Monday 11.04.2011 – The Ionian Queen docked an hour late into Brindisi, but who cares, we are in Italy. We met an Australian couple on board named Karen & Nick from Sydney who were on their first holiday to Europe (Nick had been to Greece as a child). They had already been to Greece and were now on their way to Italy and the UK – good one Karen & Nick.

Soon after arrival we loaded up the Pommie Ducati bike and Greg rode it off the ship – what a fright! The ramp from the ferry is large enough to take semi-trailers and it slopes at about a 20 degree angle down to the dock and was about 20 metres long. Greg followed a very large truck with trailer down the ramp whilst Kerrie walked off. The ramp was VERY slippery and Greg found it extremely difficult to keep the bike from sliding not only forward but sideways. As long as momentum was maintained forward/downward all was OK, but any need to stop or slow had potential disaster written all over it with a real chance of dropping the bike. Of course, right on schedule, the large truck/trailer decided to stop at the bottom of the ramp causing Greg into a mild (read extreme) state of panic thinking he was going to slide into the trailer of just slip over and drop the bike. Fortunately he did neither, displaying his excellent riding skills combined with a healthy dose of good luck, he managed to keep everything shiney side up and made the quay side to meet Kerrie and only slightly agitated.

Remembering the Turkish customs clearance time (3 days) and the Greek customs clearance time (an hour made short with English speaking John's help but probably longer without), Greg thought Italian customs clearance might be another drawn out procedure. The customs guy was a young officious looking dude with movie star good looks (not that Kerrie noticed) who could have made life difficult for us. So Greg, ever the diplomat, said to him with a winning smile when he was checking our passports; "Valentino ROSSI - uno numero). The customs man looked curiously at us and waved us through - either not understanding Greg's attempt at international diplomacy, or more likely as Kerrie put it, perhaps he was a Loris CAPIROSSI or Max BIAGGI fan!

We then punched into Tom the destination of Salerno, which is about an hour south of Naples, having decided to base ourselves there for the next two nights. We stopped for a coffee off the autostrada and met a guy from Naples who had honeymooned in Australia 5 years ago. His mother in law thought the 'Pommie Ducati' was magnifico! We agree, of course. Greg studied the menu closely and reckoned Rabbit Stew was a local favourite - what do you think?

We noticed that the Italian Autostradas do not provide much in the way of safe, off road parking for emergency breakdown. The national speed limit for the Autostrada is 130 kph, which eveyone notoriously ignores and exceeds with regularity. Have a look at the attached photos (if you don't believe us) and hope you never have a breakdown there! We followed the Autostrada north to Bari, then west across the southern Italian boot and then dropped down into Salerno.

We had previously stayed at Salerno in 2007 when we toured Europe riding our Honda Deauville 650cc tourer. Then we stayed comfortably in a 14th century convent and now a youth hostel. We also remember fondly eating at a restaurant with a spill over, outside covered eatery area beside the restaurant which we found to our amusement was also a used alley way frequented by scooter riding locals, particularly smartly dressed young bucks with their elegantly coiffured young ladies as pillions.

We checked in to the Grand Hotel, secured the 'Pommie Ducati', safe but all alone in a nice, dry underground garage (at 5 euro or $7 per night extra but then nothing is too good for our trusting British steed) and then set on foot to find our convent and restaurant from 2007.

We noticed that scooter parking is very well catered for in Salerno - as it should be given that bikes and cars on an almost a one to one ratio.

We found the convent after a several wrong turns and dead ends

and then located the "scooter" restaurant as we call it.

There was a group of 10 American senior citizens checking out the menu and accepted our advice to eat their based on our 2007 reference. This group of seniors visit a different location in Europe for about a week every year. They know how to enjoy life that's for sure.

Sure enough and right on cue - a scooter exercising its right of way!

Salerno, like most European cities and towns, doesn't come alive until about 8.00 pm and it was no different. For us, however, the day was done. Tomorrow - the Almalfi Coast.