Route
UK to Kos
We only planned our journey to Kos before we went. Our thinking was we would figure our route home once we got there as we'd have a better idea of the kind of miles we could do, the ferry crossings, etc. We intended to take a different route coming home for a bit of variety.
We rode to Hull, and sailed to Rotterdam. We then headed south-east across Holland into Germany and stopped the first night just south of Frankfurt. The second day we road into central Switzerland. The third day we rode to Ancona on the east coast of Italy.
We had originally planned on riding down to Bari on the south-east coast, but decided that it would be much nicer to get on a ferry and have a relaxing night and day on a boat. Plus as it turned out it would have been tricky to get all the way to Bari anyway - read the diary for more details!
The ferry went from Ancona to Patras in Greece and it was a short (but eventful!) ride across mainland Greece to Piraeus where we sailed to Kos.
Kos to UK
We returned the same route back to Italy, Piraeus to Patras, sailed to Ancona and then rode up to Milan.
We then headed east through northern Italy - which was beautiful, through the Mont Blanc tunnel into Chamonix, and then over the tops back into Switzerland.
Finally we headed from Switzerland up through Germany to near Frankfurt and then onto Rotterdam for the ferry home.