Ah, Italy. Home of consistently great Eurovision entries, and the team I love as much as anything else in the world.

We roll off the ferry in Bari just as dawn breaks. It’s not clear how we get out, so we just follow the other traffic, until it becomes obvious that we’re heading for a ramp onto a motorway. We can see the parallel road we need, but it’s fenced off. A smiling guy walks over to ask where we’re from and chat about the bikes. He went on a bike holiday to Scotland a few years ago, and is quite keen to talk about what we’re doing. He works at the port, and walks with us to show us a way out and unlock a gate in the fence so that we don’t have to go all the way back.

Bari has a cycle lane round its coast, so we don’t need to go into the town and can just get going. We’re both tired from early starts and long days, but we have a bit of a ride ahead of us. Our EU “visa” time is limited, so we have to spend it wisely, and a couple of big rides to get us to the other side of Italy will be a huge help.

What is not a huge help is the lack of coffee. I was expecting the streets of Italian towns to be lined with cafes waiting to funnel amazing coffee into my system, but this is not the case. We do not see a cafe for a couple of hours and I’m deep in withdrawal.

We’re taking a small road along the coast, but in our path is a collapsed bridge. There were no signs warning of this, and we’re left aimlessly meandering around figuring out how we can join the road we need when the only other bridge is on a motorway. Richard spots a bunch of cyclists crossing the dried up river bed on foot and going on the road the other side. We rush over before we lose sight of where they’re coming out. It’s a tight fit through the Armco, but we get back on track.

The town of Barletta is unexpectedly lovely, with a huge Norman castle, a beautiful Cathedral and a statue dating back to the late Roman period. We hang around for a bit in the morning and I get to see a Ferrari F430. It’s been parked on a corner across a pedestrian crossing, as I suppose you get to do when you have a Ferrari.

The part of Puglia we’re travelling in (away from the beaches) at the time of year we’re here is bereft of tourists, and lots of people welcome us with almost over-the-top helpfulness and interest in what we think of the region. Cyclists greeting each other on the road is an almost universal thing, but here they have been so enthusiastically friendly. And the pizza has been really good. I am usually indifferent to it, but there’s nothing really like fresh food made with love and pride in its place of origin.

The big downside in the first couple of days here is when I realise that I’ve left my knee support on the ferry from Albania. Having combated knee pain quite a bit, it was one of the most precious things I had, and having bought it in Australia it was also one of the most expensive things we’ve bought since being away. Richard coveted it, but it was too big for him due to chocolate, meat platters and cheese, rather than anything useful like muscle.

The cross country ride over to the other coast is relatively unspectacular, but it was always a functional section for us. There are lots of bike lanes, the weather holds out, and someone shouts out “Mama Mia!” as we ride past, which makes my day.

We are in such a hurry that we ride a full day to Pompeii and decide to visit the ancient city when we arrive, to save an extra day in Europe for the future. I am exasperated when Richard observes that it “would be better if it was smaller” but about halfway round I hit a brick wall of fatigue and start to agree with him. It’s a struggle to appreciate much after that, other than how far it seems to walk anywhere. It’s also really busy even though we’re visiting in February at the end of a weekday. It’s not somewhere I’d want to be in the height of summer.

The following day we are well rested for a trip to Mount Vesuvius. The public bus is packed, but the walk to the top spreads everyone out and it’s quite empty of people when we get to the top. The size of the crater gives some idea of the magnitude of the eruption that caused life in Pompeii to be extinguished and the city itself preserved. It was steaming it bit, which was worrying, but I’m sure it’s well monitored.

We have just one short ride left now on mainland Italy, to the nearest metropolis. Naples does not have a reputation as the nicest place. This seemed ill deserved as we ride through the outskirts. The route is cobbled for miles, which is awful to ride on, but otherwise nice enough. I almost knock over a guy who was walking in the bike lane looking at his phone. The bike lane is bordered by kerbs, which is great to protect us from traffic but leaves nowhere to go when there’s a twat walking on it. I didn’t mean to hit him, but he sidesteps slightly as I go past and gets clobbered by a pannier. As we get towards the port area, the road is shared with a tram line, which is terrifying, and then getting closer to the port it’s an utter shit hole. We’d thought we could hang around in the city and just go to the port at the last minute, but there’s no way that’s happening.

One of the downsides of travelling by bike, apart from the obvious one of exercising all the time, is that we’re tethered to them. We can’t take them inside, we can’t leave them alone outside. So at times like this when we’re waiting around with nowhere to go, they do become a bit of a burden. We have hours before the ferry leaves and it’s really cold. The ferry terminal for Capri is, as you’d expect, very posh, so we linger round there as much as we can. And then we drink an ungodly amount of coffee when we find a cafe with seats outside and a place to rest the bikes. And then the final two hours we’re standing outside the terminal as the boarding gets more and more delayed. It’s an interesting way to get someone who’s scared of flying to actually want to get on a plane instead.

It’s another overnight crossing, so it’s with bleary eyes that we arrive in Palermo and promptly start our first day’s cycling on the island of Sicily.

It’s underwhelming, but we find out that this is the least impressive section that we’ll do. Everyone we meet is still extraordinarily helpful and friendly, and drivers are good to cyclists despite the narrow roads. It’s not a day of great scenery, but nevertheless I am dawdling along and distracted (I think I was waving to a cow) when I hit the roadside barrier and am dumped off the bike and into the road. It’s completely clear of traffic, so it was worth taking a skinned knee to remind me to pay attention.

It’s hard to find somewhere to camp, which isn’t what we were hoping for, so we rent a room that has a kitchen and I can indulge in cooking and mass eating. The forecast for the next week has some awful rain, some storms, and vicious headwinds that change direction day-in and day-out. We are not prepared to spend the Schengen days that we would need to ride a loop around the island, so we pick the half that covers the east and north coasts, since they include the ruins of Taormina and are probably the bits with the best scenery. That means our start and end points aren’t the same and they need to both be in Palermo, so we decide to get around that, as well as the rain and wind, by using the train. On the days when the storms are forecast, we will get the train the equivalent of a day’s ride onwards. And the on the way back to Palermo we will cycle the bits we got the train for. It works out well and means we cycle the route but not all continuously and not all in the same direction.

The first time we get the train Richard’s a bit nervous about where the bikes will go, how much time we’ll have and how much of a faff it will be. I’d over-catered the night before, so I contentedly gnaw on a leftover pork chop while we wait, trusting that everything will work out, and if not it’s not as though we don’t have our own transport. There’s a specific area on the train for bikes, they can just be wheeled on, and the train stops for ages. It’s easy peasy.

The rides we do on the way east and south are pretty, but they are mostly inland and we don’t get to see a lot of the sea or the shoreline. The one day we do that really hugs the coast is beside some lovely fishing villages and sandy beaches. It is slightly marred by another closed bridge, and therefore road. And yet again it is not signposted and neither is a diversion. It means a really big detour for us to find a way to cross the triumvirate of a railway, a river and a motorway. It does mean we go through a major town and unexpectedly pass a bike shop, where I screech to a halt in gleeful anticipation. I ran out of anti-chafing cream some time ago, and haven’t been comfortable since. After some embarrassing miming and translation I ride away happy.

As we wind on the low road heading east and then south, I am in awe and envy of the motorway which soars over enormous bridges and climbs impossibly over sections of mountain. It’s probably the only time I have thought that driving must be far better than cycling. It must be an amazing circuit to travel on a motorbike or car.

Taormina is the main attraction of Sicily for me. It sits high on a steep hill, so we opt to stay in one of the towns below and make our way up on foot. The day we arrive we’ve made much better time than we thought, and the forecast for the next day is for heavy rain, so we make the climb up in the afternoon. It’s not what I would have wished for my legs, but it is more than worth it. The ruins are much smaller than Pompeii, so there’s not much moaning from Richard. The amphitheatre is fairly well preserved, but the jaw dropping part of the afternoon are the views. This part of the Sicilian coast is stunning, and there are wonderful views of snow-covered Etna and the rocky islands off the coast. The snow on Etna and the high winds mean that a visit up there is ruled out, but we’ve seen a couple of volcanoes now and it also saves a big blow to our wallets. It’s getting towards dusk and the fading light makes the terracotta-coloured buildings glow and the view of Etna in the background looks unreal.

I decide we’ll take a different route on the way down. Richard is sceptical, and I’m wrong. We end up on a scarily steep trail going away from where we want to be, and when we get to the bottom we then have to walk a couple of miles along the road as dark falls.

Apart from a couple of pizzas, in Italy we’ve been living off stuff I’ve cooked. So we decide to treat ourselves and book a table at a tiny trattoria and have some magical food. It’s a set menu, and although Richard doesn’t like fish he loves the sardines, and I don’t really like pasta but love that course.

The people at the guesthouse we stayed in are lovely, and help get our bikes and bags up a couple of flights of steps outdoors in the pouring rain when we leave in the morning. Angelo, the chef from the trattoria we ate at the previous night, also comes out to help and wants photos.

And Sicily continues to save the best for last.

After bit of a deluge leaving Taormina, we have a glorious day and a great climb. It starts through quiet villages, winds through the cork oaks and cook pines, and finally towards the beautiful clifftop Basilica at Tindari, with its surrounding fairytale scenery. 

The following day the road is right beside the rugged coast, with steep drops shielded by crash barriers. It’s a dull day and the sea is an angry grey rather than the dreamy blue of yesterday, but we can’t have everything. The roads are narrow, but the drivers are tolerant of cyclists.

Our final stop is Cefalu. We stay a couple of days staying just outside and riding in to see the historic centre, pretty square and majestic cathedral, with the Rocca di Cefalu as a backdrop, and several beaches around it. If I tried to picture a perfect Italian town by the sea, this is pretty close to what I’d come up with.   

And then it’s an early morning train for the final section into Palermo that we rode on our first day on the island, followed by yet another ferry. On the one hand we perhaps should have devoted more time to Italy, but we don’t have it to spare this time. It’s beautiful, utterly charming and incredibly friendly. On the other hand, although the people are good to cyclists, the narrow roads, cobbled streets and expensive towns don’t make it the best place to visit on a bike.

A Playlist for the ride: