Also is it a good idea to buy a bike in Rlme or to ship one?
fmb320 on
The best part of this tour by far is the Alps. For this reason alone I wouldn’t want to do this route. Can you start in Scotland and end in Rome? That would be so much better imo. Rome is just a far more appealing finishing line than Glasgow to me.
WillShakeSpear1 on
Are you following the Via Francigena? That’s the 1,000 year old crusader route from Canterbury cathedral to the Vatican. If you went the other way you’d be a pilgrim with some discounts at local restaurants and hostels. Also, you get to skip the line to get into St. Peter’s if you had your pilgrim passport stamped along the way.
Oh, yeah, and you get all your sins forgiven as a Catholic so you get into heaven. I don’t know about getting into heaven, but saving 2 hours of line waiting to get into St. Peter’s was pretty cool when we did this route from Siena to Rome.
Top-Fig4352 on
There are so many awesome north-south alpine pass roads that it is hard to pick a route. But it looks like you intend to cross Switzerland in the east, so I would recommend Malojapass and Albulapass.
And the town of Appenzell would be worth a visit.
maenad2 on
Looks perfect. Just a few things:
1. You seem to be following some of the busiest and most famous bike paths all the way. Get off the famous routes a few times and aim for less popular routes. If you’re surrounded by bike tourists the whole way, you lose the sense of adventure.
2. It’s a long way: assume 3 months rather than two, unless you’re very fast. I would also recommend having an open airline ticket. If you arrive earlier than you expect, you can go all the way north to john o’groats.
3. Are you planning to take the train from europe to the UK? Take the ferry. It’ll make the trip feel more like you did the whole thing. I had to put my bike in a car once to cross 200m of border no-man’s-land and I still feel like I can’t say I cycled all the way across Europe because of that!
4. I don’t know about Italy, but Germany and Belgium have a bunch of apps and websites a little like warmshowers and airbnb (the original airbnb, where people rent out a room in their house.) Dig around and see what you can find. Some of them are great!
5 Comments
Also is it a good idea to buy a bike in Rlme or to ship one?
The best part of this tour by far is the Alps. For this reason alone I wouldn’t want to do this route. Can you start in Scotland and end in Rome? That would be so much better imo. Rome is just a far more appealing finishing line than Glasgow to me.
Are you following the Via Francigena? That’s the 1,000 year old crusader route from Canterbury cathedral to the Vatican. If you went the other way you’d be a pilgrim with some discounts at local restaurants and hostels. Also, you get to skip the line to get into St. Peter’s if you had your pilgrim passport stamped along the way.
Oh, yeah, and you get all your sins forgiven as a Catholic so you get into heaven. I don’t know about getting into heaven, but saving 2 hours of line waiting to get into St. Peter’s was pretty cool when we did this route from Siena to Rome.
There are so many awesome north-south alpine pass roads that it is hard to pick a route. But it looks like you intend to cross Switzerland in the east, so I would recommend Malojapass and Albulapass.
And the town of Appenzell would be worth a visit.
Looks perfect. Just a few things:
1. You seem to be following some of the busiest and most famous bike paths all the way. Get off the famous routes a few times and aim for less popular routes. If you’re surrounded by bike tourists the whole way, you lose the sense of adventure.
2. It’s a long way: assume 3 months rather than two, unless you’re very fast. I would also recommend having an open airline ticket. If you arrive earlier than you expect, you can go all the way north to john o’groats.
3. Are you planning to take the train from europe to the UK? Take the ferry. It’ll make the trip feel more like you did the whole thing. I had to put my bike in a car once to cross 200m of border no-man’s-land and I still feel like I can’t say I cycled all the way across Europe because of that!
4. I don’t know about Italy, but Germany and Belgium have a bunch of apps and websites a little like warmshowers and airbnb (the original airbnb, where people rent out a room in their house.) Dig around and see what you can find. Some of them are great!