Hi folks just got back from a 3 month non-supported camping tour of Italy. This was sort of continuation from a tour I did last summer, Glasgow to Nice. Except this time no cold and no rain, only glorious sunshine. There where some days that I could have used a little less heat, but on the whole it was pretty comfortable hot weather riding. Also despite the fact that I spoke no Italian ( at least not the type you can use in polite company ) I had absolutely no language problems whatsoever, a little effort on my part was usually good enough to get things going.

My plan was to cycle south from Venice along the Adriatic as far as I felt I wanted to, then turn right and head to the Mediterranean, then back north to finally end up in Venice all within the 90 visa free time limit.

Italy is an excellent touring destination. A compact country with good roads, thousands of years of history on display, plenty of things to see and do, great weather, however it can get quite warm and humid at times, great food and drink never too far away and car drivers that display a surprisingly patient attitude towards cyclist.

I camped every night except for 5 nights I used Airbnb. Unfortunately Italian campgrounds are hit or miss. I stayed in some fantastic reasonably priced places as well as in some real dumps struggling to maintain a one star rating. I really missed the municipal campgrounds so common in France.

Despite the great scenery it appears that southern Italy is well off the touring cyclist radar. In the first 2 months I saw exactly 3 other people touring. It wasn't until I was in Naples that I actually met other touring cyclist, a couple from Argentina on their way to Greece. It wasn't until I was in Tuscany that I started to see other touring cyclist on a semi-regular basis.

This trip marked the first time I've ever had an electronic device with me, an e-book. Mixed feelings about that, recharging turned out to be more of a pain in the ass then I expected. I think that may have been the first and last time for electrical devices.

Mechanically the only issue was a flat tire – a thumb tack, otherwise the bike worked like a fine tuned Swiss watch, as close to perfection as mechanically possible, which isn't bad for a sub $500 bike outfitted with a bunch of no name components ). If anything serious would have gone wrong, it would not have been much of an issue as it seemed that even the smallest town had at least one bike shop.

Getting to and from Italy was super easy on my favourite airline, Air Transat. Ride my bike to the airport, pay $30, put bike in supplied plastic bag. On arrival remove bike from plastic bag, put pedals back on, straighten handlebars and you're off in 5 minutes – priceless.