March 9, 2025
Spring 2025: Italy and France
So here’s the plan for spring - and I think we can grant it the status of being an actual plan, since we’re committed enough to have purchased our outbound flight and have made a few bookings in key locations. It’s a large, sprawling itinerary that stretches from Bari in the south to Annecy in the north, one that covers roughly 3,000 miles. And here let’s stop to give homage to the fact that seven years ago Team Anderson might have biked the whole way.
As with all of the other sections of the overall tour, this section is conditional on our health issues. We start out hopeful and optimistic that we can complete it, and that we can fly on to England for the next three months when the Schengen Zone has had its fill of us. Our ground rules are to keep our itinerary as flexible as possible so that we can change plans easily if things aren’t working out as we’d hoped, and to stay close to public transportation so that I can either fly home or check myself into an emergency room on short notice in case issues with my vision arise. And, of course, we need to arrange to regularly be in places large enough where I can get my blood draws at roughly two week intervals.
So here’s the plan for this section, the tour of Italy and France:
- Fly to Bari, bike to Pescara (Puglia and Molise)
- Train to Imperia, bike to Menton
- Train to Avignon, bike to Valence (Rhone Valley)
- Train to Annecy, bike to Valence (French pre-Alps, Vercors)
- Bike to Valence
- Train to Brincon, bike to Milan (Aosta, Piemonte)
- Train to Bari
- Fly to London
Metrics:
- Days by train: 5
- Travel days by bike: 37
- Layover days: 48
- Travel distance and elevation: 900 miles, 30,000’
- Average travel day: 24 miles, 1000’
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