Le Tour de France 2010
Will I cross its path in 2010? Probably not, but it does head in the same rough direction as me from north to south…. an alternative route to follow to Italy?
Australia calling
I forwarded Jean-Marie’s detailed maps to my two contacts in Australia and received the following replies: AndrewI only have a brief minute to reply, but thank you ever so much for these maps!!!! Outstanding details!!! I’ll reply in more details shortly. As we are overdue some enthusiastic conversation […]
Brussels to Aosta on the EuroVelo 5
Jean-Marie Vion has come up trumps with the map that you can find in the previous post. He writes: Bonjour Andrew,Voici l’itinéraire qui à été fait pour une de mes connaissance pour le trajet Bruxelles – Aoste (Italie). Peut-être intéressant pour toi.Jean-Marie Indeed it is Jean-Marie! Thanks. I’ll […]
EuroVélo 5: edited to the essentials
The following are the key details from the ECF EuroVélo map about EV5 with identified cycle routes in red, linked to sources of information on the net:England (180 km)Reading to London – NCN 4London to Canterbury to Dover – NCN 1Northern France (140 km)CalaisCanal de Calais to Saint […]
ECF EuroVélo Map
I do actually know more about the route of the EuroVélo 5 than I thought: I have just dug out the ECF EuroVélo map itself and on the back is the following route description. “This is another pilgrim route, also called Via Romea Francigena leading from Canterbury to […]
Calais To Brindisi: The Audax Route
John Davies, the Audax cyclist from Willsden has emailed back with some more details of the Audax route from Calais to Brindisi. He writes: Attached is an article from the most recent edition of Arrivée, the magazine of Audax UK. It doesn’t really give you much information about […]
Autumn 2009
Tomorrow is the 1st September: in my mind that marks the start of Autumn. Met Basil & Liz Ford this afternoon for a beer – they have just returned from Puglia – to catch up about summer: mine in the north of England, theirs in southern Italy.The 1st […]
MapMyRide.com
Bought a magazine yesterday published by Cycling Weekly – it was a special called “Health & Fitness”. It certainly works as I lost 6 pounds when I took it to the till! Gripe apart it has some interesting bits & pieces inside if you can ignore the acres […]
Brown leaves and shorter evenings
If you look back at the post I made on Friday 29th August 2008, it was the last one I made until April 2009. I suppose the initial enthusiasm of cycling to Italy had started to dim after the frenzied activity of August, the leaves had started to […]
Audax Cycling – Part 2
Some more useful information from “Audax John” who was in touch a couple of weeks ago, including a clarification about what “Audax Cycling” actually is:Audax is a slightly clandestine activity, with riders slogging through the lanes of our land at the dead of a night. No sag wagons, […]
A visit to Stanfords
Stanfords‘ map & book shop in London is a great place to spend an hour or so in central London. I never remember where it is exactly and always end up wandering around the streets near Leicester Square tube station for a while until I bump into it. […]
Audax Cycling: Daring, Bold, Rash and Foolhardy
Just received an email from a chap called John Davies in Willesden. He writes: I am also planning a ride to Italy next year. I will be starting from Shropshire, where my father was born and riding to Rieti (about 50miles) from Rome where my mother was born. […]
Reflections over distances
Need to get back to thinking about next year’s little adventure to Italy. I am so glad to have completed the trip this summer, albeit a much shorter journey and over a longer period of time that I will need take next summer. I did 350 miles over […]
EuroVélo 5 Facebook Group
The EuroVélo 5 route has a Facebook group… so I joined of course. The other two members are Ian Hendry – the man from Adelaide who I’ve mentioned and quoted from before and a guy called Massimo Mazzone who writes in his opening post:“Let’s improve the route! It’s […]
La Via Francigena – remember that?
The July issue of the Italain National Geographic (Volume 24, number 1) has an article all about the Italian part of the Via Francigena: “Un viaggio ‘dolce’ lungo la via percorsa nell’antichità dai pellegrini diretti alla tomba di Pietro attraverso Val d’Aosta, Piemonte, Lombardia, Emilia Romagna, Toscana e […]
Flippant comments from the café
The headline suggests I have chosen the wrong year to cycle to Italy. Might have had plenty of time this summer! How to cope with kids all summer? Become a teacher and escape them! Grumpy old man time: is it just me who thinks it is now rude […]
More research, more questions!
40 years ago today, Man first walked on the Moon. I walked home from Reading earlier this afternoon counting the number of people I passed who I thought were likely candidates for an adventure cycling to southern Italy. I counted zero. So on a day that we celebrate […]
Questions from Constantin & Ian
At the risk of sounding like Humphry Littleton…. I have received two letters, well, two emails. Both of them asking about the same issue: the route I will be taking in 2010 to Puglia.Firstly from Constantin Anastasopoulos:“Hi,i am planning to follow your route but in the opposite direction, […]
Claudio in Parma
How about this email I have just recieved from Claudio in Parma:“Salve Andrew. I’m not really familiar with blogs and all this kind of things, but I’minterested in your idea to cycle the EV5 if I understood your palns. I Live near Parma and maybe I can help […]
Back to the cycling routine
Despite the technical problems with my chain and the resulting train journey to work on Monday, the rest of the week went to plan, to the extent that I have a “plan” in the first place for my cycle from Reading to Henley-on-Thames and back! It’s about 16 […]
Dreaming of Italy
My Saturday evening reading has, temporarily, brought my mind back to Pulglia 2010 and my plans to follow the Via Francigena to Rome and beyond. The book that I am reading – Vroom With a View – recounts the travels (on a 1961 Vespa) of the author, Peter […]
Red Letter Day
Today will go down as a milestone on my road to Puglia 2010. Many good things have happened, one an out of the blue but “why didn’t I think of that earlier?” idea that I shall come to in a few moments (the map on the left is […]
Darts Odyssey?
I spend far too much money on too many books that I never finished reading. But I bought one today that is about travelling through Italy. It’s got a naff title: “Vroom by the Sea”. I did look at cycling books but there was nothing on offer in […]
Back!
It’s been a long winter break but I am back to update my blog. Cycling to work in the cold, wet, snowy winter months, my mind went off cycling, but as the spring warms my little life in Reading, Berkshire, so the enthusiasm for cycling to southern Italy […]
La nouvelle carte est arrivee!
It is a strange thing, but being on holiday for six weeks every summer means that you forget the passage of time and struggle to say what day it is. With my blog vote (still four votes), however, I can say that it is 714 days until I […]
Cycle from Reading to London
Was it the fact that Britain won its first Olympic Gold in Beijing in cycling or was it my good mood (see earlier post). I decided to cycle to London via Windsor and then catch the train back from Paddington. I did all that – it took about […]
The route in Italy with references to Segeric’s diary
OK, I’m convinced but how are you going to get back to the UK?
That is up for discussion. I certainly won’t be cycling back to the UK. The beer that I have with my friends near Ostuni in Puglia will be well deserved and I won’t be repeating the journey in reverse. That said, I have been thinking about travelling back […]
Why choose that route?
I live in South-East England – Reading, Berkshire to be exact, so not far from the start of the route in London. I have a friend who has bought a house in Puglia – the heel of Italy – and he has invited me to visit. I have […]
