There’s nothing more brilliant than discovering Italy through multiple ways. When you are flying to a destination, you’re getting this cool birds-eye view. On a train, you see the world go by and it’s like watching a movie. However, when biking or hiking, it’s a different level of experience because it’s like you’re inside the movie. Kristin Henning from Travel Past 50 relives her amazing bicycle tour through Italy. As she tells us about her visit to some UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the incredible food, a great wine variety that she discovered, and all the wondrous landscapes, learn about the beauty of a self-guided bike tour and the advantages of e-bikes for anyone who’s not entirely confident about keeping up. The cherry on top is discovering who Travel Past 50 is.

—

Listen to the podcast here:

Cycle Italy on a Guided or Self-Guided Tour

Here’s your chance to bike through stunning and endless Italian olive groves as you bike your way from coast to coast in and around the stiletto heel of Italy in the beautiful Puglia region. Visit UNESCO World Heritage sites, peddle the rolling countryside and along the epic coastline.   And each evening enjoy fabulous meals – guilt-free, after all, you’ve earned them after biking several hours daily on this 7 day biking tour.

Picture Italy’s stilletto heel shape:  on this Italian bike tour, you bike along each coast, starting in the  Sassi of Matera, in Basilicata, then you will head on to the Apulian land.

Once you cross the Murgia plateau, you head to the Itri valley, filled with gorgeous and never ending olive groves.  These olive groves are cultivated in farms they call Masserie – local stone fortresses sure to delight you!  Sure to be a highlight!

Along the coasts you’ll ride along beautiful sandy beaches with fanciful dunes and several protected reserves.  Ride past old Messapi civiliations, rock settlements, and a few castles.  Be sure to look out for the trullos, homes built with drystone techniques.

Then you’ll head south to the Salento, stretching between the two beautiful coasts.  Inland, check out the incredible Lecce Baroque, where there still exists Messapit and Salento Grecia!

Tune in to the Active Travel Adventures podcast episode on this amazing Puglia biking adventure:  there’s a player link above, or you can listen from any podcast app.  Be sure to download the free Travel Planner below!

Highlights of a Cycle Tour of the Italian Puglia Region

Sassi, ancient Matera districts and the Park of Rock Churches
Locorotondo and Cisternino, whitewashed villages
Alberobello, a UNESCO World Heritage site
Ostuni, an architectural jewel referred to as “the White Town”
Staying in Masseria (farmhouse)
Gallipoli, founded by Greeks, located by the Ionian Sea
Otranto, with its beautiful castle and cathedral

Kris and her husband, Tom of Travel Past 50 used BikeTours.com, a well regarded European bike tour company (and with whom I plan to bike Ireland with next spring).

They offer dozens of exciting cycling tours throughout Europe, both guided and self-guided, of differing difficulty ratings and types of adventures, so you are sure to find a good match!

Bike Tour Italy: Puglia Region From Coast To Coast with Kristin Henning

Someone was talking about the difference between flying to a destination. You’re getting this cool birds-eye view, and on a train you see the world go by and that’s a level of experience. Biking or hiking, it’s like you’re inside the movie whereas on the train you see the movie. I’m going to be interviewing Kristin Henning from Travel Past 50. We first met Kristin on our Galapagos episode number eighteen. Kristin’s going to be telling us about her amazing bicycle tour through the stiletto heel of Italy. She’s going to tell us about visiting some UNESCO world heritage sites, the incredible food, a great wine variety that she discovered and all the amazing landscapes. In addition to learning about the adventure itself of biking up and down the stiletto heel of Italy, we’re also going to discuss bike touring in general. What do you need to look out for? What decisions need to be made? Is this the right fit for you? We’re going to go a little bit of detail into that as well. I think we’ve got a great episode for you and I hope you’ll come along for the ride.

—

Our guest is Kristin Henning. We first met her when she told us about her Galapagos adventure. Kristin, for those that may not read that episode, can you give us a little introduction about yourself and perhaps tell us your age?

Our blog is called Travel Past 50. We’re concerned with active travel and cultural travel for travelers over 50 and I fit that. I am 65. My husband is a couple of years older than I am. We have been traveling pretty much nonstop almost nomadically since 2010. We’re based in Minneapolis our hometown, but over the course of these years, we’ve been getting more and more interested in active travel as a way to be closer to the destinations we’re visiting, and to stay healthy and happy.

You actually pretty much sold everything you own and hit the road, is that right?

We did. We had a big old house and we sold it. We sold our cars and most of our stuff. We did have a storage unit that’s whittled down to nothing partly because our children pilfered through it and took a lot of good stuff. It’s getting used, what we did keep. We traded a mortgage for traveling is what we did.

I downsized myself and that does afford me the ability to do a lot more traveling as well. It’s a cool idea. We are going to be talking about a bike tour that you took to Italy. How about giving us a brief overview of that? 

This was our second bike tour. We did have another occasion to bike in France and we were interested in doing something again. We met a guy named Jim Johnson who is with a company called BikeTours.com. A very small operation in the United States and their specialty is European bike tours. They’re essentially an agent working directly with local bike companies. We loved the sound of working with him and we found the main things that most bike tours need to think about is exactly what the process we went through. Where do you want to go? Do you want to bike on a self-guided tour or with a group and what are the other interests that you want to incorporate into your route?

Let’s break that down a little bit. For those that don’t understand the difference between a self-guided and a guided tour, could you explain that for us?

The guided tour is you’ll be with a group. It might be if you’ve got an extended family trip, you could do a group tour. It will be probably eight, twelve, maybe eighteen bike riders and you’re traveling on a set itinerary each day with that group. The advantages of it are that you’ve got a backup if you don’t want a bike or if someone in your group doesn’t want to bike that much, they can ostensibly hop into the support van. The support van is there for any bike problems. Having a local guide with you is an advantage because they know a lot about their local area and they will also hook up with local guides where guides are required perhaps to see a world heritage site, a special museum or something. It affords you a lot of tour opportunities within the bike route as well.

What is a self-guided tour?

Self-guided is what we’ve chosen because oftentimes we don’t work well in groups. Self-guided is fantastic for us because we start and stop at our own pace. We still know our next destination is going to be the following night. Our hotel is booked and we are given very detailed directions, route maps and GPS, so you know exactly the route you’re taking. They’ve ridden it. The GPS will literally tell you how many meters your next turn is. It’s an efficient way to bike around an area you don’t know at all and you won’t get lost. For us, it’s a good option because we carry camera gear. We like to stop and do photography. We are inclined to detour. We want to stop at random when we see something that piques our interest. For us, it’s an abandoned church or animals in a field that we want to hang out and observe. That’s why we chose self-guided.

Self-guided tour is fantastic because you start and stop at your own pace. Share on X

I like self-guided too because you can often add in an extra day here or there. With a group, you’ve got to do everything the same but self-guided, if there’s a particular town or a village you’d like to stay in, you can make arrangements ahead of time to do that.

That’s actually a good point. It’s almost a third option. When you go towards self-guided, you can also think of it as a custom trip. One of the things about this trip to Puglia, Italy is that we loved every town we visited and we could have spent more time in each town. As it turned out, we stayed longer at the end, but we could have easily booked a rest day between each biking day and then had time to explore the sites in each of the cities. It’s customizable entirely.

It’s very much like the West Highland Way hike that I did. I was able to take an extra day in Rowardennan, which was so spectacular. I was like, “I want an extra cool day to hang out and enjoy this peaceful village.â€

Did you decide that in progress?

You had to decide it in advance because they book all your accommodations ahead of time.

That’s the other great thing about Bike Tours. Either way, guided or self-guided, your hotels will be booked. You can moderate the expenses on your trip by what level of hotel you want in a lot of cases, and your luggage is carried forward for you. Your day starts with you leaving your luggage at the front desk, have some breakfast, hop on your bike. When you arrive at your next destination, your luggage will be in your room.

That’s exactly the way it worked with my hike too. Let’s say you’re traveling with your partner and your partner is not the same fitness level as you? Is there an option with the bike?

This actually was another thing I meant to mention up front in the first considerations is what kind of bike you want. Our first bike trip was fairly easy. We had regular bikes and we were very happy with that and proud of ourselves. This time we were going to use regular bikes but it was early spring and we felt we hadn’t been on a bike over the winter. I have a few knee issues with a meniscus tear. I wasn’t confident. We reserved eBikes and I’m so glad we did. I talked to a friend of my daughter’s who said that he arranged a family trip for his 70-year-old mother. It was in the Dolomites, some serious hills if not mountains. She used an eBike and the boys used regular bikes and it was fantastic. There are couples who have differing levels of experience on bikes too. I highly recommend the eBikes for anyone who’s not entirely confident about keeping up.

Define eBike because a lot of people may never have heard that term before. 

They are electric bikes. They have a battery that is charged each night. It’s best to think of them as electric assist. It is not at all a motorized scooter effect. You cannot just sit there and putter along with your power on. It requires pedaling. I think that’s great because it takes the guilt away from using some assistance. The assistance can be turned off entirely. You don’t need to use it at all. Most of the eBikes have maybe three levels of assist. Depending upon the conditions, you can kick it into a higher gear and it will make it easier to cover the distance with the exertion that you are putting out. You’re still putting forth some exertion and that should be clear. You’re not on a motorbike, you’re not on a scooter.

Obviously, if you’re on a serious hill, you’re into a big wind. You’re going to want to use some assistance if you’re me. The other cases where I found that I used it and loved it were in cities or just getting started on a hill. You know that effect when you first get on a bike and maybe you’ve left it into a higher gear and you start to pedal. It’s like, “What have I done here?†I’ve got to work and you may swerve out a little bit to get yourself going. You can’t do that in a narrow lane and with traffic. We were advised from the get-go, put the power on right before you get on the bike to get that first step or two on your bike to get going and then decide if you need it or not. That helped. There are a couple of short stints where we were on a highway or county road, pretty quick traffic and I didn’t want to linger there. I was on a hill. I kicked it into higher gear to get through that section. I used it on tiny narrow lanes in villages where there’s no room for a car to pass a bike. The cars behind me are waiting for me to get to that end of that section so why linger?

It helps you keep up with the traffic then. About how many miles a day are you doing? Is this hardcore all day or is it a partial day? Tell us a little bit about that.

It’s a partial day for most people. For us, we extended that into pretty much a full day. We were doing about 35 miles a day.

Translate that into roughly how much pedal time per day.

For us with stops, it was four to six hours.

You’re probably pedaling around three.

Three or four, I guess.

Three to four depending on your pace.

What I would recommend for cyclists is to get an earlier start than we did probably. At any rate, we were starting about 10:00 which is late. Therefore, we would arrive in the next town after lunch hour and that wasn’t ideal. We usually like to pack an apple or a snack bar. We might stop for coffee. I think we only stopped for a more regular lunch once or twice where we actually ate a meal. We eat pretty lightly while we’re biking. That meant that we were hungry when we arrived at the next town, but if you get up and go, then you’ll get to the town by lunch. We didn’t keep to any time table. That’s why we were self-guided and it worked out fine.

You could just take a couple of hours midway of the bike ride, take lunch and then finished up in the afternoon as well because you’re going through more than one village.

There is a natural inclination for local people to welcome hikers and bikers. Share on X

There are usually villages every hour or so.

The only thing you have to do is just get to the next destination by the end of the day sometime.

Yes, preferably before dark. Although we did take lights with us, we were well before dark.

You said you’d gone on a milder trip before. Were you at all anxious about going on this a little bit more rigorous trip?

We weren’t. We were excited about it because since the first ride we’ve been convinced that this is an ideal way for us to travel. We love to incorporate it into any and every destination if we can to do a bicycle stint. We didn’t have reservations about that. I did have reservations about my knee and oddly enough, biking is fine. I don’t have any pain biking. For those out there who may have meniscus tears, injuries, get on a bike and see if it works for you without pain. It’s a great alternative to walking, which for me is more painful. That was my only reservation. We didn’t know much about the terrain and it wasn’t extremely hilly but that is because we didn’t know. It’s another reason that we got eBikes.

On a scale of one to five, how would you rate this difficulty wise, this particular adventure?

Probably a two or three. That’s such an objective thing depending upon my expectations. The bike company probably have it at a scale of three. I’d say it’s 2.5.

With the eBike, that probably makes it a little bit easier too. Another thing I like about the bike tours, not that I’ve taken one, but the more I talked to people that have. I think it’s something I need to add because I’m such a hiker. I always want to hike. You get to see so much more when you travel on your bike because you can go two or three times faster.

You cover so much ground and you still have the opportunity to stop and see things closely, like you do hiking, but you can mix it up more. That can be your hiking, I’m sure is mostly out in the country. In this way, you’re mixing up some city, villages, agricultural areas. This one didn’t have a lot of wilderness, but you can be biking through the wilderness too.

When you do a bike tour, you have much more interaction with the locals because you’re not sitting on a bus tour getting out and looking at the tourist things. You’re actually in the villages and asking for directions, etc.

I think that there is such a natural inclination for local people to welcome hikers and bikers. They feel already akin to you knowing that you’ve invested some effort in and having your feet on the ground as it were. A friend of mine that someone was talking about the difference between flying to a destination. You are just getting this cool bird’s-eye view. On a train, you see the world go by and that’s a lovely experience, but biking or hiking, it’s like you’re inside the movie whereas on the train, you see the movie. It’s a good description because you are involved with people. You can jump into a store. Even in the wilderness, if you’re in a car driving through a scenic route, you go over a bridge and there’s no way you can even see the river below you.

I love that explanation because you are part of the experience. You’re a part of the other people’s experience as well. Tell us a little bit about the adventure that you actually took. Tell us some of your highlights and what were some of the favorite things that you saw?

One of the things to consider when you’re choosing your route is not just the difficulty level, but what else is the route going to bring to the party. For us, the reason we chose Puglia is for world heritage sites. Food I think was a secondary consideration, but in hindsight was way up there in our appreciation of this experience. Puglia is the stiletto heel of Italy’s boot that is the region. It’s called Puglia in Italian. To clarify in English, it’s technically Apulia. This bike trip took us down and across and up again that spiked heel of the boot. We started in Matera and that is a world heritage site. Matera I should mention is west over the border into the next region, which is called Basilicata.

Not to be confused, Matera is not in Puglia, but that’s where we started, and that is a thrill to visit because that is the world heritage site of the Sassi caves. Sassi caves were dwellings of the community for hundreds of years. Up into the twentieth century, into the ‘50s, these were still occupied and there were no modern amenities. People lived with their animals and lived off the land. It became well-known because finally it was discovered that these were very squalid conditions and there were a lot of health issues. People were moved out of the caves and it was cleaned up. The caves are back in business. I’m making it sound like a tourist trap and it’s not. The caves are used more for museum purposes. There are churches in caves, restaurants in caves, dwellings in caves and you can visit a lot of them. It’s also an incredible hiking area. We didn’t cover all of the ground of the region that we might want to have seen because we didn’t add a day of hiking in there, but I would recommend it for hiking too.

We should probably try to add a day into it at least.

We did add a day. It was rainy and we didn’t see enough so we ended up after our bike trip going back to Matera by a rental car so that we could spend a couple more days. It’s that fascinating.

From Matera then, where do you go?

From Matera, we went east and our next overnight was at another world heritage site, which is the town of Alberobello. Alberobello is filled with what are called trulli homes. Trullo is a stone structure with a conical shaped roof that is also stone. They’re very thick walled and cool inside. It can get extremely hot in this part of Italy, as you can imagine. These types of structures were used and still are used for not just homes but for agriculture, for food storage and animals and everything. It was a thrill to us to be outside of Alberobello on our bikes and realize, “Here are hundreds of years old trulli that’s still being used out in the field. Here’s a brand new trulli structure that has been made into a modern home.â€

Didn’t you get to stay in one?

We did. That was very cool. It was a beautiful structure with three rooms. A great room with a kitchen and a bedroom.

For those who are trepidatious about biking, it's more akin to just going to an exercise class and then having a nice lunch. Share on X

On the inside too, is it all stone as well?

Yes. It’s very cool in temperature, protective feeling. In the town of Alberobello, there are two hills on either side of the valley that are spread with these homes. One next to the other. It’s beautiful.

From the trullis, then where do you go?

Continuing east from Alberobello, we went to the town of Ostuni, which was a thrill to approach. This is known as the White City. It is on the Eastern Coast of the peninsula and is up on top of a hill. We came over one hill and then seeing this white city across the way and way beyond that the ocean is quite a thrill. Ostuni, we ended up visiting again later as well. There is wonderful food. It’s a great seaside Italian city.

Would that be another town that you recommend taking another rest day just to explore?

I would. It’s got a lot going for it. It’s also cool because it’s surrounded by all of the orchards and it’s beautiful. It was a major port. It’s some distance away from the sea these hundreds of years later.

What’s next?

From Ostuni, we went to Avetrana. That is smack dab in the middle of these vast olive groves orchards that go on as far as the eye can see. Biking through that was one of my favorite segments. It was just relaxing and through the back fields of huge olive growers. We were told that we were going to stay on a farm, which I thought might mean that we would be with a family or in an outbuilding of a farm. It turns out that this was on a property called a Masseria. The Masseria Bosco is the one we stayed in. It’s still an active agricultural area, but many of these growers of olives and wine, one or the other or both, have turned their property into a bed and breakfast place or outstanding restaurant and small hotel place.

This one was phenomenal. I don’t know how many rooms, probably not more than dozen-and-a-half rooms, but an excellent restaurant. They make all their own olive oil. They do olive oil tastings. They have a pool and a huge patio area and pergola outside. It would be great for a wedding or a celebration of that sort. It was amazing. We stayed in one of the old buildings that had been decorated with antiques. We could look out over the olive trees that went on as far as we could see in every direction. That was a great night for us watching the night sky as well. That was wonderful.

Where do you go from there?

From Avetrana we went down to Gallipoli. I did not know that there was a Gallipoli in Italy. I knew the Gallipoli in Turkey. That’s down on the west side of this spike heel of Italy, the Salento Peninsula is the Ionian Sea. It was right after Avetrana coming to the coast. It was quite a thrill because we had been inland up until this point. We biked along the coast. It was a wonderful day of biking. Gallipoli is a funky little forgotten town. We stayed and enjoyed walking around. From Gallipoli then we headed east cutting across the hill. We stayed in a town called Otranto, which is back up north a little bit once we crossed, and you’re on the Adriatic side. That was a cool thing for me because I’m a map freak to be one bike day away from seeing two different seas. Otranto is a historic town and all of these are historic towns. You can find beautiful churches and the center cities are generally in good shape and small streets, but Otranto is outstanding. It was at one time the world’s biggest port for shipping olive oil all over the world. When you bike around here, you are not surprised at that because it’s olives as far as you can see.

What time were you there? Could you see the olives on the trees?

They were pretty green. We were there in May.

Is that a good time of year to go?

Yes, it was not too hot. I think we had one sprinkle. It was mild and the locals were saying it was a little cooler and cloudier than usual but we loved it. It was perfect.

From Otranto, what’s next?

From Otranto, we bicycled north up the Adriatic Coast, a beautiful ride and ended our bike tour in the town of Lecce. Lecce is a college town for one thing and it’s one of the bigger towns in the area. It’s very vibrant in all the towns we visited, the best night scene. Walking around after 8:00 or 9:00, 10:00 is when things start to happen and it’s a beautiful city.

Let’s also talk about the food.

I didn’t expect so much good food. There are a couple of big highlights starting with Matera, and here I’m worried about my lack of training right at the beginning of the bike tour. We got there and I was just eating pasta like there was no tomorrow. Matera is interesting that it has what they call black wheat, a black pasta. That is from the old days when they would burn the wheat fields to try to facilitate a second producing cycle in the year. They don’t burn the fields anymore, but they toast the wheat in such a way that it is slightly black. I had tangy sun-dried tomato with a rich ricotta sauce over this black pasta. You can’t taste a burnt taste. All over town, you smell a toasty aroma. They’re very famous for their bread and their wheat. That was a great introduction. At the other end of the spectrum is Ostuni where we spent some time after a bike ride to is they are very famous for the orecchiette, which is the little ear-shaped pasta. That is traditionally served very simply with a pesto that might be out of broccoli or what they call rabe.

Maybe it’s rabe because I know there’s something in the broccoli family.

The older we get, the more adventurous we want to be. Share on X

That must be the same thing. I get a lot of different translations for it. I think they loosely change the greens depending upon the season and what they have to, but we literally were walking around, we didn’t find the restaurant that we were looking for. We were just keeping our eyes open for a place to eat and ended up at this hole in the wall wine bar that had some of their floured butcher blocks stand outside their door with samples of the pasta that they were making right then. It’s that fresh. They are literally same day pasta, making it right there in front of you and then preparing it with this delicate pesto and top of the little basil and parmesan.

With all that exercise, you don’t feel guilty in bulging.

That’s my point. It feels so good. For those who are trepidatious about biking, it’s more akin to just going to an exercise class and then having a nice lunch. That’s the way the whole holiday feels. One other foodstuff that I would like to mention is the appetizers. The antipasto plates in this region are pretty spectacular and I highly recommend ordering whatever the house offers and whether or not you know what it is. It could in some cases include tripe, so if you’re not into that don’t eat it, but it will also be sausages, ham and cheese. They’re very famous for their mozzarella and fresh vegetables here, so you’ll get zucchini, peppers, pickled apples, olives and beans. A lot of great beans prepared nicely, so the antipasto plate is great.

I imagine between the two seas, there are lots of fish.

I was surprised that we didn’t eat more fish than we did. I don’t know why that is. It didn’t seem to be featured on a lot of the restaurants’ menus. Maybe they consider it more of an everyday dish or maybe we were just all more in tuned to the land and the vegetables. We didn’t eat a lot of meat either. We seemed to eat a lot of pasta, vegetables and beans.

You said the accommodations were great?

They were.

It sounds like you had a variety too, so it wasn’t just your regular old guesthouse or so?

It was big and small hotels, historical places, new places. One of the things that I loved about the self-guided tours is that we had from the local tour operator recommendations in each town that are all written up and ready for you. It’s where you might have to get your bearings from your hotel and get a couple of their standard recommendations. We already knew from the writeup that was handed to us some places to look out for and sites to see. We could plan our limited time in the cities that way. One day in Alberobello, where the trulli homes are, we stayed a little longer the next morning because there were some of the things we wanted to see. We didn’t start biking until noon. That was fine, no problem. Having the restaurant recommendations by the local bike operators is a nice deal.

It saves you a ton of time. When you look back, tell me your favorite stories?

I’ll give you a funny one and a couple of overall impressions. One of my navigation errors. I think it’s always good to have a navigator. We had one GPS. I’m the navigator. I have the maps and I have the GPS. Tom had his iPhone on. He wasn’t looking at a map, but he runs the Strava app, which hikers and bikers use. Mostly cyclists maybe, but Strava is a wonderful app that will give you your GPS where you actually went. It means you can save that route map and share it with your friends. We were able to share our route with our Travel Past 50 readers every day.

It took me a little bit to figure out not to anticipate the directions. It does take a while to know how the GPS works. I missed a turn and took us down a 10% grade, which is pretty steep. At the bottom, my GPS is dinging at me that I took a wrong turn. I thought Tom was going to kill me. It’s like of all the places I go down this massive hill and realize, “We’ve got to go back up†Thank goodness we had the eBikes. I didn’t want to go back up this hill until I was sure because sometimes the GPS will blink out and it takes a minute to get to show you that you’re back on the right trail so I wanted to wait and walk around. Finally, I got my iPhone out and used my compass on my iPhone and tried to figure it out that way and we made an educated guess. We did go back up the hill and found that was the right route. I wasn’t sure until we got back up the hill if I was leading us in the right direction. That was my one navigation glitch. That was not my best overall impression, but it was one of my moment of shame.

The work out up that hill gives you the freedom to eat whatever you want.

You’ve got to work to say that you’ve done it. I think that seeing Matera was quite a thrill and walking around there and also the surprise of ending up at the Masseria in Avetrana. I was so surprised at what that whole evening was going to be like. Thinking that I was going to be in someone’s house and then ending up on this plantation operation where we were greeted as we were in every place. Even more so greeted by the proprietors. “Put your bikes here. Let’s get you a cold beverage. Rest and then we’ll show you your room.†It’s so relaxed and it was such a wonderful experience. Any foodie, anyone with a special occasion, anyone driving around this part of Italy, should make a point of going to a Masseria for a meal, preferably overnight as well so you can enjoy the wine. The best chefs in the region tend towards these Masserias. This is where you will find the best restaurants. They’re going to be out in the middle of nowhere. They’re not going to be in towns.

Anything else about the food?

The other great discovery in this region is a wine called Primitivo. It’s generally a red wine. It reminds me of a bit of Spanish wine, although not so oaky. It’s a full red wine that is great with pasta, meats or vegetables. It’s good.

When somebody asks you about your trip, what’s the first image that comes to your mind?

I think to ride up to the coast before Gallipoli, we had such a pleasant day going through the olive orchards and then that opens up to this bluff over the water. It was an a-ha moment after a very pleasant day of biking and it was all downhill from there.

Anything you wish you had known before you’d gone or any advice you’d like to give us?

The main thing is as always allow as much time as you can. The only thing that we would have done differently is stayed longer maybe during our ride, but I don’t even regret the way we did that at all because we did have time in the end. We worked with a company called Wonderful Italy that is like a glorified Airbnb. We loved that. We stayed additional days in Ostuni and in a town called Martina Franca, which is the cradle of all of this wine, olive oil, agriculture area. It’s right smack dab in the middle of the hill.

One thing we can think of too is you only went about 200 miles. Even though that’s a long way on bike, if you get on a train or public transport, let’s say you saw a town that you liked at the end of your journey, just allow some extra days to go back and do what you did so you don’t have to plan in advance, “I’m going to stay in Matera or Ostuni.†You could plan a few days and go back to the towns that caught your fancy.

It was three nights stay through Wonderful Italy, Ostuni and Martina Franca. They helped us rent a car and we drove back to Matera and stayed at Martina Franca. We did the drive across the hill and back easily. We also drove up the coast to visit another world heritage site and happened on a great seaside village there which people can find in our post. That was that classic cliff side Italy village that we stumbled upon in our rental car.

The whole trip sounds amazing and you’ve traveled all over the world. Where does this particular adventure fall in the spectrum of your adventures?

It’s high up there partly because Italy after Spain is the country we’re most familiar with and have visited a large share of, but we had never been to this part of Italy. It’s very distinct and that’s what puts it way up there in the scale of memorable trips for us. It was a real discovery and it cannot be lumped into the rest of Italy.

Who’s visiting there? Do you see a lot of Americans or Europeans? Who are the tourists there?

Some of the snowbirds, the year-round visitors are northern Europeans who may have a house there for their winters to get away. Probably Scandinavians, Germans, some Dutch. As far as the visitors go, I think primarily because of the world heritage sites, it’s becoming a little better known among North American travelers, but we didn’t run into other Americans that I can think of along the way.

Tell us a little bit more about Travel Past 50.

Travel Past 50 started by accident, but it was predictable for other people, I’m sure. Tom and I come from a publishing background. We published the alternative newsweekly here in Minneapolis and St. Paul for many years. We founded it and then published that and another magazine after that. Reporting, writing, photography, even though we didn’t practice that as business owners and as publishers, we migrated to easily when we started traveling. Our travels started in Ecuador. We spent between Ecuador and Chile. Our first year of travels was in South America. At the time, Tom and I were doing our separate things doodling and blogging. The following year when we decided to hike the Camino de Santiago. Following that, we decided we should coordinate our efforts here and we were getting so many questions from friends that we decided to document what we were doing a little better.

What we like to do is share our firsthand experiences. First and foremost, offer some practical information. In fact, Tom’s got some good information about good backpacks and packing for a bike trip on our site that people might be interested in. We are combining some practical information with a lot of our firsthand experience and trying to all along the way encourage people to travel, be active and to keep their eyes open. We feel it’s eye-opening and it’s refreshing and hopeful of getting to know people around the world, and realize what’s in common rather than what’s dividing us.

As much as I agree on the travel part, I would like to know your opinions to what makes adventure travel in particular special because you seem to be getting more and more adventurous.

The older we get, the more adventurous we get, which is interesting. It is a combination of the fact that it feels good for us. As long as we can hike and bike, not doing that would make us age a lot more quickly. It keeps us young, it keeps us inquisitive. The main part of traveling is being inquisitive and trying things whether that’s the physical activity that’s opening you up to those new vistas and people or not, the point is seeing things that you might not otherwise see or even approaching things that might be part of your everyday life. I biked in the city here, but the experiences of traveling and biking, and biking at home can each instruct the other. What do you stop for? What do you look at? Who do you talk to? How do you manage a situation that’s unfamiliar or a breakdown? How do you share a happy moment when you’re alone? Those are all part of the travel experience.

Any final thoughts?

I encourage people to give it a whirl. Try a bike tour. I hope you do.

I vow that I will do a bike tour somewhere. I promise. Mark this down.

I also encourage people if you don’t know whether to reserve an electric bike or a regular bike, go to your local bike shop and try one out. Hop on and see what you think.

I did the electric bike on a wine vineyard tour in that little town of Cassis. That was my favorite town in France. It was a blast because it was fun. When we got to the hills, up to the hill you go. You could use your muscle or you could use the bike. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been a blast. I’ve got to put this one on my list too. Every time I talk to you, I’ve got to add something else to my list.

I hope too that if your audience has other questions, they can certainly respond to us through the website or Facebook or personally through email and we would be happy to answer more specific questions. I hope we’ve covered the basics.

Thanks so much for your time, Kristin.

Thank you, Kit. It’s a pleasure.

—

I hope you’ve enjoyed the adventure about doing a bicycle tour through the stiletto heel of Italy. I think bike touring, in general, is a cool way of travel and I’ve actually booked my first trip. I’m going to Ireland and doing a bicycle tour through the beautiful Irish countryside. I’m excited about that. Kristin got me motivated to do that and I promised that I would go ahead and commit to 2019. I’m going on a bike tour myself. I’m spreading my wings a little bit away from the hiking I tend to favor. I’ll be doing an episode of that. If you have not already submitted your stories for the upcoming book on adventure travel, please email at Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com or send me a voice mail at (252) 515-0166. I’d love to hear your stories, positive, negative. Let’s make this a participatory book where we’re all involved in putting out our great stories and encouraging others to get out and adventure travel. I know you’ve got some great stories. Please share them.

Speaking of sharing, could you please help spread the word about this podcast? Share it on Facebook, share it on Twitter, share it on Instagram Stories, share it with your friends. The way people find out about shows is basically through sharing and word of mouth. Over and over again, we hear some of our guests saying how they loved Nepal and they have to go back to Nepal, but most people go to the main area of the Everest Base Camp area. We’re going to go to a lesser-known region that is just as spectacular, but not as crowded. I think you’re going to enjoy going to Annapurna with me.

Important Links:

• Travel Past 50
• Galapagos – Past episode
• BikeTours.com
• Strava
• Wonderful Italy
• Cassis – Past episode
• Facebook – Travel Past 50
• Kit@ActiveTravelAdventures.com
• Annapurna – Past episode

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!

• Here’s How »

Join the Active Travel Adventures Community:

• activetraveladventures.com
• Active Travel Adventures Facebook Page
• Active Travel Adventures Facebook Group
• Active Travel Adventures Twitter
• Active Travel Adventures Instagram
• Active Travel Adventures YouTube
• Kit Parks LinkedIn