Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, The Netherlands — 2026

Witte Wegen, Lage Landen

2032 kilometres

15,010 metres gained

19 days riding

Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany, The Netherlands 2026

Gravel

Touring

suitable for

2100km from Siena to the North Sea — Tuscany, the Gotthard, the Rhine, on a gravel bike

Route

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1

Apecchio - Siena

The legs find no mercy early on, heaving over the Apennine ridgelines that guard the passage from Marche into Toscana, the road rearing up through dense oak and chestnut before relenting into long, amber-washed valleys. A hundred and forty kilometres unspools across a landscape that shifts from the muscular, corrugated hills of the interior toward the softer geometry of Tuscan farmland, cypress rows punctuating the horizon like slow punctuation. The effort is cumulative, fifteen hundred metres of climbing distributed across the day in restless waves rather than a single definitive blow. By the time Siena's skyline assembles itself at dusk, the body carries the pleasant, hollowed-out weight of a day well and honestly spent.
2

Siena - San Miniato

The legs know it from the first hour: this is not a day that eases in. Tuscan hills rise and fall in relentless succession, each climb stripping away whatever rhythm was built on the descent before it, the road surface shifting between gravel and packed earth as the route winds through oak and cypress. Nearly 1,700 metres of elevation squeezed into 115 kilometres means the effort is constant, the rewards panoramic — rolling countryside opening wide beneath a sky that feels too large to contain. By the time San Miniato's silhouette appears on its ridge, the body has earned every metre of it.
3

San Miniato - Pietrasanta

A gentler day by Tuscan standards, yet never quite flat, this stretch rolls through the soft, sun-warmed hills west of San Miniato before gradually surrendering to the coastal plain. Olive groves and vineyards give way to wider skies as the Tyrrhenian Sea begins to assert its presence in the salt-tinged air. The climbing is modest but cumulative, a rhythm of patient rises and easy descents that lets the landscape breathe. By the time Pietrasanta appears, the mountains behind it feel like a curtain drawn open.
4

Pietrasanta - Pontremoli

Gravel tracks and forest paths carry the rider deep into the Apuan Alps, where the landscape grows wilder and the gradient unforgiving. Nearly 1800 metres of climbing press hard against the legs across 97 kilometres, the route threading through dense chestnut woodland and across open ridgelines where the air thins and the views stretch far into the haze. The effort is raw and cumulative, a long day of quiet endurance. By the descent toward Pontremoli, the mountains have made their demands clear.
5

Pontremoli - Fidenza

Rolling terrain gives way to the long, muscular climbs of the Ligurian Apennines, where gravel tracks wind through chestnut forest and the air carries the scent of damp earth and resin. The legs find a steady rhythm on the ascents, rewarded with swooping descents into quiet valleys still wrapped in morning haze. As the route trends north and east, the landscape softens into the broad agricultural plains of Emilia-Romagna, the horizon flattening and widening after a day of hard-won elevation. At 91 kilometres and 1500 metres of climbing, it is a day of two distinct characters — mountain effort and lowland release.
6

Fidenza - Pavia

Day six marks a quiet shift — the mountains are truly behind now, and the Po Valley opens in full. From Fidenza to Pavia, the route unrolls across one of Europe's great agricultural plains: flat, wide, and relentless in its horizontality. The effort here is not in climbing but in endurance, pedalling through a landscape of misty fields, irrigation canals, and poplar windbreaks that blur into a soft, silver-green monotony. It is a day that asks the rider to settle into rhythm, to find something meditative in the long, unbroken kilometres before Pavia finally appears on the horizon.
7

Pavia - Como

Morning mist hangs low over the Lombard plain as the route rolls east out of Pavia, the flatlands stretching wide and unhurried beneath a sky still pale with early light. The pedalling is steady rather than punishing, the elevation gain distributed gently across the day, fields and waterways drifting past in a rhythm that feels almost meditative. Gradually the plain begins to buckle and lift, the land growing greener and more insistent as Como's lake-country draws closer. The final kilometres carry the particular pleasure of arrival earned — the Alps announcing themselves on the horizon just as the city's familiar rooftops come into view.
8

Como - Bellinzona

The morning air rising off Lake Como carries a faint mineral coolness, the water still glassy as the route traces northward through a landscape caught between Italian softness and Alpine ambition. The climbing is measured but persistent, the road lifting through terraced hillsides and wooded slopes that grow quieter and more austere with every kilometer. By midday the architecture has shifted — the shuttered ochre giving way to grey stone and steeper pitches — and the body knows it is somewhere in between two countries, two characters. Bellinzona arrives like a reward, its three castles watching from the ridge above a valley that already feels Swiss.
9

Bellinzona - Chiggiogna

From Bellinzona the valley narrows and steepens, the Ticino river pressing close as the route climbs back toward the high country, green walls rising on either side. At 43 kilometres it is brief but unforgiving, a quiet, concentrated effort through chestnut forest and grey rock. A quiet day in preparation of the Gottard pass…
10

Chiggiogna - Luzern ⛰️🌧️

What sets day ten apart is its steady, grinding ascent out of the Ticino valleys into the heart of the Swiss Alps, where the air thins and the landscape shifts from chestnut warmth to raw granite severity. The climb demands patience across nearly 1600 metres of elevation gain, rewarding the effort with views of improbable scale. Beyond the high point, the descent rolls northward into Uri, where the valley opens beside the Reuss and the mood softens into something almost pastoral. Faido to Flüelen — upward ambition, then a long, earned exhale.
11

Luzern - Kembs

Morning mist clings to the surface of the Vierwaldstättersee as the route pulls away from Luzern, the air carrying that particular alpine freshness — cold, piney, faintly damp. The riding is steady and cumulative, 1155 metres of climbing spread across rolling countryside that gradually softens as Switzerland loosens its grip and the Rhine plain opens ahead. By afternoon the landscape flattens into a wide, luminous corridor where the light turns pale gold and agricultural — the French border is close. Kembs arrives quietly, without fanfare, after 132 kilometres that feel earned.
12

Kembs - Strasbourg

Flat and relentless, the Rhine plain stretches out in every direction, the horizon a low smudge of poplars and waterway edges. The riding here demands little of the legs but asks patience of the mind, as long, straight paths unspool across agricultural land threaded with canal banks and quiet flood meadows. The air carries a particular stillness this close to the river, broken only by wind across open fields. After 124 near-effortless kilometres, Strasbourg rises from the flatness like a reward held back until the last moment.
13

Strasbourg - Rülzheim

The challenge here is not a climb — at just 222 metres of gain across 109 kilometres, the legs are spared — but something subtler: the long, flat, unhurried work of crossing the Rhine plain, where the road seems to stretch endlessly and the horizon refuses to draw closer. Strasbourg slips away through morning light and the route settles into the rhythm of the great river corridor, wide skies pressing down over fields and floodplain forest. The Franco-German border dissolves quietly beneath the wheels, replaced by the soft, reed-edged lowlands of Rheinland-Pfalz. It is patient riding, meditative and low, the kind of day that rewards presence over effort.
14

Rülzheim - Gernsheim

Flat and unhurried, the Rhine plain stretches out in every direction, the land barely rising above its own reflection. Long agricultural straights carry the rider through a patchwork of fields and quiet villages, the effort measured not in climbing but in distance and wind. The river corridor hovers at the edge of perception — a presence felt in the damp air and the broad, open sky rather than glimpsed directly. A gentle, meditative day, all horizon and steady cadence.
15

Gernsheim - Braubach

The Rhine corridor offers little by way of challenge on this penultimate stretch, yet 127 kilometres of flat riverside riding demands its own kind of endurance — a long, meditative grind through the wide German lowlands. The river keeps steady company, broad and unhurried, while the Rheinland-Pfalz countryside rolls past in quiet industrial and pastoral alternation. By the afternoon, legs heavy from two weeks of riding, the gentle undulation toward Braubach arrives almost as a relief — something to push against at last.
16

Braubach - Köln

The Rhine valley opens wide here, the air carrying the green-brown scent of slow water and damp willows. From Braubach the steep drama of the gorge softens gradually into something broader and more agricultural, the gradient almost entirely forgiving as the route traces the river's western bank through 112 kilometres of unhurried lowland riding. By afternoon the skyline begins to thicken with the unmistakable silhouette of a major city, and Köln arrives less as a destination than as a slow accumulation of suburbs, bridges, and cathedral towers emerging from the flat horizon.
17

Köln - Oeffelt

Day 17 carries a particular hush — the mountains are long behind, and the route settles into the broad, unhurried rhythm of the Lower Rhine lowlands. At 138 kilometres it is one of the longer days, yet the terrain offers little resistance, the elevation barely registering as the land flattens toward the Dutch border. Fields and river margins succeed one another in quiet procession, the light growing softer and wider as the sky opens up in that distinctly northern way. By the time Oeffelt comes into view, the journey feels almost complete, the landscape itself leaning gently toward the end.
18

Oeffelt - Woudrichem

The penultimate day opens across the flat, wide-open polders of Noord-Brabant, where the air carries the damp sweetness of river clay and cut grass. The legs, heavy after seventeen days in the saddle, find a steady rhythm on these long, unhurried roads, the landscape offering little resistance but also little shelter from the open sky. A modest 303 metres of elevation barely register as gentle rises over dikes and low embankments, the kind of effort that asks for patience rather than power. Oeffelt to Woudrichem: a slow, meditative crossing of water meadows and broad agricultural plains, the route unwinding like a final breath before tomorrow's end.
19

Woudrichem - Rotterdam

The final day unfolds across the low Dutch heartland, where the land barely troubles the legs and the sky does most of the work. Wide polders stretch in every direction, the horizon enormous and soft, broken only by the geometry of ditches and the occasional church tower dissolving into haze. The riding is unhurried, almost contemplative, the flat kilometers accumulating quietly as the route threads toward the port city. After nineteen days, arriving at Rotterdam feels less like a finish line and more like the river finally reaching the sea.