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“In Appia is my salvation,” I wrote in a journal entry shortly before I rode diagonally across the southern half of Italy, from Rome to Brindisi, following the historic route of the via Appia as accurately as possible.

Why do we make these trips, anyway? You’ve got your own personal reasons when you travel by bicycle. The more obvious benefits, like saving money, saving gas, cutting pollution and possibly improving your health are just icing on the cake. That’s not why you really do it.

Maybe you’ve been through something like this. I was in a confusing period in my life, where everything I wanted or thought I needed was either too easy or completely out of reach.

In times like that you need something to take you outside the box you’ve built around your life. You need challenge and adventure, the possibility of romance, a little bit of danger and a lot of fun. Touring southern Italy by bicycle, riding down the Appian way, gave me all of that and more. That’s why we do these things. That’s probably why you’re reading this.

Either you’ve done this route or something similar, or you have a craving for it. I’ll tell you the whole story on this blog, in little installments. You can follow along, get good route notes, and hear the tale, warts and all. “In Appia is my salvation,” I wrote, and I was right.

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“I’ve got a nasty secret on how you can blow 75% right off of your international flight.” Click Here!
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I’ve been getting a lot of emails (as well as a few comments added to old posts) from people wanting tips and advice on biking in southern Italy. Some of you are riding (or even hiking!) the Via Appia, and it’s a shame that it’s so hard to get a group of people together when our schedules, wills, and finances are all in alignment.

We’re basically all doing prettymuch the same ride, just not at the same time. So… (more…)

Rome has a new experimental system that combines GPS and the internet to bring walkers a whole mess of useful data in your cell phone: models of traffic, crowds, and even hot spots where a lot of people are gathering.

You can find out where the crowds are, and decide if you want to be where the action is, or whether you want to get as far away as possible. Not only will you be able to find the bus stop, you’ll know when the next bus is coming and whether it’s likely to be crowded or not.

This device is meant for drivers and walkers, but why not bikers too? Decide for yourself:

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/11/27/mobile_mapping/

If you’re Canadian, British, Australian or from any English-speaking county other than the United States you can probably ignore this post.

But if you’re from the USA, and you want to tour Italy by bicycle, you may be worried about how much (or how little) your dollars will buy when you exchange them for euros.

Good news. When it comes to bike touring, you’re in a separate category of travel. Here’s why.

Bike touring is inherently cheaper than most other kinds of travel. You spend more time in small towns where things are less expensive, and you have more options because of your mobility (think of the typical backpacker who has to rely on bus and train schedules).

I would add that bike tours tend to involve more camping, but the truth is you really might want to stay in hotels and eat in restaurants. Good news here, too.

You see, in the late 1990s a lot of new tour operations opened up in Italy with the intention of serving middle class Americans made rich by the dotcom bubble. The dollar was strong, flights were cheap and convenient in the pre-9/11 era, and middle class tourists swarmed to Italy. (I was a tour manager in Rome, and it was possibly the best time ever to be an American living abroad.)

Now those hotels, restaurants, pensioni and other services are struggling for new and different clientele. When you show up there, you are a rare and welcome guest. You can’t expect the prices to be lower, but you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck.

Italians don’t treat you like a customer, but a guest. On recent bike tours in Italy I’ve been invited to dinner, taken on tours of small Italian villages, and offered lots of amenities for what was only a slightly pricey hotel room.

And this is part of the joy of bike riding on tour. You get all kinds of unexpected gifts and surprises from the locals.

Food also gives you a new level of class when you tour Italy by bicycle. You may not be able to eat in a Euro-grade restaurant on a dollar budget, but you can get fine bread and cheese from a deli, and then take it somewhere exotic with your bike.

Sit up on a wall or in the courtyard of a castle while you feast on wine, cold cuts, cheese and grilled eggplant doused in olive oil. Have a picnic in a green field dotted with wild flowers, as you lean against a crumbling aqueduct. I’ve done this, and I’ll do it again soon. No matter what the exchange rate happens to be.

If anything, this might be the best time for touring Italy by bicycle if you’re creative and adventurous. And you are, or you wouldn’t be thinking about this trip, would you?

I made a small discovery this week. And it ties in with my plans to bike the Appian Way in southern Italy. I’ll tell you more about it in a minute, but first you need some background.

With all the air pollution, even in rural Italy, you need your antioxidants. An Italian study compared the antioxidant effects of eating fish, garlic, vegetables, red wine, and dark chocolate.

The good news: the wine and chocolate tied for first place.

Other things being equal, the researchers made the conclusion that if you drink a glass of red wine with dinner you might be lowering your cholesterol even more than the guy eating five helpings of broccoli.

By the way, when I told an Italian about the health benefits of drinking a glass a day of red wine, he disagreed. He said a glass a day of red wine was definitely bad for you because “you need to have two or three glasses.”

Secrets of the Aglianico in southern Italy

The real adventure began when I reached Benevento on my first bike tour in southern Italy. This was roughly the halfway point of the via Appia. It was also the first place off the map–from this point on I didn’t really know where I was going except in a very general way. It was the beginning of serendipity, lots of unexpected adventures, wrong turns and bad weather, as well as friends in the most unlikely places.

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“I’ve got a nasty secret on how you can blow 75% right off of your international flight.” Click Here!
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Benevento is also the origin of a little-known wine called Beneventano, made from the aglianico grape.

This strong-flavored beverage (the experts would call it “full-bodied,” I think) might be neutralizing ozone in my lungs on every bike ride. What I know for sure is that it has a lot of sentimental value because it reminds me of that first bike tour.

So imagine my excitement, back here in Los Angeles, when I found 3 bottles of Beneventano at a local store.

I served some to a friend who is an expert on food and wine. He said it was good quality, of complex flavor, and added a lot of other jargon about the “nose” and the “finish” with words like “legs” and “bouquet” thrown in for good measure.

“Where did you get this?” he asked me. I was too embarrassed to tell him, but I’ll tell you.

It came from Trader Joe’s. They still carry it every now and then, but the quality seems to vary. The last few batches were only slightly better than the citrus degreaser I use on my chain. But the bottle I opened last week was decent.

Southern Italy’s “most impressive grape”

This week I looked up the lore of the aglianico grape in The Wine Bible. There’s not much to say about it, but it was introduced by the Greeks and is among “the south’s most impressive grape varieties.” The Italians grow it in the volcanic soil left over from the eruptions of Mount Vesuvius, and its flavor carries the long and complex history of the Mediterranean.

The reason I’m bringing all of this up is that if you join me on the bike tour of southern Italy, you’ll get to taste some great wines that are unknown outside the regions of Campania, Basilicata, and Puglia.

Southern Italy lacks the well-known and large-scale wine industry of the north. Most wine is produced and sold to the locals, and people outside the region rarely get to try it.

This is another good reason for a bike tour. You can find out more about it here.

By the way, I don’t know the source for the food/wine antioxidant study. I saw it on a cooking program on TV at the airport while I was waiting for a flight to Italy in 2005. Bike every day, be safe, and eat your chocolate and your vegetables.

WARNING: This information is not to be construed as nutritional advice. Whatever beneficial compounds may go with it, alcohol is still a poison. Drink responsibly. Don’t drink and bike, because you will probably suffer serious injury or death, and you will most certainly look like an idiot. Save that bottle for the hot tub or the campfire, where you can share it with your friends.

A lot of people have been asking what it’s going to cost to trek across the via Appia from Rome to Brindisi next spring.

I posted this on a separate page that I thought would just be for touring Italy by bicycle, but I’m still learning WordPress and the FAQs page is hard to find, even for me.

So I’ll be putting up answers to the questions I get every couple of days. If you have another question, just leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.

Anyway, the money thing. The good news is southern Italy is cheaper than the north.

When a mechanic in Capua charged me 5 euros to replace a bunch of broken spokes on my last trip (check out the picture!) I misunderstood and thought he said twenty-five. As I handed him a few bills, he shook his head and said, “No, non siamo a Roma.” (We’re not in Rome.)

Everywhere I went, I was surprised at the low cost (compared to Rome and Florence) of most things. But if you (more…)

Via Appia is a hidden bicycle touring treasure. It’s easy enough for beginner cyclists to handle, and exotic enough to prove a high adventure for advanced cyclists.

We’ll be going there next spring, and you can go to the Touring Italy by Bicycle category to find out more.

Many sections of the original ancient Roman Appian Way, or via Appia in Italian, are still intact. The first 10 miles or so are an archeological park that starts at the very gates of ancient Rome, near the Colosseum.

After that, long sections sit unnoticed amid green fields and wildflowers. Sometimes a modern road slips by just a few yards away, but most motorists are going to fast to look closely at the flowers. That is why we ride.

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“I’ve got a nasty secret on how you can blow 75% right off of your international flight.” Click Here!
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In some places, the Via Appia was built so well that modern engineers have paved over it. Major highways follow the course of Via Appia, giving you easy access to fallen pillars, old ruins, charming hill towns and castles. Driving lets you cover more ground, but you miss a lot of detail and you’re isolated from a lot of the sites and sounds, not to mention the people. That is why we ride.

This is an important, often neglected, piece of Western history. Via Appia was the main artery from Rome to Brindisi, the port that gave the Romans access to the Southern and Eastern edges of the Empire.

Augustus followed this route when he pursued Mark Antony and Cleopatra. Many of the indigenous tribes of the Italian peninsula made their last stands against the Romans along this corridor. Murderers and bandits did their most evil deeds on this highway. Poets and philosophers found inspiration and adventure here. Soldiers and gladiators marched to victory and doom on the Via Appia.

The ancient Romans followed the Via Appia on foot, or at best with the help of mules or horses. I want to experience this as they did. Important leaders built their monuments and tombs here. The rich lined the Via Appia with their villas. This place deserves to be remembered, honored, or at least understood. It is the key to so many other things. That is why we’re following the Via Appia on a bike.

If you want to come along, leave a comment or send an email to jacob “at” BicycleFreedom.com

If you want more information, look at the other posts in the category “touring Italy by bicycle” or ask your question as a comment. You can also find out more on this page.

In this picture I’m with the beautiful Cristina Ottaviani in front of the Colosseum in Rome, Italy. (Sorry guys, she’s taken. And not by me).

This was at the end of a 2-week ride tracing via Appia, the Appian Way, ancient Rome’s highway that crossed half the length of Italy from Rome to Brindisi.

I can’t even tell you how much fun it was, the amazing food I ate, all the times I followed muddy trails through the forest to find old Roman ruins, the wonderful people I met, the food, the wildflowers sparkling on the meadows, lots of great food, all the things I learned about people and history and human nature, and all the amazing food, especially gelato.

Nothing beats Italy cycling tours. And did I mention the food?

Anyway, I’m not saying all this to make you jealous, but hopefully to inspire you to be part of a much bigger adventure.

One of my dreams was to bicycle around the entire Mediterranean on a bicycle before I turn 40. I’ve still got a couple years, but now I’m probably going to postpone the trip to take advantage of some new business opportunities, and wait for (hopefully) the current wave of violence in the Levant to blow over.

But in the meantime, I’m bicycling across Italy again in the spring of 2008. If you’ve ever thought about taking a bicycling tour of southern Italy, this is going to be a blast! I’ll be posting more information as the date gets closer, or you can leave a comment and I’ll email you if you just can’t wait to hear more.

As far as the Mediterranean bike tour, we’ve got a few more years to plan, organize, get in shape, and above all dream.

I say “we” because if you’re actually reading this blog you may have some interest in coming along. Either for the whole ride or any part of it that fits your dreams and your calendar. Leave a comment if you want to ride.

Any takers?