Ambulando

In 2001 I was living in Colchester, a small town in Essex, a one hour train ride from London and one hour bus ride to Stansted. There was an University and some military training camps.
After a few intense months in Dublin, I was lost in the middle of the English countryside. With a job, a lot of time on my side and nothing else.
In such situation I focused on reading.
So I stumbled on a book from a writer I never heard of. I bought the book just for the title. THE WRONG WY HOME from a Peter Moore. I always buy books because the title has get on my imagination, proof of the fact that marketing people know their job (unfortunately).
This guy Peter Moore went all the way from London to Sidney trying not to get on a flight. It was a revelation.
I wanted to do the same. I decided there and then that I was going to Australia by the same way. It was not MY wrong way home (by the way, from Lecce to London OVERLAND I already did it, so it could count for the reverse as well) but it was a *wrong* way somewhere.
I already started to think about how and when and why, the why mostly to give something to munch about to relatives and friends back at home.
It was July 2001.
In a few months that route would be closed by the events of the 11st of September. And so I decided to go to Mexico.
But I never left apart the idea to go to Australia overland. I just needed to think another way round.
Well, solution was quite easy so I did not really need to think a lot: if you cannot go by south, go by north.
So instead of the hippy trail chosen by Peter Moore, I would have done the Michele Strogoff way, from Moscow to Irkutsk, and then the Genghis Khan way, from Ulaan Bataar to Beijing, and then the Marco Polo way, from Beijing to Singapore, even if I have never actually known if Marco Polo went to Singapore or not.
But we have to be flexible and bend reality to fit in our bag.
Ten years passed from when I dreamed of this trip, and now I am on the road finally. I just added a few extra kilometers, and started from Berlin.
Two days ago.

PS: after that first one, I read all the other books by Peter Moore. He also loves Vespa