The coach transfer along the Amalfi coast from Napoli to Sorrento was a seemingly endless traffic jam from airport to hotel. Trucks and coaches lumbered up and around the winding cliff-roads, cars fought for position and the rare chance to overtake, whilst all around mopeds buzzed through gaps which didn't exist. Although Italian driving has been discussed here before, our recent holiday in Sorrento, overlooking the main route in and out of the town, gave the opportunity to observe the rules of the road.
The rules of the road appear to be these:
1. Always keep both hands on the steering wheel.
a) Unless you have a mobile phone.
b) Unless you have cigarettes.
1.1 Always have a mobile phone and cigarettes.
2. Use appropriate eyewear for the light conditions.
a) During the daytime wear sunglasses.
b) During the night-time wear sunglasses.
3.1 If there is a gap in the traffic, fill it.
3.2 If there isn't a gap in the traffic, fill it.
4. If your vehicle is not scraped, scratched, or pranged:
a) You are not filling gaps that aren't there.
b) Your vehicle is too expensive.
c) You are not Italian.
Special Rules for Mopeds
1. Wear appropriate protective clothing.
- Flip-flops offer unparalleled abrasion resistance in the event of a crash.
- So do shorts and t-shirts.
2.1 Wear a helmet.
- Grudgingly.
2.2 Helmet straps are only decorative and should not be fastened.
3. Moped seats only appear to be designed for two people.
- They are designed to accommodate a family of at least four.
4. Try overtaking on both sides.
- Simultaneously.
Although every car and moped appeared battered in some way, and there appeared to be no real regulations in the roads, there was none of the road-rage common with commuting in Britain. There was a fluidity in a traffic regime where everyone is constantly alert to suddenly change direction or (as a last resort) stop in order to (mostly) avoid each other.
The easiest way to document Sorrento would not be through words or photographs, but sound. There is the constant thrum of tyres on the roads, paragraphed by the juddering buses and coaches of tourists along the Corsa Italia, punctuated by tranging two-stroke mopeds, with assertively beeping horns adding dialogue. There are no traffic lights so the traffic doesn't stop - it's constantly merging, adapting, moving forwards.
When learning to drive in Britain it is drummed into you that if there's a possibility of somebody doing something stupid - pulling out, ignoring road-markings, driving straight at you, then assume they will. In Sorrento it seems there is no need to assume - it is the norm. Motorists are taught to pull-out, ignore road-markings, drive straight at each other. Life as a pedestrian in Sorrento is even more precarious - pedestrian crossings are ignored. You could wait and stand, and stand and wait at a crossing for the traffic to stop to let you cross safely. You would wait forever. A crossing pedestrian is not ignored - look directly into the sunglasses of the driver of the car that would run you over if you were to unexpectedly step into the road, and unexpectedly step into the road. Not only will they stop but they're unlikely to shout at you whilst they're still on the phone.
Neil - was almost knocked over by a moped, overtaking on the pavement.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
I know what you did last summer
The caravan of Le Tour is a rolling commercial carnival of tour sponsors. Banks, supermarkets, TV channels, and cheese are all advertised in a parade of brightly-coloured vehicles. The crowds lining the routes of each stage have only one concern: free stuff. Some of the free stuff is quite useful if you've spent three-to-four hours waiting for this cavalcade of tat: bottles of Nestle Aquarel water to quench the thirst, bread-sticks and cheese-dips from La Vache qui Rit to satiate a plastic palette, and hats. More hats than you can imagine. The sponsors of Le Tour want to see TV coverage that includes a back-drop of crowds all advertising their product, so thousands of hats bearing the sponsors names are made in China and are thrown out to the waiting crowd. The Nesquick bunny waves cheerfully at you, and packets of Haribo, Stabilo pens, Disney journals, and fridge-magnets galore are all given away - every day.
First thing in the morning, at the stage starts, La Caravane accommodates the early risers by dishing out fresh Grand Mere coffee - perfect if you're still half-asleep and the day is still cold and damp. At the stage finish the hat and tat parade passes at a leisurely pace so that no-one goes without un beau chapeau along the finishing straight. Even along the route, as the caravan races past, the hats and sweets and cheese-dips and water are still thrown to the road-side supporters - at 64 kph, the same speed as EuroNCAP car crash tests. Whilst hats and packets of sweets are lightweight and not at all aerodynamic, they flop to the floor where they're snatched up by grabbing hands. However, a 500ml missile-shaped bottle of water travelling at 40 miles/hour travels through the air with tremendous efficiency and is not to be grabbed lightly.
But it all must be grabbed because, no matter how tatty, tacky, and tasteless the stuff is, and no matter how much you don't want a Skoda sun-hat, you must have one. Because other people have them. You look around the assorted people about you and, despite their different shapes and sizes, their different nationalities and ages, they all have one thing in common: they have Skoda hats. And you don't. You shout "Ici!" at the young people enthusiastically throwing Skoda hats to the people over the road, but you're ignored. You make a grab for a hat, thrown from La Caravane as it speeds by, but it is intercepted by a feisty octogenarian Breton widow with more hairs on her chin than you, and you've been in an identity parade for men with beards.
The vehicles staffed by the enthusiastic young people cheerfully throwing handfuls of freebies at the waiting crowds travel for the whole 3600km of Le Tour. Most summer jobs involve fruit-picking, or factories, or shelf-stacking, but in France, each and every day for almost the whole of July, attractively-tanned, white-toothed students (I'm guessing) volunteer to be harnessed to a Deux Cheveux speeding from sea-level to ski-resorts in blistering heat and driving rain. There is a hierarchy amongst the sponsors' models giving away merchandise: the most beautiful people are chosen for the podium; the very attractive will be working sales; the average will be on the roads; and the ne pas jolie, the least attractive of all, must be hidden from sight, wearing the giant rabbit costume.
Neil - smashes and grabs.
First thing in the morning, at the stage starts, La Caravane accommodates the early risers by dishing out fresh Grand Mere coffee - perfect if you're still half-asleep and the day is still cold and damp. At the stage finish the hat and tat parade passes at a leisurely pace so that no-one goes without un beau chapeau along the finishing straight. Even along the route, as the caravan races past, the hats and sweets and cheese-dips and water are still thrown to the road-side supporters - at 64 kph, the same speed as EuroNCAP car crash tests. Whilst hats and packets of sweets are lightweight and not at all aerodynamic, they flop to the floor where they're snatched up by grabbing hands. However, a 500ml missile-shaped bottle of water travelling at 40 miles/hour travels through the air with tremendous efficiency and is not to be grabbed lightly.
But it all must be grabbed because, no matter how tatty, tacky, and tasteless the stuff is, and no matter how much you don't want a Skoda sun-hat, you must have one. Because other people have them. You look around the assorted people about you and, despite their different shapes and sizes, their different nationalities and ages, they all have one thing in common: they have Skoda hats. And you don't. You shout "Ici!" at the young people enthusiastically throwing Skoda hats to the people over the road, but you're ignored. You make a grab for a hat, thrown from La Caravane as it speeds by, but it is intercepted by a feisty octogenarian Breton widow with more hairs on her chin than you, and you've been in an identity parade for men with beards.
The vehicles staffed by the enthusiastic young people cheerfully throwing handfuls of freebies at the waiting crowds travel for the whole 3600km of Le Tour. Most summer jobs involve fruit-picking, or factories, or shelf-stacking, but in France, each and every day for almost the whole of July, attractively-tanned, white-toothed students (I'm guessing) volunteer to be harnessed to a Deux Cheveux speeding from sea-level to ski-resorts in blistering heat and driving rain. There is a hierarchy amongst the sponsors' models giving away merchandise: the most beautiful people are chosen for the podium; the very attractive will be working sales; the average will be on the roads; and the ne pas jolie, the least attractive of all, must be hidden from sight, wearing the giant rabbit costume.
Neil - smashes and grabs.
Monday, July 10, 2006
Multiple By-pass
This year the Tour of Britain finishes in London, on the same course as where next year's Tour de France starts before moving on to Le Tunnel. The Tour of Britain is unlikely to capture the imagination of Le Tour de France. Yes, there will be the start and finish lines crowded with people baying for the sprinters as they race for the Capital stage. However, along its routes there is unlikely to be the same village support for The Tour as there is for Le Tour because The Tour of Britain is unlikely to go through our towns and villages. Instead it will by-pass them, causing minimal disruption to the road transport infrastructure of a country which seemingly consists of little else but by-passes. For many, The Tour of Britain will be an inconvenience.
If you have the opportunity to watch Le Tour, then make the effort. Although it's not a spectator sport (you won't get to see 90 minutes of cycle-competition having camped yourself at the roadside for five hours) you participate in the spectacle, and are rewarded for your commitment and faith: Le Tour will go past. It may only be fleetingly, but it is in those moments as you cheer the breakaway (and then the chasing peleton) that you feel the same thrill as when your team scores. Only it's guaranteed, every time.
With football or rugby or tennis or cricket you invariably go to watch someone win. You invest time, money, and emotion with every pass, serve, and shot with no guarantee of success. Everything is wrapped up in the win. If your team fails, you feel the failure. With Le Tour it is about catching the slightest glimpse of something much bigger than you, the town, the cyclists, or even (mostly) France. The small towns of provincial France have great roads not because they have an efficient council system - bureaucracy is after all a French-stemmed word - but because Le Tour expects nothing less than perfect roads, and the towns don't want to disappoint for fear of being over-looked next time. Le Tour takes over July, and France.
The French national TV, the equivalent of BBC1, is dedicated to Le Tour, live, every day for three weeks. Given that a stage can involve over five hours and 250km (155 miles) of cycling, it is bizarre to think that an event lasting three weeks with international heroes at the peak of their sport can attract, at most, an hour on Freeview (second-class digital telly). The prime French channel will show five hours of cycling, and that is just for starters. Afterwards there is the same post-race analysis as you'd find with Match of the Day, there are phone-in radio shows, and the whole race is organised by the national sporting newspaper, L'Equipe. To the BBC Le Tour was a by-line: "American Floyd Landis won the Tour de France."
Neil - has been by-passed by so many things.
If you have the opportunity to watch Le Tour, then make the effort. Although it's not a spectator sport (you won't get to see 90 minutes of cycle-competition having camped yourself at the roadside for five hours) you participate in the spectacle, and are rewarded for your commitment and faith: Le Tour will go past. It may only be fleetingly, but it is in those moments as you cheer the breakaway (and then the chasing peleton) that you feel the same thrill as when your team scores. Only it's guaranteed, every time.
With football or rugby or tennis or cricket you invariably go to watch someone win. You invest time, money, and emotion with every pass, serve, and shot with no guarantee of success. Everything is wrapped up in the win. If your team fails, you feel the failure. With Le Tour it is about catching the slightest glimpse of something much bigger than you, the town, the cyclists, or even (mostly) France. The small towns of provincial France have great roads not because they have an efficient council system - bureaucracy is after all a French-stemmed word - but because Le Tour expects nothing less than perfect roads, and the towns don't want to disappoint for fear of being over-looked next time. Le Tour takes over July, and France.
The French national TV, the equivalent of BBC1, is dedicated to Le Tour, live, every day for three weeks. Given that a stage can involve over five hours and 250km (155 miles) of cycling, it is bizarre to think that an event lasting three weeks with international heroes at the peak of their sport can attract, at most, an hour on Freeview (second-class digital telly). The prime French channel will show five hours of cycling, and that is just for starters. Afterwards there is the same post-race analysis as you'd find with Match of the Day, there are phone-in radio shows, and the whole race is organised by the national sporting newspaper, L'Equipe. To the BBC Le Tour was a by-line: "American Floyd Landis won the Tour de France."
Neil - has been by-passed by so many things.
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