Hey everyone, THANK YOU so much. I got about 25 questions for my live Q&A I did earlier today. Here it is if you missed it:
How long will you be there? I guess you looked into buying a bike there or renting then selling before coming back?
Staying out in any particular region or just go every day?
When are you going?
Sounds like a beautiful trip.
25 days. If you want to buy a bike you need to be a resident, and I'm a citizen, but not a resident, and I'd have to stay here for a long time to become a resident, so that wasn't really an option. There are companies that let you buy a vehicle while keeping it in the business name or something, to get around it. Some of them have really great reputations, but supply is limited, and I got such a good deal on my GS locally, that shipping my ultra low mileage GS just made more sense. As for planning a trip, everyone says avoid July and August. I'm going to add that there is a ton of data out there now so you can use websites that will show you historic weather averages to help you know when you are more or less likely to see rain, average daytime hours, that kind of thing, and those can be really helpful factors for planning dates.
Your about to live one of my dream trips. Been to Italy 3 times in my families home towns mostly. Always wanted to ride Italy on a motorcyle. Mostly in the rural or coastline areas.
Keep us posted. Will have a ton a questions for you.
- Is it expensive to import the bike, get all the paperwork, insurance.?
- Did you explore the rental / tour options. I know they have motorcyle type tours where they provide the bikes and support vehicles.
- Any issues importing a NA bike into Europe?
Shipping the bike was $1200 US from Toronto to Rome. Then I paid another $400 US in costs to actually receive it in Rome. I haven't done a full on Italian registration, I'm still riding with Ontario plates. As a foreigner you can get Green Card insurance which covers you for almost all of Europe, and it was about 180 euro for 30 days. I looked at some rental options but it was even more expensive when you factored in a 25 day trip and some of the companies having a maximum amount of miles you could ride and what the costs were for going over those miles.
Are you renting a house in Tuscany? I hear there's nothing available.
I won't be renting any houses, just a series of hotels or rooms. It's a good idea to not only book in Tuscany in advance, but to book ANY museum or anything you want to see in any big city in advance. Right now if you want to go up the duomo in Florence, there's a 10 day waiting list, so, buy your tickets online in advance, and if you're staying in a place like Rome, you might also want to book in advance.
Are you going to drive in Rome?
1000%. II've been looking forward to riding in Rome for 15 years. You couldn't pay me not to ride in Rome. That's what I'm here for.
Do you plan to ride ALL the SP designated roads north of Milan?
I'll be doing a mix of everything. In some places, like the hills of Lazio and Tuscany, I'm going take the smaller roads and do all the canyon carving I can. But I know when I get to more flat regions, like Emilia Romagna, I'm just gonna find flat straight highways where the speed limit is 130 km (80 mph) and gun it.
Where is the best prosciutto and provolone ?
There's a great series CNN did called Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy. Stanley Tucci does his own tour of Italy, but his is oriented around food, and he goes to every single region and shows you exactly what they do there and how they do it. It's pretty cool
do Sicily, so charming, the mountains and views are amazing.
This tour is going to be pretty north heavy, then I'm leaving the bike here, and coming back for a more southern heavy tour next year
I have travelled to all of Italy numerous times and always thought it would be a great country to cover on a bike. I figure that three continuous weeks of that would be perfect.
100%. If I could afford to stay longer I would. Work and doggo need me.
