Home » Italy » Central Italy: Venice to Naples, including Italy Survival Guide

Statistics:<br>
Tour date: July 1996.<br>
Total distance: 1300 km.<br>
Total altitude gain: 9 km.

Central Italy: Venice to Naples, including Italy Survival Guide

Thomas Driemeyer
2005-10-16 14:06:47

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and smooth, although wide shoulders only exist on large roads. However, cities are usually paved with stones, not asphalt, which are safe but uncomfortable to ride on.

Remember that if you decide to include Roma or Napoli and no doubt other large cities in your itinerary, you add a hundred kilometers of unpleasant riding for each one. Riding in large cities and their suburbs means sharing wide and busy roads and their entry and exit ramps with high-speed traffic and trucks. Napoli (Naples) is especially fascinating because stoplights, one-way signs and other traffic rules are strictly optional, and you get honked at if you stop at a red light. In fact Napoli drivers will honk at cyclists, other cars, passing insects, and cosmic rays - , traffic in Napoli is incredibly loud and filled with exhaust.

Sights and Accomodation

I don't expect anybody to tour in Italy without visiting any of those ancient cities. Half of our days were spent walking instead of riding. We didn't use a bicycle inside towns because distances are usually small, and we didn't feel it would have been safe to leave the bicycles unguarded for hours while we were visiting a museum.

The third essential item in addition to a compass and maps is the Let's Go, the budget guide to Italy, Harvard Student Agencies, ISBN 0-333-65288-6. I recommend to always follow the hotel and restaurant recommendations in this book. It also contains directions and maps, even some historical background and museum listings. You'll waste much time and money without this book. Expect prices to be 10-20% higher than listed in the book.

When sightseeing, always wear or carry long pants, or you will be refused entry into many churches. The Vatican's San Pietro cathedral has guards who refuse entry to improperly dressed people.

You must have a IYH youth hostel membership card if you want to stay in youth hostels. Since we went in June, which in Italy is off-season (peak is mid-July and August) we had no problems getting beds in youth hostels, except almost in Roma where they filled up 15 minutes after we got in. I also recommend bringing an IYH hostel list, it contains directions that are sometimes useful.

Language

Don't expect anybody in Italy to speak a foreign language. Even in tourist centers people who make a living dealing with tourists will generally speak only Italian. Information offices are an exception, but there aren't many and they may be closed.

I don't speak Italian, but I bought Langenscheidt's "express course'' Italian (book and tape) two weeks before we went and memorized the vocabulary, and the resulting marginal ability to communicate was usually better than the English spoken by the Italians we dealt with. Intonation is very important; as the Let's Go put it, "penne all'arrabiata'' means "pasta in a spicy red sauce'', while "pene all'arrabiata'' means "penis in a spicy red sauce''. One simple pronunciation rule: c and cc are pronounced as in hatch if an e or i directly follows, and like k otherwise. The Let's Go contains more.