The End of the Road

We arrived back in London on Sunday night for the final cycling leg of our journey home. The platform at St Pancras was as we remembered when we set off over three weeks ago, both as if we never left and as if we had been gone for years. We started our journey back from Milan by train early Sunday morning, stopping in Geneva and then Paris where we rode our bikes across town to complete the final stage back to London. 4 countries covered in less than 24 hours and lugging bikes and panniers to boot! Unlike our journey down, our return was relatively seamless but they certainly don't make it easy for anyone to travel with bikes and each country and rail network has its own idiosyncratic policies to circumvent!

Whilst we have enjoyed each of our previous cycling tours (South West UK - 2010, Brittany & Normandy 2011), there was something just a bit more "gustoso" about this one. The people of Puglia were exceptional, the vistas were beyond picturesque, the food was exquisite, and most importantly the cycling, despite our crash, was splendid and stronger than ever before. I feel like I've come back from vacation both refreshed and enriched by the plethora of experiences that only could have been experienced traveling by bike.

We needed a day to process all our thoughts to summarise some of the highlights and statistics of our trip (and of course I had to go back to work)! Here are a few for consumption.


- Stats first! Kilometres Ridden: 987.6Km. Were it not 10pm Sunday night and raining we would have done a loop of London to surpass the 1000km mark!

- Burratta and Mozzarella Balls Consumed: Well over 40 between us.

- Hire Cars Damaged: Only one

- Health & Safety Regulations Violated: At least 2, most notably Sunday night at the Eurostar terminal whereby the baggage handler loading our bikes gave us a lift with our bikes on the back of the baggage cart at full speed through Gare du Nord (photo below). If you ever need a vignette to accurately express the differences between French and English culture I suggest checking your bikes on the Eurostar in London and then in Paris. One station's baggage depot is modern, impeccably organised, and there isn't a doubt in your mind that your bike will arrive in tact on the other side. The other is a dimly marked side door along the side of a burned out platform with no security, no paperwork, and a rough and ready approach to loading luggage which had me searching through my insurance policy to determine what type of loss and damage I was covered for. I'll let you guess which is which but I must say the later, despite the chaos, was far more exciting!

- Number of Towns in Italy with Clearly Marked Signage: One. We would like to give the mayor of Ostuni an award for the only city in Italy where the directions actually continued in a logical manner, the kilometres to destination were accurate, and there was even a bike lane on some parts of the road. The rest of our trip involved a lot more guessing as often signs would be contradictory and no sooner would you pass a sign saying 8km to your destination that 500 metres later you would suddenly jump forward in time to 5km only to be let down that it was actually 11km when you hit the next sign. Our speedometer didn't lie so the conclusion that can be reached is that the Italians like to keep you optimistic. If someone gives you directions and suggests it is just up the road or 500 meters away, add a couple more kilometres and you will be bang on!

New Friends Made: More than we can count.


We hope you have enjoyed sharing some our adventures and perhaps inspired some of you to strap on a helmet and get peddling on a journey of your own. And if you are ever hungry look through some of the older posts for gastronomique inspiration!

The sutras signing off for now....stay tuned for next year's adventure - location TBD!

M & D