Wednesday, May 3, 2006

Cycling Rome to Sicily

Mt. Etna
St. Pete's square
Vesuvius
Which way?
Hiking or biking?
Damn, that burns!
The route
Typical village

Twins?
Just another dull day of cycling in Italy
Leaving our camping spot


Just as fast as all the mopeds
Camping in an old olive grove


Amalfi coast
The coliseum....there's a better one in Tunisia
Gellato!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Best ice cream on the planet
Somewhere in Rome
Baby Bean



Hi Everyone!

Just another adventure cycling report coming your way, this time from Rome to Sicily. We biked straight out of the da Vinci airport around noon and cycled 70 before dinner and about 1400km total in 2 weeks. We stuck to the west coast all the way down and had consistent tailwinds from the NW throughout the trip. We wild camped all but 2 nights and ended the trip with ride up to 1700m on the E flank of Mt Etna (too much snow to scramble above 2600m...summit is 3300m) and then caught the train back to Rome, where we spent twice the amount in 3 days than the whole 2 weeks cycling!


Contrary to the stereotype image of the Italian driver, we found them to be very courteous and had no issues on the narrow roads. We powered our bikes with frequent (over)indulgences in pizza and gelato and were able to get by with our Spanish, as the the two languages are closely related. Our flight back to Benghazi was cancelled and Libyan Arab Airlines put us up in the Marriot, where we gorged ourselves even more! 100 Euro lunch and dinner, with the bill costing Libyan Arab more than it cost us to travel Rome to Sicily for 2 weeks! The Pope was no where to be seen, but Maria was very pleased with her visit to the vatican and all the souvenir shopping inside. Enuf. Explanations are on the JPEG tags.

Steve, Maria and "Mr. Bean"