Introduction
Rome - Florence - Rome, in 15 days...
Welcome to the diary from our 2004 trip to Italy. Our planned route was to travel up from Rome, following the coast for the first few days, then cutting in to Florence through Tuscany. We'd get back to Rome by looping down through Umbria.
We planned the trip by using Lonely Planet's Cycling Italy, which gave us some ideas for routes, and got town and city info from the Italy Rough Guide. Then I bought the very good TCI maps of Toscana, Umbria and Lazio. I planned the routes on these maps and copied them and laminated them to give us maps for each stage, with notes on points of interest (like museums and bike shops, and the hotels or campsites we hoped to stay in) and some navigation tips. These I attached to my handlebars so that they'd be easy to use. This turned out to work really well, although I had to go off the map a bit when our route changed halfway through the trip.
On our last trip in France we learnt a few things. Firstly that if possible try and avoid train travel. Yes, it is possible to take your bike on the train. But its easier not to have to worry about finding the trains that accept bikes, and having to lug your bike on and off of them. So we planned a circular route that took us straight from the airport, and only on the last day did we catch a taxi with the bikes in the back. Another thing we learnt was that it helps to have your maps and notes handy where you can see them. Last time I had to stop to fish my guide book out all the time. The laminated maps/notes worked superbly.
We also found in France that too many nights in a row spent in campsites could get frustrating, especially if the campsites weren't that nice or if the weather was nasty. So for this trip we planned about half campsites and half hotels. This worked out quite well too. Campsites were nice when there were laundry facilities, and also when one got tired of restaurant meals. Hotels were nice when the weather was crap, and on those days when one was really buggered. The combination worked well, and having the tent with us meant we never really had to worry about not finding any accomodation at all. If we really had to we'd have been able to rough it in a field.
Our planned itinerary was as follows (with our estimated distances):
Thu 22 April: Ride from the airport to the campsite at Castelfusano, just outside Rome (11km)
Fri 23 April: Ride up the coast to Santa Marinella (75km)
Sat 24 April: Carry on parallel to the coast to Montalto Marina (51km)
Sun
25 April: Head inland to Pitigliano (57km)
Mon 26 April: Carry on North to Montalcino, a hard day (76km)
Tue 27 April: Then to Siena (58km)
Wed 28 April: Through the unknown town of Castelfiorentino (58km)
Thu 29 April: To Florence (41km)
Fri 30 April: A day to explore Florence
Sat 1 May: Eastwards towards Poppi (57km)
Sun 2 May: Then to Sansepolcro (64km)
Mon 3 May: South-East to Gubbio
(64km)
Tue 4 May: Then to Assisi (48km)
Wed 5 May: A long one to Orvieto (at least 87km)
Thu 6 May: Another long one to Trevignano Romano (89km)
Fri 7 May: A short hop to Rome (38km)
Sat 8 May - Mon 10 May: No riding in Rome!
Our bikes were the same ones we used last time - my 10-year old Kona Cindercone and Nicole's more recent Giant Yukon. I had panniers front and rear, and Nicole had them just at the back. This gave us more than enough carrying capacity, which we'd fill up with shopping along the way.
We flew British Airways from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and Emirates via Dubai to Rome. There wasn't much time for shopping in Dubai on the way there, but we had a few hours in the small hours of the morning on the way home. Emirates was nothing special - accomodation or food-wise, so I don't know what they brag about in their adverts. In fact on the flight to Dubai some of the cabin crew were quite rude and impatient.