Today we were heading to various destinations, some where heading to Sottomarina near Chioggia and others were heading to the Euro rally site in Adria. We would all be together until the last fuel stop where we would go our separate ways.
Jason and Sue chose to leave the hotel later and rode alone.
First thing we needed after leaving the hotel was fuel, the first station we got to was card only and didn’t have many pumps so a few of us rode a few mile down the road to another one.
After filling up, the satnavs all pointed us in the same direction, the problem was we ended up on a dirt track again. while on this dirt track Sulla braked hard to miss a pot hole and Ada locked his front brake trying to avoid him and ended up crashing. His Lambretta was a little bruised along with his helmet as he head butted a small wall but thankfully he was OK.
Shortly after this my satnav lead us into the center of Trento rather than on to the motorway but after a sightseeing tour we ended up back on the motorway and caught up with the others at the toll booth.
It was now Curt’s turn to have a few issues, he was leading at one point and failed to turn off at a motorway interchange. Everyone else turned off but Curt didn’t look round. A while later he re-joined us at the next fuel stop. Then a short time later he pulled over because his engine had died, when I looked down as he pulled over I could see fuel pouring from the bottom of his Lambretta. His fuel pipe had come away from the carb.
While he was fixing it a few of the others carried on and a few more hadn’t stopped so were ahead of everyone. When the rest of us got going again we got off the motorway soon after and realised we had got off at the wrong junction. It was however the correct junction for the ones heading for Adria.
Ada, Nathan, lynsey, Paula and I continued on and soon saw a sign for Chioggia and soon after that a huge thunderstorm broke out, many motorbike riders had pulled over under bridges to get out of the rain which we also tried to do but the bridge we stopped at didn’t have any room for us and the bikers didn’t make room. It was here that I looked at the satnav and realised we were on the wrong motorway, at the next junction we got off and headed on smaller roads to our destination in Sottomarina.
The others heading for Sottomarina who were also split up from each other came together by accident at one junction and were well ahead of us.
When we got close to Chioggia the most striking thing was that the traffic traveling away from the area, it seemed as though no one was heading in but everyone was heading out. We later realised that this was because this weekend was a public holiday in Italy and as it was getting late all the Italians were heading home after a day at the beaches and resorts.
Even so, Sottomarina was very busy when we arrived and remained busy all night, there was a real party atmosphere in the town all night.
All present went for a meal, sitting outside one of the many resteraunts, while there we saw Jason and Sue arrive and pointed them in the direction of the hotel.
An uneventful day in all but at this point we were at our furthest point from home. We had rode over 1400 miles from the centre of England to the Adriatic coast across the Alps and everyone felt a sense of achievement.
We hadn’t managed to do all of the planned route due to pass closures and time spent repairing but we had done the majority of the itinerary.
Day Eight track