Introduction

We've spent the winter planning another ambitious cycle trip. In an attempt to beat the inevitable march of time we are ignoring our ageing bones and stiffening muscles and aged 65 and 75 have bought a one-way flight to Brindisi for two people and two bikes. We've also booked a ferry just over six weeks later from Hook of Holland to Harwich. The plan is to cycle the 3000km between the two.....

We don't want to rush north from Puglia, so will start by riding south to the "Heel of Italy" at Santa Maria di Leuca. After a few days pootling around Puglia we'll head north on the Adriatic coast. We'll take a detour around the magnificent Gargagno Peninsula ("the Spur"), before heading inland into the Majella and Gran Sasso national parks. These look stunning in my armchair research, but I fear will test our muscles to the limit with lots of climbing. We also hope that by mid-May there won't be much lingering snow at 1600 metres or so that the road reaches in the Gran Sasso.

Santa Maria di Leuca

We'll descend from these lofty heights into Umbria and Tuscany visiting Spoleto, Siena and Florence (amongst other Italian wonders).

A bit more climbing in the Apennines will bring us to the flat Po Valley which we'll cross via  Modena and Cremona before reaching the Swiss border just after Como. Swiss Cycle Route 3 goes from here to Basel over the Gotthard Pass (all downhill from here surely!!) and we'll follow it all the way through Switzerland.
Then into France and across Alsace to the Moselle Valley and into Luxembourg. After that we'll follow the Vennbahn, an old railway line converted to a cycle route which roughly follows the Belgian/German border all the way to Aachen.

Hook of Holland

From there it's only a few days through Holland to the ferry home from the Hook of
Holland.

We intend to camp most nights. Unlike our trip around Spain last year there seem to be plenty of camp sites and we have planned a route and schedule around these.

That's the plan - we may be mad or over-ambitious. Time will tell! I'll be updating this blog regularly after we set off on 11th May.