From Rome to PaestumOd Ríma po Paestum

We're off! An ordinary workday, and we're boarding a train at Bratislava's main station. Final stop: Rome. There's just one catch, the train we want to switch to in Vienna doesn't carry bikes. On the other hand, Austrian Railways' website says nothing about any baggage size limit. So our bold plan is two massive cardboard boxes, which we're going to pack the bikes into in Vienna and pretend it's just luggage (thanks to the guys at Bajkula, original bike shop, for the boxes!). The first part of the plan goes smoothly: we take the bikes apart and stuff them into the boxes. As soon as the train pulls in we start loading, panniers first. The conductor gives us a slightly odd look as we walk past him for the third time carrying more bags, but he still lets us load. Finally the bags are on board and we come tearing round the corner with both enormous boxes, heading for the train. We give the conductor no chance and just barge them straight in. The guy looks for a moment like he'd like to say something, but he simply doesn't get the chance, the boxes are on the train within seconds. We territorially claim an entire compartment and wait to see what happens.

The train ride to Rome with two enormous boxes full of bikes went far more smoothly than we expected. Putting the bikes back together at the station in Rome, though, took us almost two and a half hours. Then, like proper tourists, we visited the Pantheon and St. Peter's Square, so we didn't actually get out of the city until around four in the afternoon. Juro found some old road on the map that Roman legionaries themselves probably once marched along. It's almost 30km, dead straight, not a single bend, nothing. Ruins of statues and fortresses on both sides, a complete open-air museum that nobody seems to manage in any way, pretty wild. Worse was the surface, though, which the map didn't show, enormous cobblestones, probably the very same ones from 2000 years ago. In the evening we outrun a storm and camp wild by a lake.

The next few days are pure ease, grapes, figs, cactus fruit, and a pile of other things the surrounding fields offer up. For a while we ride the coast, for a while inland, living on mozzarella and olives. Finally, after four days of riding, we arrive in Naples. The city breathes life, noise everywhere, cars honking, people shouting, hard to find anything more typically Italian. We book an Airbnb so we can wash ourselves and our clothes a little. In the evening, some wine and the best pizza in the world. If you haven't been, go, it's genuinely worth it (mostly for the pizza :)).

Breakfast is pizza #2, even better than yesterday's. The famous DiMatteo pizzeria didn't disappoint. We enjoy a gorgeous cycle path along the coast and swim right under Vesuvius, on a beach of black volcanic sand. The road winds up the hill, down the hill, switchbacks cut into the coastal cliffs. A local shopkeeper points us to a place to sleep, a small town on the coast. A steep slope leads down to the beach, and a surprise is waiting at the bottom: half the beach is fishermen, the other half sun loungers for tourists. We pull out the tarp and settle in, hidden among the fishing boats. In the morning we quickly help the fishermen get their boats into the water and speed on south.

We pass through the famous Amalfi Coast. Steep cliffs, houses built right into them, winding roads, a brutal atmosphere. Eventually the cliffs run out and we knock out the last 50km to a campsite near Agropoli. In the morning we still take in the Greek ruins at Paestum, then get on a train and head further south. We're leaving northern and central Italy behind for good, next on the program: Sicily.