Across Europe on two wheels. Sequel. Part 1

Right half a year ago, I rode my motorbikey across seven countries up to the capital of Serbia and there I left it.

As always, Belgrade welcomed me with hugs from my friends, to whom I left my motorbike for safekeeping. They placed it in the company's office as an exhibit, washed, repaired and changed its battery. But when I asked how much I owed for this all, Sasha thumbed his nose at me. People in Serbia are so ill-mannered in this respect!

And the following morning I raced along the perfect A1 expressway from Belgrade to Skopje, which is the capital of Northern Macedonia. The highway had minimal traffic, was perfectly covered and there wasn't a single speed camera for 430 km! You don't need to cover your vehicle registration number with mud or hang any ropes on it. I rode at a speed of 160…200 km/h and reached the border with Macedonia in three hours.

I saw an old iron barrier and a shabby cabin, in which there were a couple of chairs with torn upholstery and one guy in a blue uniform. This man turned out to be a border guard, a customs officer and a passport controller in one person. It took him a long time to fill in the documents manually. He asked me standard questions, while fumigating me with his cigarette smoke. Then he pressed a big red button on the wall and the barrier rose up with a creak.

Well, hello Macedonia! You're the 75th country in my track record!

I have friends who are waiting for me here, in Skopje, as well. Or to be more precise, there is one quite crazy girl, who you will surely recognize. And, of course, we're going in for new adventures! :)

North Macedonia is comparable to the Tula region in terms of square and population.And a little more than half a million people live in the capital of this small country, just like in the aforementioned Tula or in another average regional centre of Russia.

There is no sea (unlike in neighboring Greece and Albania), but there are beautiful mountains, warm weather most time of the year and a lot of sociable kind-hearted people whose mentality is very similar to ours.

The Macedonian language is very similar to Serbian and it is not difficult to understand it. But, what's more, I was surprised very much with the fact that almost everyone there speaks English well (at least, in the capital).

Skopje is rather an unusual city and it seemed to me quite cozy and friendly.

Moreover, the architecture is so eclectic and naive that it involuntarily causes a smile, especially when you walk around the city centre, where there is an incredible amount of different monuments, impressive in size and design. Basically, there are various generals on horseback presented, starting from Alexander the Great and ending with a certain man in a suit, with a tie and riding a horse as well. Some powerful fountains are surrounded by bronze lions, which are the size of a small elephant. I also saw the stone bridges and even a semblance of the Arc de Triomphe like in Paris. Splendid!

The city is surrounded by mountains up to 2000 m high and there is still snow on their tops. In general, Macedonia is a mountainous country: there are beautiful canyons with steep cliffs, lakes and rivers with the purest water, gorgeous views and excellent roads. What else does a traveller need? Well, maybe it will also be fine to taste delicious food, wine and stay in a decent hotel for a small charge… And all this you can find here in abundance!

And yeah, I almost forgot! One more thing you need is a pretty guide (preferably, who's riding a motorbike too)! It will never be over the top. :)

Macedonia → Albania → Italy.

It's been a long time since I've experienced a rainstorm with hail, which is the size of a large pea. When you're going at a speed of 100 km/h, it hits your hands quite painfully and bangs on your helmet.

The weather in the Balkans can change at once. Yesterday it was sunny and the temperature was +21°C and today in the mountains it is only +5°C and rains.

On my way to Albania I made a stop in a small but very picturesque town on the shore of the large lake named Ohrid. It is a popular tourist place, just like the Russian town Suzdal, for example.

There are a lot of ancient temples, some of which are more than 1000 years old. The narrow cobbled pedestrian streets climb up and down, leading you by the souvenir shops, cafés, restaurants, boat trip services and other entertainments for tourists.

Well, everything is quite nice. This town is worth visiting once.

After lunch I crossed the border with Albania, in which the customs officers made a little shakedown, and in the evening I reached the port town called Durrës, where a comfortable snow-white ferry was already waiting for me, shining with its lights like a Christmas tree.

And I have met the following morning already in Italy. Now I will continue my pan-European tour and stay here for a week. :)

I am going on travelling around Italy in the company of mates. They flew to Rome at the beginning of the week, rented BMW motorbikes and now our group of four is heading for the south of the Apennine Peninsula. We aren't going quickly, since delicious Italian cuisine, fine wine and rainy weather make overcoming any long distance difficult. This morning we finally left Formia, then had lunch in Naples and our dinner took place in one of the most beautiful towns in southern Italy, Sorrento.

The traffic along the winding mountain roads following the coast is quite dense, the roads are narrow and the views are just incredible. And the further south I go, the more I feel the difference between the north and the south of Italy. People here are more impulsive, loud and their manner of driving is similar to the Dagestan one. ;)

Actually, Naples is just a crazy city and isn't similar to any other European metropolis. There are ancient castles, a large port, snow-white yachts, many monuments to conquerors and some caesars. Central avenues can't be imagined without the shabby old houses, on which balconies the clothes are being dried. The garbage is everywhere and black people are selling all sorts of stuff right on the sidewalks. Naples seems to be not a city, but a huge hive or a boiling pot, in which some phenomenal dish, which consists of thousands of ingredients, is being cooked. But it is impressive indeed!

We did not linger in Camorra (the largest mafia town in the world) for long and reached Sorrento, which is a stunningly beautiful town on the rocky shore of the Bay of Naples, by the evening.

Sorrento, Positano, Amalfi are fabulous towns located along the southern coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea and connected with one of the most beautiful roads in Italy.

Once driving along the narrow serpentine, which winds along the rocky coast, and seeing the breathtaking views from it, you will forever remember these unbelievable landscapes created by nature and represented in thousands of canvases by artists from all over the world.

For me, the places like these make up the real Italy that is impossible not to fall in love with.

On the third day the south-westerly wind finally took the clouds away and the rays of the sun began to glimmer in the emerald waves, which were crashing somewhere below against the ledges of black rocks. Everything was shining with bold and juicy colors: the sky, the sea, mountains, palm trees, vineyards, orange tiled roofs of houses (which were like descending to the sea by following the steep slopes), snow-white yachts and fishing boats.

In the evening we got to a small but quite famous town called Marathea. It is a small port, where yachts, which go from Sicily to the North, enter sometimes. And there is a huge white statue of Christ standing on top of a 600-metre-high cliff. These are the main attractions of this town. The 21-metre-tall Jesus has his arms outstretched and takes a step forward, as if he wants to embrace this blessed place.

Life here flows slowly, without any fuss and unnecessary hustle. First, you enjoy the morning cup of coffee at the outdoor terrace of a small cozy restaurant, then you have a glass of white wine for lunch and two or three glasses of fine oak-aged Vino rosso together with risotto and prosciutto for dinner.

Buon giorno, grazie, per favore…

Well, I feel I should leave this paradise urgently, otherwise I can lose a sense of reality and time at all. In addition, all this splendor, unfortunately, costs a lot of money. :)

A large seven-deck ferry, which set off from the town named Civitavecchia (situated in the west coast of Italy) in the evening, docked at the port of Olbia in the north of the Sardinia island at 7 a.m.

We had to wait for a half an hour until the trucks left the lower deck, and only after that cars and motorbikes began to descend from the second tier.

It's my first time visiting Sardinia, though I had heard a lot about this popular tourist destination before. Thus, to make the first acquaintance with this island more complete, I decided to ride it around, following the coast with secondary paths.

In terms of size and population density, Sardinia is a bit inferior to the Crimea and its length from north to south is slightly more than 300 kilometres.

arrived in the capital of Sardinia, the city called Cagliari, in the late afternoon, having overcome 360 km along the eastern coast.

My first impressions are the following:

The island is clean and well-groomed, the roads are in excellent condition and there is an excellent autobahn, which connects the north and the south of the island. However, it is much more interesting to follow the country roads, which lead along the coast through small villages and settlements with beautiful sandy beaches, piers with boats, narrow cobbled streets, small restaurants and cafés with tables at outdoor terraces.

There are very few people on the streets, as the dog days have not begun yet, and this is a really good point. The roads have minimal traffic, the restaurants aren't crowded and there is not a single living soul on the beaches. What a beauty!

The island is all in greenery, low mountains are covered with coniferous forests and there are a lot of ground and sandy paths, leading to the sea. And that's great! There are some sections to rock out by motorbike: you can ride up and down the mountains and rocks between the trees as well as go through the sand and pebbles along the shore! Superb!

A traveller has no problem with food and accommodation, because there are a lot of hotels and restaurants. Nevertheless, the prices for accommodation are quite high even now. I suppose, during the dog days a cost of a room in a rather decent hotel will start from €100 per day.

The second day of exploring Sardinia began with a traditional cup of cappuccino and a croissant in one of the multiple cafés in Cagliari.

Today I decided to see the southern coast of the island.

I left the town at 10 a.m. and went along the rocky coast, following the narrow secondary paths. The sun began to get hot and the temperature slowly rose to +25°C, therefore, I had to open all the clothing flaps of my jacket.

The road led me through small villages, vineyards, olive orchards and flowering fields, where people were working. Sometimes it approached the sea itself and from the height of the steep shore I could see unrealistically beautiful views of the coves with emerald water and a yellow strip of beach framed by huge rocks and cliffs.

In some coves there were fishing boats docked both on the shore and on the water. And there were almost no people. Locals were working in the fields and in the vineyards and tourists hadn't not arrived yet. At some point my wonderful Garmin navigator found a short route and turned off the asphalt road onto a ground rocky one, leading me up. I went on a steep climb, then made a descent down, when the road turned into a narrow path and brought me to a plateau above the small cove with huge rocks, on which a couple of nudists were sunbathing. The appearance of a motorbike that broke their idyllic relaxing in this uninhabited place turned out to be unexpected and they were quite confused. The girl quickly put on her underpants and the guy got into cold water for some reason. :)

I realised that my motorbike had no chance to fit into that landscape and didn't stay there long. And I hope the guy won't fall ill with a cold, since the temperature of water in April is not that warm.

The time before lunch ran unnoticed: I rode only 60 km in four hours. There are still 350 km left to the hotel in the north of Sardinia that I had booked the night before. Well, I shouldn't have been in a hurry. However, I hadn't expected that everything would be so interesting. Therefore, I had to take the motorway and race to the port town called Santa Teresa Gallura in three hours. There is a ferry to Corsica tomorrow, which will set off from this pier.

But I'll probably stay for one more day here, as I want to explore the western coast of Sardinia.

What if everything around is even more interesting and more beautiful in this part of the island?

A three-day trip is certainly not enough to explore Sardinia. Nevertheless, travelling 1160 km across the island, including dozens of exciting places, beautiful natural locations and several towns and villages, allowed me to make a first impression of this wonderful island.

Indeed, this is a great place for spending a summer vacation. Here you experience the purest sea, sun, mountains, greenery, fresh seafood and fruits, delicious food and amazing Italian wine. The entire infrastructure of Sardinia is adapted for tourists: there are many hotels of different price categories, apartments, restaurants and bars at every turn.

The only drawback is that you will have to pay much for all these pleasures. And the price isn't that cheap. However, if you live in a tent and do not go to expensive restaurants, you can meet an acceptable amount. I think, the perfect option is to come here with your "mobile home". There are plenty of places to stay, including equipped campsites. The roads are excellent and there are a lot of them of such quality. You can just drive around the island, sunbathe on the gorgeous beaches, swim in the emerald waters of the beautiful lagoons and think about nothing!

Although, it's a long way to get there…

And in the Crimea the nature is no worse. ;)

As for me, I continue my way, because all this atmosphere quickly runs out of excitement for me, unfortunately. Or maybe, on the contrary, this all is for the better.

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