2025: Puglia to Rome — Against the Wind

Our route John and I enjoy the flexible routing approach to bike touring, the unpredictability, the sense of discovery and adventure. While I had an approximate route with planned stop-overs, we only changed one city. We adapted our route to reduce the distance, climbing, and traffic, not always successfully. Surprise detours and closures were caused by the heavy rains in Southern Italy. Days of warm dry weather shifted the week before our tour. We caught the end of a week of rain followed by 3 days of 20-25 mph headwinds.  Stuart, a former bike touring companion, cited the  Bad  Angel  and the   Good  Angel. The  Good  Angel usually appears after the  Bad  Angel. After 5 days of rain and wind, we had beautiful days of light breezes and 60-70 F temperatures. Our booking.com lodging worked out, often exceeding our expectations. And then spending 2 days lazing at the end with Marco and Isabelle, enjoying their warm hospitality was perfect....

When planning this tour, John requested 2 days to catch up with his long-time friends, Marco and Isabelle. They are your dream hosts, as they have a large comfortable home, relish guests, have traveled and lived all over the world, often host guests, are both gourmet cooks, especially traditional Italian dishes. Another plus, Isabelle is a professional translator, fluent in Italian, French, Spanish, and English, spent a year as an American Field Service exchange student in Baltimore.  John and I devote most of Tuesday morning, 15 October, cleaning, disassembling, and packing our bikes. Bye, bye stinky mud! The dishes are beginning to blur  with and emphasis on traditional dishes of Souther Italy, and many do not involve tomato sauce. Just some of the main courses: Tortolini with ground meat and cheese sauce Orecchiette pasta with broccoli and cheese sauce Osso buco over risotto  Chicory salad  Creme brulle  Chocolate torte Various regional red, rose, and white w...

  Quite Approximate. Google Maps initially showed 3 routes. After going on some poor trails, we largely reverted to John's Organic Maps route. Definitely not the "blue" route shown. Perfect weather again today—sun, 55-75 F, minimal wind. We did our best to route around central Rome, as our destination is a residence NE of Rome. We started at 9 am, stopped for cappuccino at 10:30, a panini at 11:45, and arrived before 4 pm.  Italian roads have a sort of accidental cobblestone surface, where the pavement surface on the right side of the lane is broken and/or patched and rides like cobblestones. With heavier vehicle traffic, we are forced to stay to the right, over the rough part. Cars routinely pass and cut in sharply to avoid oncoming vehicles. Looks worse that it is, unless they collide head-on and spin into us. Here, drivers have to be alert and we have had not issues. Touring with my trailer vs. panniers offers more flexibility. ut the trailer tires can pick up thorns a...

We mostly stuck to Google Maps today, with a few corrections from Organic Maps. Some of the roads were pretty obscure, but as we near Rome, we see more cars, homes in better condition, and businesses. I did not realize that we were gently climbing, mostly up-rollers, so I feel a bit better about my sluggishness. Modern Valmontone is known for Valmontone Outlet, a shopping center built like an American town, with squares, buildings, streets, a fake train-station, etc. Near this complex is the Rainbow Magic Land amusement park. We rode past both. This is Sunday and many businesses are closed. Catholicism rules, but we did not see anyone going to or leaving services. We did not find an open coffee shop or restaurant, so we stopped at the edge of Valmontone and bought excellent cannelloni for lunch.  Most days I tell lodging owners that we will arrive between 3 and 4 pm and have been fairly accurate. Today we arrived at 2 pm, checked in, and I finally cought up with my blog posts. I've...