Cycle touring Italy - Any wisdom to share?

[MrsHJ]

I only did a tiny part of EV5/ Via Frangicena but agree on going wide and robust. Many small roads in Italy are deep gravel so be prepared, have a realistic daily distance etc. lots of places had no signage or bike signage so old that ithey are blackened and no longer legible. Some of the routes were put in with good intentions but without maintenance there were sections reverting to nature or flooded. This made what should have been an chilled flat but stunning cities route for me along EV8 with some diversion a bit more interesting and challenging in places (other parts were absolutely fine) but it was good to test myself a bit. I estimated I maybe did about 20% unpaved. It was fine and actually good fun for a chunk of each day but not great for distances if it was a large part of the day. I got frustrated with it a couple of times and reverted to somewhat busy roads. Overall I was happy to stick with it and go rather slowly at times.

I did get the impression that the francigena was a better maintained or at least signed route than the western Po route. It will depend on the different regions though.

[humankeith]

I only did a tiny part of EV5/ Via Frangicena but agree on going wide and robust. Many small roads in Italy are deep gravel so be prepared, have a realistic daily distance etc. lots of places had no signage or bike signage so old that ithey are blackened and no longer legible. Some of the routes were put in with good intentions but without maintenance there were sections reverting to nature or flooded. This made what should have been an chilled flat but stunning cities route for me along EV8 with some diversion a bit more interesting and challenging in places (other parts were absolutely fine) but it was good to test myself a bit. I estimated I maybe did about 20% unpaved. It was fine and actually good fun for a chunk of each day but not great for distances if it was a large part of the day. I got frustrated with it a couple of times and reverted to somewhat busy roads. Overall I was happy to stick with it and go rather slowly at times.

I did get the impression that the francigena was a better maintained or at least signed route than the western Po route. It will depend on the different regions though.

Thank you for posting. That's exactly the kind of variety of surfaces I'm looking for. Should be some adventure.