I had a chance to make small road trip, I call it road trip even that I made most of transitions by plane.
Some people near of me are wondering do I think only wakeboarding, worrying that I don't get any cultural experiences etc... Yes it's lifestyle and I'm thinking it a lot, but it brings me also to many places, where I can get every kind of experiences.
The first Italy:
The first place was Bergamon, city near of Milan in the north of Italy. It's easy and quite cheap to get Bergamon by Ryanair, though are pricing for board bag more than ticket itself.
Most of the travelers just fly to Bergamon, because of cheap flights and then go to Milan or some other more popular places.
I must to say that Bergamon is well worth to visit.
Especially if you like old buildings, roads and walls, which are all made from natural stones. I had accommodation in upper town, which is old part of Bergamon, mostly from 12th and 13th century, but there are some buildings from time of Roman Empire.
For me upper town of Bergamon and its streets brings to my mind old town of Stockholm.
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It's possible to drive by serpentine road up to upper town, but much more exciting way is to use cable car.
Picture and name of station above! |
Streets of upper town:
In Bergamon food was the best what I got in Italy!
Upper town is full of small nice restaurants, with local wines and delicious deserts. I stopped to one street restaurant in upper town and got the most delicious local produced red wine (mix of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon) You can choose house wine from a big assortment of bottled wines. I took just what they recommended and they chose well!
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| Assortment locals |
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Used corks tell that someone else has
been enjoying these delicious wines as well. |
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| Latte Macchiato and pie with berries nammm. |
Then after couple days I took flight to south of Italy. Plan was to go Pescara and Hot Lake cable park. From Bergamon is possible to flight directly to Pescara, but I chose to fly first to Roma. I've been earlier in Roma and seen all possible tourist attractions. I wanted to drive through of Italy "leg" to the east coast (from Roma to Pescara). I rented a car and drove through of tunnels and the snow-clad mountains, this was really nice experience.
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| Pity! Photo only by phone |
Noonday arrived to Hot Lake!
Say goodbye to the congested wake-parks and enjoy breathtaking landscapes of the Italian countryside!
Hot Lake has not so many obstacles, you can see most of them in the picture above. There is still fun-box outside of this picture , so 4 Unit obstacles altogether. Atmosphere is really relaxing and peacefully, very friendly people. Local guys told that they were still 2 days ago riding in the morning by snowboards (mountains behind) and afternoon riding by wakeboard here in Hot Lake!!!
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I saw many turtles during riding, they were swimming and diving everywhere.
This is a tough one, who wanted to try kicker. We all know that turtles are slow animals and this poor one got only to the beginning of kicker. Swam away when riding started. |
I wasn't also anymore alone, Kirill Karnov and Wake Experience camp arrived and my girl as well. So what could be better?
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Riding was quite successful, especially kicker and some movements on the flat-bar.
Hot-Lake has also really good pop and space for air tricks. |
I got still more spiritual and cultural experiences! Girls wanted to take me with them, I think not for a company, but because I had a car.)))
9 km from Hot Lake is Volto Santo church and world-famous Manoppello image. It is suggested to be the cloth placed over Jesus face in the tomb and the image was a by-product of the forces unleashed by the resurrection.
Photo below from church is staged!!! )))
Serbia:
After a few days in Hot Lake I drove back to Rome and to airport. I continued to Serbia...
Serbia shortly: Country side, good local produced food, music and musicians! Picture below!
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| Music, song and dance... something else needed?)) |
Turkey:
A few days in Serbia and I continued to Turkey and Hip-Notics!
In Hip-Notics I had only wakeboarding culture with good company: Harri and Aliina from Finland, Sharmy and Jen from England to name a few.
I didn't shoot photos almost at all this time, I took my camera only for a one thing what is happening very rarely in cable parks.
Cable was shaking after some strong rider, who kept handle after falling down in the kicker and released it with the result that cable twisted (picture below). I haven't seen this kind of earlier.
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| Well Baris got a chance to ride little bit by water-jet and problem was solved quite fast. |
I want to highlight that this strong rider wasn't me, I'm destroying lot of boards and bindings, but not cables anymore.)))
Riding was successful, especially I'm glad for my switch ts fr 720's and backside 720's!
Germany:
(Unfortunately pictures only by phone)
I continued to Hamburg. I've been also earlier and I knew that there are crowded wakeparks.
I was riding only 1 day and I made it in Cable park Harburg.
I must to say that I don't recommend! Really crowded, during 1,5 hours I got 4 starts and laps were limited to 3!!! Long cable (800-900m), huge lake with big waves and really small amount obstacles.(((
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| Queue was mostly longer than in this picture and also all obstacles what exist you can see from this picture. |
After riding I visited in Luneberg, which is old city about 50km from Hamburg. My friend lives there and showed little bit around. Really beautiful and clean city, old buildings, which are all made from bricks, almost all buildings are renovated and protected.
I had a chance to see also twin ship lift, what is said to be the biggest in Europe. Built 1974 and was that time the biggest in the world, before Chinese started to make all the highest and the biggest things.
This giant system lifts ships with water and actually the part of the whole canal, giving this way to ships connection to some Elbe canals.
After Germany I went to my homeland Finland and had a chance to test one new System 2.0 cable, which is built up to very near of my earlier home city Nokia. About this I will write in the next blog...
