{"id":532087,"date":"2026-04-15T11:37:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532087\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T11:37:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T11:37:24","slug":"my-3500km-solo-cycle-around-italys-coast-with-a-mini-venice-rose-and-gelato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/532087\/","title":{"rendered":"My 3,500km solo cycle around Italy\u2019s coast with a mini Venice, ros\u00e9 and gelato"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been a cycling nut since my teenage years. I\u2019ve done lots of big bike rides all over the world with my pal Jerry \u2013 France, California, Vietnam and Laos, to name a few \u2013 but Italy has long been my favourite country to visit. So after I was diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of prostate cancer three years ago, at the age of the 77, I thought, bugger it \u2013 I\u2019m going to cycle around the coastline of Italy.<\/p>\n

The diagnosis was a complete shock. It came after several painful years during which my wife, Jenny, had undergone treatment for bowel cancer. Doctors had said her prospects weren\u2019t good, but remarkably she defied the odds and made a full recovery. <\/p>\n

My cancer was in the early stages and needed to be dealt with quickly. Over the course of about nine months, I received hormone injections plus laser treatment, which zaps away the cancerous cells. <\/p>\n

New FeatureIn ShortQuick Stories. Same trusted journalism.<\/p>\n

Luckily, the treatment was successful, and I\u2019m now in remission, but it left me feeling weak. Even though I knew I was getting older, I\u2019m not one to accept old age very gracefully, and I wanted to prove that I can still do the challenging activities I\u2019d always done. <\/p>\n

When I told Jenny about my plan, she said I was nuts. I asked one or two friends to join and they said, \u201cDon\u2019t think so!\u201d So \u2013 apart from one week when a pal joined me down in the heel of Italy and took the train to meet me at the end of each day \u2013 I was on my own. <\/p>\n

I reckoned it would take about seven weeks to complete the 3,500km journey, cycling clockwise from the Slovenian border. To avoid being away for such a long stretch, I decided I would do it in four legs. It would be my version of the Giro d\u2019Italia, the famous multi-stage bike race. And rather than seeking sponsors for the ride, I decided to write up my story and self-publish it, with proceeds from the eBook and paperback going to the Institute of Cancer Research<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Giro d\u2019Italia peloton riding along the Mediterranean coast at Andora, Liguria in 2024 (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty)<\/p>\n

In autumn 2023, I flew from my home in Kent to Venice and took the train to my starting point, Trieste, where I hired the first of four bikes. I set off, following the mostly flat coastal route as closely as possible, although there were a few spots where cycling wasn\u2019t possible, and I had to take a train or boat. <\/p>\n

I hardly ever booked a hotel in advance. Typically, I\u2019d ring at lunchtime (having been to Italy more than 50 times, my Italian is fairly decent) when I had some idea of where I was going to end up. I stayed in three-star hotels or B&Bs, paying on average about \u00a365 a night. <\/p>\n

I discovered some fantastic hidden-gem locations along the way and sampled the incredible local cuisine. On the first leg, Comacchio and its canals was like a mini-Venice. It\u2019s not huge but it\u2019s charming, with really good food. The local specialty is eels, which I wasn\u2019t a fan of until I tried them there, served with anchovies and sardines.<\/p>\n

\"MonopoliMonopoli in Puglia is a place of pretty streets and great wine (Photo: Alexander Spatari\/Getty)<\/p>\n

On the second leg, the following spring, my favourite place was Monopoli in Puglia, which is full of quaint little alleyways and famous for ros\u00e9 wine \u2013 I had several glasses of really good ros\u00e9. Down in the \u201ctoe\u201d of Italy was a surprising town called Reggio Calabria, which I discovered had been visited by some famous figures throughout the years, including DH Lawrence and the Flemish painter Bruegel. I had a boozy sgroppino dessert \u2013 bergamot sorbet served in a glass full of vodka.<\/p>\n

Another tasty treat I had was on the southwest coast, in a little town called Pizzo, which is famous for artisanal ice cream. There must have been about 12 gelatarias dotted around the picturesque main piazza. I tried an unusual variety, comprising a shell of lemon sorbet on the outside with a scoop of soft ice cream in the middle. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m a bit of a history buff, so the seaside town of Ostia \u2013 the ancient port of Rome \u2013 was fascinating. A bit like Pompeii but without the crowds, it\u2019s home to some stunningly preserved ruins. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe Roman ruins at Ostia include an ancient amphitheatre (Photo: Jon Lovette\/Getty\/Stone RF\/Jumping Rocks Inc)<\/p>\n

Locals were wonderfully friendly and helpful wherever I went \u2013 for instance, a man cycled about 8km out of his way just to show me the route to Reggio station \u2013 but there were some challenging times too, like on the penultimate leg, when I crashed in a tunnel on the coastal road between Naples and Rome. <\/p>\n

The tunnel was barely lit, and my bike lights weren\u2019t very strong, so when a car came up behind me and I veered too far to the right, I smashed into the rocky wall. I was covered in grime and blood, but I made it to my next destination, the historic Villa of Tiberius near Sperlonga, where the museum staff kindly gave me supplies so I could clean up.<\/p>\n

The most harrowing day of my journey came during the final stage, when blood in my urine left me terrified my cancer had returned. Jenny called my specialists, and they said it was probably just a legacy of the treatment and I could keep going. They did, however, advise me to get some antibiotics in case of an infection; this involved a trip to a local medical centre, where I accidentally walked into the morgue. I couldn\u2019t get out quickly enough.<\/p>\n

People said I was crazy to attempt a 3,500km bike ride, so I was thrilled to prove I could do it. I finished the last leg in April 2025, and now I\u2019m planning my next ride: around the coast of Sicily. I\u2019ll be turning 80 in July. To anyone else thinking of taking on a similar challenge, I say go for it. Age really is just a number. If you\u2019ve got your health, you can be as young as you like.<\/p>\n

As told to Katie Wright. My Giro: A Journey of Recovery and Discovery<\/a> by Martin Newman is available now (\u00a35.99). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve been a cycling nut since my teenage years. I\u2019ve done lots of big bike rides all over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532088,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[69918,101917,4985,2881,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-532087","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-active-travel","9":"tag-adventure-travel","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-europe-travel","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532087\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}