We are walking down the street early on Friday morning wheeling two brand new suitcases containing, in addition to our clothing, a tent and our camping gear. Having made the decision to ship Streak & Storm home, we need to pivot to new forms of transport. We are booked to take a direct train from Termini Imerese to Rome. Hang on, there is a watery gap between Sicily and the Italian mainland, what gives? We are travelling on the last passenger train ferry in Europe between Messina and Villa San Giovanni.

After boarding the train with luggage, a strange feeling not being on a motorbike, we follow the coast eastwards retracing our route we took with Streak and Storm seeing the same sights from a different perspective.

After an hour or so the train breaks down. We spend an hour waiting with the electricity going off and on after being told it will try to be fixed or we get another engine. Since the journey is already going to be 12 hours to Roma Termini, this is an unwelcome delay. The engine is fixed and onward we go. Upon our arrival at Messina our train is quickly and efficiently loaded onto the ferry for the short crossing. We join a similar train that has come the shorter distance from Catania. Once on the other side the two will be connected to form a single train to Rome. There is room for four tracks on the train deck which doubles as a car deck when not needed for trains. We head up on deck for spectacular views of both sides of the Messina straight. One may wonder why this has not been bridged or tunnelled: according the Google AI, the issues are seismic activity, depth of the short crossing of some 250 meters and potential Mafia involvement. It makes for a great crossing and while weather in winter may cause problems, I hope this remains as a great railway journey. It should be noted that unlike car ferries where you have to leave the car deck, you can wander around on the train deck.

The journey to Rome is uneventful but the routes multiplicity of tunnels and steep hillsides shows how hard it must have been to build the line in the 19th Century. The Italians must have got quite adept at building tunnels, unlike say the Dutch who had just flat land to build on. OK I know they had to cross a few dykes but as the world developed railways in the first half of the 19th century, each country’s engineers had to face their own unique topography.

Our arrival in Rome is some 61 minutes late, so if one can navigate the Trenitalia website, a 25% ticket refund awaits. Onto the Airport Express, errr no, fire on the line. No trains. As a staff member says, “A little problem every day”. So taxi it is. As we wend our way through the Rome streets at sunset, Anne says “I feel we are near the baths of Caracalla” which we visited with Anne’s mother back in 2014, before this blog even began. The taxi driver confirms Anne’s observation, I had no idea where we were, Anne’s powers of observation are growing.

After a comfortable night at the Hilton at Rome airport, we pick up our Hertz hire car which will take us on the rest of our rescheduled journey which will see us depart from Milan back to the UK on the 9th of July. No chance of passing off any dents and scratches as someone else’s, only 11km or 7ml on the odometer. We will have to own them all.

Your may recall we met Mauro and Stefania on the ferry from Tunis recently. They invited us to visit them in Tuscany whenever we were in the vicinity. Our original plan made this impractical, however with the unexpected change of plan we will visit them overnight. Our plan B’s first positive outcome.

Lunch is taken a great beach location La Spiaggia at Santa Marinella. A simple setup, fresh seafood, gentle breeze and no wonky table or chair legs with sand as the base. We eat looking out over the blues of the Mediterranean sea. Could not be better.

We get Stefania and Mauro’s GPS location and off we set to stay with them for one night. Apart from their love of travel and different cultures, also travelling by motorcycle when they can, their great hugs when we left, and the fact that they live in Tuscany, we know nothing of this friendly couple we built a connection very quickly with. Not only are they out in the countryside, outside Grosseto, their property surrounded by olive trees and various fruit trees they planted themselves and fields of sunflowers nearby, it is beautifully quiet which we love and we finally find out what they do for a living when they are not travelling: Mauro is an oesteopath, their visiting friend Tanya is a doctor from Rome and Stefania is a psychologist.

On seeing the state of Anthony’s ankle, Mauro and Tanya decide it is crucial they put their professional skills to work on Anthony immediately. What amazing synchronicity that our new friends are able to help!! As far as we know, Stefania didn’t see the need to do any work on Anthony too! Tanya makes numerous phone calls to pharmacies to locate what Anthony needs (more on that shortly) and we all pile up into their car and head off to Mauro’s rooms in Grosseto for some treatment. I observe what Mauro is doing to Anthony and wonder at times if Anthony is going to break under his manipulations! It looks painful and uncomfortable – it was, says Anthony.

After an hour’s treatment, in come Tanya amd Stefania. Tanya has a huge carrier bag of goodies from the pharmacy for us! Tanya located the pain relief medication she wanted for Anthony’s swollen ankle, bought syringes and smaller needles, compresses, and coarse salt. Tanya shows Anne what she will need to do herself over the next 10 days, from preparing the syringes and where and how to inject this pain relieving medication. Anthony is obviously in a lot of pain each time Tanya pricks his sore ankle 7 times but it will do him good we are told. My stomach churns but I pay close attention as I will have to do this myself from tomorrow. We are so grateful for their help and generosity – they both refused payment for their treatments and purchases.

Next we catch up with Mauro and Stefania’s daughter Elisa and her partner Daniele at Elisa’s new studio Weaving Waves, @weaving.waves. Elisa is a wonderful young artist and weaver designing creations inspired by nature.

After a great evening and super healthy and tasty dinner, Tanya wraps Anthony’s ankle in salt soaked gauze (8 layers carefully spread out and soaked before wrapping the ankle) once Anthony is in bed for the night.

The next morning, the ankle has gone down noticeably which is great news. We head off to the sea – always a great healer – and leave our friends a few hours later. I am sure we will stay in touch and hope we are able to repay their hospitality sometime.

Anne has never been to Pisa and I was last there in 1975, hitchhiking back from Greece. We had planned to visit Pisa as part of our motorcycle trip, so we are starting to get back on track, just travelling differently.

With our last minute travel plans, summer holidays and the heatwave sweeping Europe accommodation at a reasonable price for us is hard to find. Luckily the flexibility the car provides and not having drag all our motorcycling gear around lets us stay out of places of interest. We have a small airbnb place halfway between Pisa and Florence which is perfect. Our host suggests we dine up at San Miniato known for its black truffle cuisine. A twisty drive up the hillside, we had been told by Stefania that the reason for hilltop towns in the area was malaria. Given they bug screens and numbers we have seen it makes sense. A little research showed the area north of Rome from coast to the foothills, malaria was prevalent.

A great dinner, washed down with a bottle of local wine from a cultivar I had never heard of made for a great evening.

Off to Pisa, well almost as our host had suggested we stop at Lucca on the way. We found an enchanting town, catering for tourists but not overwhelmed by them. July sees the annual Lucca music festival that has been running since 1998 when the festival was opened by Bob Dylan. This year’s list includes Santana, Robert Plant, Pet Shop Boys and Alanis Morissette. All playing in the intimate Plazza Napoleone. One could spend a month here with 19 artists scheduled to play.

Onto Pisa and our first real tourist destination, the cruise ships are in and group 46 from somewhere purposely move towards the leaning tower. I have to admit that my ankle has slowed me down somewhat. Too many people for my liking, we get the photos and leave.

Having a car means that, with the free days before the Montreux Jazz Festival, we can range further than we could on Streak and Storm. We head north on the way, passing many stone cutting yards, white mountains in the distance and a while dusty haze hangs in the air: Carrara, home of the famed marble, and no, we are not taking orders we have enough to carry already.

Parma, home of a favourite ham of Anne’s, seems to be on our way, so lunch is taken in Parma. Another town we would not have visited on Streak and Storm given the high temperatures and all the gear.

The Pilotta, damaged during the bombings in 1944, was partially rebuilt. It now houses the Palatina Library, the Archaeological Museum, the National Gallery, the Farnese Theatre and the Bodoni Museum (which since 2016 constitute a unitary Monumental Complex), besides the University of Parma, the Art institute.

Usually, Anne does all work selecting destinations and researching what to see and do and where to spend the night, but since Anne has done all the driving to date, it will be my selection for tonight. Where is it, that will be in the next blog.

– Anthony & Anne