My recent experience of Italian drivers is vastly different to your account. As part of a round-Europe trip I spent almost 4 weeks in Italy: entering at Trieste and following the coast south to Ascoli-Piceno where we crossed the Appenines on our way to Pisa and then following the Mediterranean coast all the way round to the French border. No matter what road we were on, whether busy or almost deserted, whenever a car passed it would come within inches of clipping the bikes. On one occasion we were travelling along a quiet road with four lanes (two in each direction) and a car insisted on passing in the same lane as us even though there were three other empty lanes outside us. Collisions were a real worry for us and we would have at least one near-accident a day. I lost count of the number of times we were forced off the road by careless drivers who simply did not seem to see us there.

However don't let me put you off touring in Italy. Despite my apparent bitter sounding comments above I really enjoyed cycling in Italy and it was in fact one of my favourite countries in the trip around Europe. The scenery and weather are absolutely fantastic and if you consider the food that the Italians do best (pizza, ice-cream, coffee) what more could a cyclist ask for!!!!

My only pieces of advice for anyone considering touring in Italy are to keep a close eye on your levels of water as we could easily consume upwards of 6l each of water a day travelling 80km or so in the height of summer. Additionally watch out for an absurd amount of glass on the roads. As already discussed car accidents are not uncommon and it would appear that instead of properly cleaning up afterwards, the class and debris simply gets sweeped onto the side of the road exactly where cyclists travel.