We're touring the Amalfi coast and this is my motorcycle diary. It started as a simple idea: we'd stay at the newly renovated Hotel Caruso in Ravello and cruise the coast. We'd find the nooks free of tourists, the places where Italians took their holidays. We wanted to find Ripley's Italy. And now we're here, speeding down the hill. A very modern couple: me and my blonde locks at the helm, my Jude Law on the back. Our friends thought we were crazy and I'm beginning to think so too.
The roads are bum-clenchingly narrow with a sheer drop to the sea. The buses show no mercy; the Fiats overtake on blind corners. But the sun's setting and we're gulping in warm air, scented with lemons, diesel and sea salt. With every challenge come risks, but we're reaping the rewards. The feeling of freedom that comes with being on two wheels is overwhelming.
We pull over in Atrani. It's a maze of houses jutting out of the rock face. Nut-brown children play in the fountain, grandmothers gossip, young women dolled up to the nines walk tall beside their deeply macho, possessive boyfriends. We feel like part of the furniture, as I park our sky-blue 1950s Vespa, that genius piece of design imbued with all the elegance of post-war Italy.
We're sitting in a trattoria eating crisp zucchini fritti and calzone filled with artichokes. Gangs of self-conscious pubescent boys whiz by on their scooters, trying to attract the girls' attention. Helmet-wearing only became legal in Italy a few years ago. Until then, wing mirrors were for checking your barnet and Italian girls would blow hairdryers in their faces to check that their manes were scooter-ready. The poor, vain Italians are still getting used to covering up their thick, glossy locks, and the current fashion is to have the helmet pushed to the back of your head, straps under your ears, a tuft of hair at the front.
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Gear is important when you're on a bike. To Jude's horror, I insist on wearing baseball boots with my pretty Gwyneth dresses: I don't want to ruin my feet if we get in a scrape. A sweater's a good idea, too, as the temperature can drop when the coastal wind gets up. Wraparound sunglasses stop your eyes streaming, and if you smile too hard you'll wind up swallowing flies.
The next day I'm feeling confident, so we're heading to Positano, a good 50-minute journey from Ravello. Winding along the coast, the view is breathtaking. The locals look shocked to see a big, macho man riding pillion. Mr Law is my scooter bitch. But for southern Italians, bulls are bulls, and they just don't get it. Some are waving, some pointing. The "pigs" have decided to pull us over. They say Jude has to put his shirt back on (he's been catching the rays), but they just want a closer look at us, this odd English couple. We stop at a petrol station only to hear on the pump assistant's radio that London is being bombed. We drive on in shock, thinking of all those we know who journey by Tube. We full-throttle it: we need the news.
Positano unfurls before us. It is heart-stoppingly beautiful, the sugared-almond-coloured houses tumble from the sides of the hill, covered in pink bougainvillea, sliced with tiny, cobbled streets just big enough for a Vespa. It's the Ripley dream, but BBC World News at the Hotel Sirenuse brings us back to our world.
Lunch is five types of plump mozzarella balls, wafer-thin parma ham and spaghetti vongole. We take the steep steps down to the beach for a lazy swim afterwards and the most peculiar sight lies before us. Two scantily clad teenagers are frolicking in the waves, kissing and frotting each other. Photographers, stylists and art directors watch, along with everyone else. The couple are too fat and ugly to be movie stars. Jude suggests they've been on Italian reality TV and are doing an Italian Hello! shoot. But it turns out the couple have just got engaged and these are their engagement shots. The Italian ego knows no boundaries.
Aside from bad photo shoots, the only other inelegant thing about Positano is the Americans: swarms of gum-chewing, cap-wearing fatties. We're getting desperate. Even Ravello, home to Gore Vidal and the spot where D H Lawrence wrote Lady Chatterley's Lover, is full of American culture vultures. And Capri, with all its fancy Prada shops, is worse. It's like being plunged into a septic Yank tank.
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It's the last night and we've found it: Cetara. A hotel-free, tourist-free, American-free Italian fishing village. It's been an auspicious evening. We missed being taken out by a landslide by millimetres. The rocks crashed down behind us, nearly clipping Jude's helmet. It was a narrow escape. Our hearts are still beating hard as we motor down the cobbled streets of Cetara.
We have dinner at the only restaurant in town, the San Pietro, where we eat immaculately seared tuna caught that day. Our table overlooks balconies where weather-beaten Italian mammas hang out their husbands' pastel smalls. Below in the square, the husbands play cards, and all around scamper children and mutty dogs. This is it. We've found what we've come for. As the vino slips down and the fritti misti settles, we get a sense of mission completed. We've reached the end of this road.
How to get there
Alice B-B travelled to Amalfi with Carrier. Three nights' b&b at the Hotel Caruso, Ravello, from £1,095 per person, based on two sharing, and including flights with British Airways and transfers. Tel: 0161 491 7650, or visit www.carrier.co.uk.
Continued on page 2: Biker's guide to the galaxy
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Continued from page 1
Biker's guide to the galaxy
On the latest touring bikes, being taken for a ride is pure pleasure, says Simon de Burton
The upsurge in the number of people who have been forced onto two wheels through the frustrations of travelling by public transport or car has resulted in many of us getting the biking bug.
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The Motorcycle Industry Association (MCIA) reported a 10% increase in UK sales of "sport touring" bikes in 2005, and a 32% increase in sales of "adventure sport" bikes, large, comfortable machines with off-road capability, long-range fuel tanks and large luggage systems. The MCIA attributes much of the current enthusiasm for "overlanding" by bike to the Long Way Round tour, undertaken in 2004 by the actor Ewan McGregor and his chum Charley Boorman, who rode a brace of BMWs 20,000 miles from London to New York via Russia and Alaska.
But you don't need to ford rivers or ride through uncharted territory to enjoy the freedoms of motorcycle touring, as I reaffirmed when I was invited to ride Triumph's class-leading sport tourer, the Sprint ST, from London to northern Italy for a weekend at the Varano race circuit near Parma.
In the old days, this 800-mile trip would have been traumatic, tiring, and tainted by the likelihood of mechanical failure. But on the Sprint ST (below) it was pure pleasure, thanks to a 1050cc bulletproof engine, comfortable riding position and wind-cheating fairing. The benefits of a biking vacation are many: you can enjoy mile after mile alone with your own thoughts, see things that might pass unnoticed in a car and, should you start to feel bored, there's always an injection of exhilaration waiting at the end of the throttle.
A motorcycle makes dipping in and out of towns and villages easier, and Mediterranean Europe is usually well served for parking places. Now motorcycle-tour operators are offering the freedom of two wheels to far-flung destinations such as India, New Zealand and South America for anyone with a licence and a sense of adventure. Jewel in the Crown Holidays, for example, offers biking tours in Goa and the Himalayas. "We use Indian-built Enfield Bullet machines, which are ideal for the rough roads," says its co-owner, Steve Keay. "It's a great way to escape the tourist trail and see the 'real' India."
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How to get there
Simon de Burton travelled with MotoExpress. For tours on Triumph motorcycles in the UK and Spain, tel: 01296 640 875; www.motoexpress. co.uk. For the Sprint ST, visit www.triumphmotorcycles.com.
For Jewel in the Crown, visit www.jewelholidays.com. For White Rose tours throughout Europe, visit www.motorcycletours.com. For global tours, visit www.ridetheworld.com