Italy Dreaming

​ Welcome to my blog.  We are a retired couple who fell in love with Italy many years ago,  We first went on a family vacation there in 2008 and I have never stopped thinking about Italy since then.  It captured my imagination in every way imaginable.  Since then we have returned many times and each time our stay is longer and we have been incorporating an increasing volume of bike touring as part of the experience.

Our last trip was pre-covid in 2019 and we stayed for 2 1/2 months of which several weeks was travelling by bike.  We started the adventure in Spoleto which is in the region of Umbria.  Jim signed up for a bike event called Spoleto Norcia in MTB.  The course was over 52 miles of rugged biking including 8000 feet of climbing.  

After the event we bike toured through more of Umbria and then into Tuscany where we met up with family and stayed in the Chianti region for a couple of weeks before going to Florence with departing family members and meeting up with some friends to continue on our bike tour.  

Then nearly two more weeks bike touring with friends through Tuscany, LeMarche and back to Umbria.  Then we based out of several towns in Umbria for our final month doing day cycling trips just about every day exploring as much as we could.  Every day a marvel of glorious wonders and always delicious eats.  

The bikes we were riding we purchased at the start of the trip and in the past we had sold our bikes at trip's end but this time we planned to return the following spring, a mere six months later and so we decided to store our bikes in Rome and we would soon be reunited.  However, the world then went topsy turvy with the onset of Covid.  Not only did we not return in the spring of 2020, we will be returning this month after a nearly three year separation from our beloved bikes.

So it is with great anticipation that we will be heading back to the bel paese this month.   This adventure will be a great deal more bike touring than we have ever done consecutively.  Our journey will start with the long over due reunion with our bikes at Easy Box in Rome.  After some bike maintenance and a night in Rome - then onward to Spello for a few days to de-jetlag and then the adventure begins.  Dear friends from home who also have an adventuring spirit will be with us for the first month.  This will be their first trip to Italy and it will be wonderful to see it fresh through their eyes as well.  Our itinerary will take us over the mountains from Spoleto through lower Umbria into Lazio and then through Molise, Abruzzo and Le Marche before returning back to Umbria.  We will have a two week interlude in October when our children will join us.  So I hope to post regularly and we would love to have you follow us in our journey!