Powerful Pete said:
What was your Sicilian itinerary Lim? If I may ask, was it self-organised or did you go with an organised tour?
Just curious...
PP – Trip was self organised : 7 members of our former racing team decided to rollback the years and go to Sicily to celebrate one of our teams mates 40th birthday – 2 yrs ago.
And we all decided to bring the bikes too - with two guys driving a hired car.
We organised the flights to Palermo – I arranged accommodation over the internet in Palermo, Capo Dorlando, Messina and Catania.
No difficulty at all whatsoever. We flew AlItalia – our bikes arrived in one piece with no problems.
The landing in Palermo was a bit scary.
Day one we pedalled from Palermo to D’Orlando along the beautiful northern Sicilian coast road.
Second day we went from Orlando to Messina.
Day three – was a rest day.
Day four - Messina to Catania :
Superb weather. Superb food. Extremely friendly people. Great roads for pedalling and we met quite a few Sicilian cyclists out pedalling on the route.
The Orwell Wheeler jerseys certainly caught some attention.
The onlookers probably never realised that jerseys could expand to that width!
Days five and six - were not cycling days ....but given the great weather I did
get some miles in going around Paterno etc.
Great trip - really enjoyed it.
Maybe next time, I'll get to cycle on the mainland.......but I'm not brave enough to test the Italian traffic!