Trip Overview
Our itinerary was 10 days, starting from Florence and ambling around through the hill country, then a bit of time at the coast, carrying all our gear and doing everything on our own. We had the luxury of going before the tourist season, so it was easy to arrange accommodations at the last minute, and things were pretty inexpensive compared to normal prices for Italy. We used Lonely Planet's Cycling Italy as the primary guide for bike trips, and though we did several of the routes, we also did some ad-hoc routes that worked out just fine. The book is pretty good, though I'd say with a fully loaded folding bike, the hills of Tuscany were a bit more of a challenge than indicated by the guide. Their "moderate" rides are probably correctly labeled for an unloaded touring/racing bike with a fit rider, but are pushing that category for our situation. We found that about 60k of Tuscan hills (along with some stops for sightseeing) was our limit for a day with the loaded folding bikes.

Bike Setup and Gear
On my bike, I had a rear seatpost rack made by Topeak that carried two panniers: an old Madden pack on the right, and an Arkel Overdesigns Commuter bag with the computer suspension removed (this is an awesome pack!). I packed light, wanting to stay under the 20lb limit for this rack. I was carrying some clothes, a spare folding tire, and a first aid kit in the bags - that's all. I also had a cheapo front touring bag from Performance Bike to carry camera, toiletries, snacks, and etc. This bag worked great, but has one huge design deficiency, in that it has no attachment points whatsoever for any kind of shoulder strap. This made carrying it off the bike a huge pain. Given how well the other features of the bag are designed, this seems like a huge oversight. In addition to these bags, I carried a backpack for "overflow", which was mostly empty at the beginning of the trip. I would then fill it up with groceries or other items we acquired while travelling. It was also very handy for the days of pedaling without gear for carrying the day's supplies. Oh yeah, also I had attached to my seat the carrying bag for the bike. This was useful for folding the bike up for transport on a train or ferry without paying the extra "bike charge".




Itinerary

Day 1, Florence
Day 1 we did a lot of tourist stuff like climbing the "dome".

We also biked up to Piazza Michelangelo, a good (but short) grunt up a hill near town, that gives a great view of the city:

We stayed at Ostello Archi Rossi, a Hostel in the heart of Florence. Though it made us feel a bit old staying there, it was a really nice way to stay in Florence on a budget. The people were friendly, rooms were clean, and the free breakfast was quite good for the price.

Here we are on the deck by the courtyard at Archi Rossi.