ship had stopped and a helicopter from Denmark had to intervene to recover the body… we of course in our extremely cheap cabin at the bottom of the sea (we were even two decks below the garage!) noticed nothing and slept like rocks.

On the matter we can only say that the cyclist who had boarded with us never came down to get his bike and it stayed there waiting for him in vain at least until we too (and we were the last) left the ship… could he have been the suicide? In Denmark we found an incredible wind that caused us no small difficulties with the scooter, especially when overtaking, and that accompanied us as far as northern Germany. We did a good long run of about a thousand kilometres and for the night we stopped at a motel in GERA, in the Thuringian Forest, about 350 km from Munich.

Turning on the television in the room (and it was the first time since Copenhagen) we also understood why on the motorway we had continuously crossed paths with columns of ambulances and rescue vehicles: while we were enjoying an unexpected Norwegian sun the rest of Europe was registering record rains and the Vltava in Prague and the Elbe in Dresden had overflowed creating terrible emergencies.