(magicant2000) wrote in message . com...
Great info - thanks very much. Being solo makes it a bit more
challenging to go self-guided, although certainly not impossible (or
even unlikely).

Anyone had positive or negative experience with group tours?

Thanks again for any advice.

Hi,

My SO and I have done two tours in Italy - one guided and one
self-supported. They were both great.

http://www.secadvertising.com/Italy2002/
http://www.secadvertising.com/Italy2004/

The guided tour was in Tuscany with some time on our own in Umbria.
Wonderful. We went with ExperiencePlus. That is the 2002 trip. I would
recommend Umbria and points south for April. It is too cold up north,
in my opinion.

Our self-supported tour was Dolomites, Alps, and lake country. Great
for mega-hill lovers (though Umbria is very rolling as well). This
tour would not be possible in April. Many of the mountain passes don't
open until mid-May.

As the other poster said, use trains in and out of big cities. They
are absolute mayhem on a bike. All the local trains allow bikes. You
just have to buy a 3 Euro supplement for the bike at the window.

The one nice thing about being on a guided tour is that you get lost
less. We had GPS and the Tour Club Italia maps on our self-guided trip
and still spent a lot of time backtracking to find obscure roads we
had missed.

Best of luck,

Sarah