When my wife and I visited Europe on our belated honeymoon two summers ago our favorite stop was Italy. We woke up every morning ready to see and do something beautiful. Back home we both remember the same “best part” of our vacation. We rented bikes near the train station and rode uphill past the olive trees and wild flowers and through the old, narrow, cobbled streets to lunch at a quaint, country restaurant where we enjoyed the fruits of our labor, a pizza of olive oil, garlic, zucchini flowers and buffalo milk mozzarella! washed down with a carafe of cool white wine and finished off with espresso.
This year at the 2007 Alice Awards Live Auction Experience Plus! Bicycle Tours is offering an amazing tour of Umbria that takes me back to that time in Italy. Located just east of Tuscany, Umbria is the birthplace of St. Francis and home to some of Italy’s best preserved medieval towns.
You will pedal through vineyards, past chestnut and oak forests, and over rolling hills to monasteries, castles, and hilltop villages virtually unchanged since the Middle Ages. Along the way, you’ll enjoy two-night stays in Orvieto and Assisi, plus a visit to central Italy’s best known ceramics town, Deruta. While enjoying all of the sights and scenery of its better known neighbor to the west, Umbria remains unspoiled by the tourists who flock to Tuscany each year – which makes it one of our favorite destinations.
I fell in love with Italy in 1965 and married her in 1969. I can’t count how many times I’ve bicycled across Italy since then but I’ll tell you this: “Italy is the best place on earth ride a bike and to eat and to fall in love (and Umbria is Italy in miniature.)”
Rick Price, President and Co-Founder (with Paola) of ExperiencePlus! Specialty Tours.