the "Rising Star": Majella tour.

Ever since we discovered the region of Abruzzo years ago, we have been under its spell and have gone back time and again, to revel in its beauty and the vastness of such an unspoilt land, all fairly close to home.
One place I had wanted to see for myself was the Majella national park, yet another huge territory of stunning landscapes and wild natural beauty but for some reason our plans were thwarted more than once. This year, we have finally managed to make it over there and get a first taste of this majestic park.

As I said, having been to Abruzzo several times over the last few years, we have become familiar with how the place looks (to put it plainly), and what the aesthetics of those mountains are.
On some level, I guess I must have expected to encounter the same "look and feel", and I think that was a good thing, because when we finally entered the park I was rendered simply and utterly speechless by a unique landscape, far more beautiful than I could have imagined, or than I can describe for that matter, and very different from what we had seen in our previous trips.

Perhaps the biggest surprise was finding Witold astride his latest machine, an ultra-futuristic early 90s BMW K100RS, outside my garage the evening before we were set to leave; he was in Germany and although I knew he was making his way back, I also knew that he would not have been back in time for the trip, so imagine my joy when I learned that he had made excellent time and would have joined us on this adventure.

Marco on his part has finally taken delivery of the latest incarnation of his BMW, now an unstoppable 980cc "Sports-Scrambler", that got the uncle Fester treatment to sort out a considerable number of niggling little things that were never quite right. The electrics on this particular bike seem to be stubbornly recalcitrant, and it is probably the last hurdle to clear in the near future, but all in all everything worked out ok, despite Marco loosing his ignition key at high speed on the autostrada! This happened because the switch was obviously faulty and no longer able to secure the key in the 'On' position.

Thankfully the switch didn't cut off the engine, or it could have spelled disaster. However, it meant that the guy had to disconnect the battery every time we stopped for more than a few minutes, a real pain in the ass.

A new switch is being procured, so hopefully that will be sorted for good.

Here are some more photos from along the way, I'm really at a loss for words and I think it'll be a while before I really digest all that we have seen and experienced along the way.

We asked a group of pilgrims to take our photo, these folks were trekking across the park on foot, with all their gear on their backs and in quiet veneration of the land and the divine. I guarantee they experienced far more than we did on the bikes... Also, notice Marco's new and far classier handlebar compared to the one he had before:

Do not be alarmed by what may seem like a thousand yard stare, I am simply planning (yes, already!) the next tour of this beautiful park:

If all goes well, next year we'll do this again, and we'll organize things in the light of what we learned and figured out this time around.
For instance, I think the way to do this right is three days, two nights. Hear me out, day 1 is for getting to the campsite from Rome, we'll make a nice trip of it, stop for lunch somewhere, take our time and enjoy some downtime at the campsite in the evening.

We then leave early on day 2 from the campsite, and do the loop with plenty of time to stop for photos, a drink here and there, lunch and generally soaking it all in. For example, one detour we didn't have time for this time is near the top of this peak:

By the time the sun sets we'll be back at the campsite, instead of stuck up a mountain in a deep dark forest like this time. Yeah, I used the word "adventure" on purpose earlier. Finally, day 3 is the return leg, where you can gun it all the way if you need to be back early, or you can take it easy and enjoy some more time on the road, to really appreciate what you've seen. Anyone interested? It'll probably be around the end of May, or beginning of June...