What happens when you leave home on a bike with no other plan than ride to Tuscany? Embarking on just such an adventure, a group of friends and myself decided to cycle from Saint Memmie (France) to its twin town Chiesina Uzzanese (Italy). This article details a 10 days trip articulated around nine stages from Champagne to Tuscany via Switzerland. It unveils the beauty of spending days in the saddle as well as self-discoveries.
When you travel, you open up. You learn, you absorb, you get amazed.
The landscape, vegetation, climate, culture, the people you see everything gradually change when you are on a bike. All along the voyage, we felt a remarkable team spirit, discovered wonderful hidden places and had the chance to meet other friendly cyclists. Every day, we were stimulated with the idea to succeed. As you can imagine, we experienced exhausting and outstanding moments. I would like to share one of them to you; while going through the Swiss Alps, we climbed up to the top of the Susten Pass. Before reaching the top of the mountain, we have ridden at almost 30 kilometers and saw the breathtaking sceneries. These instants were magical physically and morally speaking. Once we reached the top, we all sang during the last pedal strokes until the board indicates the collar height, 2,224m. We finally achieved one of our challenges, giving us a better self-confidence for the rest of the journey as well as a sweet feeling of happiness. However, we were not expected to start climbing the beginning of the Gotthard Pass after this effort. We had no choice as our hostel was waiting for us in the middle of the valley. At the end of the day, we were all exhausted and at the same time really proud of what we achieved in one single day.
This kind of adventure stimulates an interior feeling of freedom and self-discovery. It brought out the inner children in us. When you ride in the mountains, through the buzz of global cities and along with unbelievable lakes, you feel in harmony with the surrounding environment.
After completed the route, we made the promotion of the trip through a movie targeting the young audience in order to share this message: when you want to do something, just do it!
Finally, one reason I started this trip was to push myself through limits. I left Italy with a great feeling of accomplishment.
The header photograph was taken in the Swiss Alps during the trip.