Day 17: Rieti, Abruzzo

The two weeks were full of sunshine - weather for the sandals. I followed the westcoast with all the ups and downs - just made to give the cyclist these great views. 

I use the normal roads (not the motorways, not these very small side roads). Traffic is somerimes intensive, but less bad as I thought. Especially at these narrow roads of the Amalfi coast. 

I tried the Magaretha Pizza in Neaples, at 'L'Antica da Michele' in the place where it's been invented (they say). 

From the pizza to the beer. My First 1000 came up:

Another 250 km further North on the coast, I reached Rome, made my way over the river Tiber

to the home of papa Francesco, the Vatican. 

Considering the hotel prices and that I had been a couple of times in incredible Rome before, I left the next day and rode into the Appennin mountains in order to cross over to the Adrian coast. 

The sun had tanken a nap and the sky gave me rain and hail instead. 

I am talking a break in Rieti at the moment. 

Day 2: Sun over Sicily

My friend from yesterday, the rain, was only seen in the first half an hour today. Then came the sun. Nice.

The northern coast oft Sicily is in princible flat. It is a coast and the water reaches land at 0. All the time and everywhere. It's these little ups and downs close to the water that makes the difference. 

I like to pedal here. The power in my legs is not that Great at the moment, but it is getting better every day...

For the record: Santa Flavio to Castel du Tusa - 83km

Day 1: riding in the rain

The alarm went in at 3:30am. Oh yes, I was booked in a pretty early flight. 

This turned out to ne a pretty good thing as the Italien air traffic controller Startelf their strike at 10 o'clock. 

Fron the airport Palermo it is possible to pedal mostly in side roads to Palermo 

The city, like all bigger cities are hart to cross - no signs tell  the right way. I found a cheap B&B in Santa Vlabio. 

After a small nap, the sind came and this is what I belive will bei tomorrow too. 

Caffee is my elecir. 

Route - Map

So what ist the planned route of this trip?

The reason for it is that my legs needed the road again. The route is caused by my wish to see the southern european small countries of Vatican, San Marino, Monaco and Andorra. That gave the skeleton of the trip. After some small adaptions to what I now think may be nice, that is what the planned routes looks like:

Palermo - Barcelona - as planned before knowing what will come...

I guess this will be around 4.000km, so at least 2 month of Southern Europe!

Now I have to do the last preparations and go to bed early as the my alarm is set for 3:40 tomorrow morning.

The trip starts tomorrow

I just brought the bicycle and my luggage to Frankfurt airport. I like the feature of checking all the stuff in the evening before.

Frankfurt airport

Everything wend smooth, if I hadn't forgotten the Bike-box at home... So I checked in the bike w/o a cover - hope to the it bak in one piece in Palermo.

as protected as possible w/o the box

Now, I am ready for the trip from Palermo through Italy - France and Spain to Barcelona.

official checked in ... look at the boarding time ...