Recap Week 5 - 8: Strade Romane di Sicilia

Days: 56

Days cycled: 39

Days of rest: 17

Distance: 3.420 km

Hello there, on saturday 22nd July 2023 I left Rome, after coming back from my short trip back home, I finally can hit the roads again. I cycled dow the coastline to Naples where my next stop was and where the best Pizza is made, as the Pizza Margherita has it's origins in Naples. Unfortunately I was not able to see Pompeji, which in the first place was the original idea for the trip, due to the train not beeing shown on the board. When I left Naples, I got at least a glimpse on Italie's largest archeological site.

When I left Naples I was also on a tight schedule, covering 650km in 7 days with far more uphills then before, I was cycling longer each day, but I eventually arrived on time in Fontane Bianche, Sicilly a couple of hours earlier then anticipated, where I stayed at a friends house, or rather the house of her grand-parents. Without going in detail there, the route to Sicilly was astonishing, eventough the uphills were exhausting I always enjoyed the view at the summit, looking down on villages and the ocean.

I did enjoyed the time off cycling with a friend, which I am grateful as due to some busy and stressfull months I was not able to spend some quality time with friends. After 4 days of rest I then took on, again on a tight schedule the challenge to complet my tour in Sicilly in 5 days, where I would take a ferry from Palermo, Sicilly to Cagliari, Sardinia and 3 days later the ferry from Porto Torres, Sardinia to Nizza, France.

I tought if I took the coastline and avoid the major uphills in central Sicilly, I would be faster and I probably couldn't have been more wrond or unlucky, as once I turned over to cycle the southern coast of Sicilly, I had each afternoon headwind, which slowed me down. So I did the only thing I could do to stick in my schedule, which was skipping lunch and only doing a short 15min break for lunch each day. Even the 2nd day I cycled 120km, eventough it was already getting dark only to have a 30km headstart for next day, which I eventually kept until I arrived in Palermo.

The ferry to Sardinia left at 9 a.m. on august 13th 2023 and I finally met another cyclist from Poland, who is doing a small 3 week trip in Italy and started in Messina. For most of the 12 hours onboard we chatted and I got a bit of time to work.

Unfortunately I only had 3 days to cycled from the South to the North of Sardinia (+/- 250km) but I might come back as the island is beautiful and I only got to see the flat part and not the hilly part of Sardinia. Also the last day in Sardinia one spoke on my rear tire broke, and I couldn't have been more unlucky as to go to 2 bike-stores which were closed, so I decided to stay for 2 days in Nizza, visit the city and most importantly, getting my spoke fixed and the tires changed, as they looked very used.