XWeek Bed & Breakfast
Alps Tour, from Montecarlo to Trieste

Organization:
We are organizing a great adventure for next may-june: Alps Tour, from Montecarlo to Trieste.
The plan is to follow a path of approx. 1200Km flying, walking and hitch-hiking or a mix of them it is a your choice.
The adventure is open to "all" paragliding and hanggliding pilots and/or walking lovers. The number is limited to 4-5 persons in total, 1 hangglider pilot.

Car Support:
It will be a ground-mobile-car support for transport, weather forecast, tracking, communication, food, rest or other help.
A few details: the support vehicle is a new 9 places van with all equipment onboard the staff will use for a perfect support to follow you 24h/day with bedroom and kitchen, computer, internet, multi band radio communication both VHF-UHF, etc.

A long way walking, flying or...:
It rapresent the perfect choice, an opportunity to know how it means an adventure like this, a kind of training period, just before to try this great adventure Alps Tour alone, or to candidate yourself to Alps races in the future.
I did it during this summer: 30 days alone, 30 happy days in 30 flying sites on pre-Alps zone between high Alps and Padana flatland.
This experience will increase your inspiration, your spirit, your body and wellness for sure!
It is a long way, I know it very well, but Alps Tour "needs" to be done for 30 days period long, minimum.

Your rules:
You may choice to walk all day long, you may choice to fly with your paraglider, or a mix of these; you may fly every day asking support car to carry you to take-off every day and wait until new day coming... You will have 40Km/day task, you will choose how to reach the goal of the day. You will be the owner of your personal rules, you will have to follow your rules: the Alps Tour organization team will help you to reach your goal with 24h/day support.

Equipment:
Very important: your personal equipment is a your choice, if it is right for you it means it's right for us (ask for any suggestion). For communication and tracking purpose you have to have at minimum: mobile telephone, VHF or UHF radio set, GPS, a SPOT personal satellite tracking system because we want to know where you are every time. 

Flying sites:
Almost all places along the path (Montecarlo, France, Italy, Slovenia and Croatia) are good or very good places where to fly paragliding; many of those places are very popular places where to fly, where every year thousand of pilots/people come to, i.e. Sospel, Laveno, Cornizzolo, Malcesine, Bassano, Meduno, Kobarid, Tolmin, Lijak, Buzet and others.
But the adventure is not only flying. It depends how you think to do Alps Tour, which rules you will follow. For example: imagin to try the path walking and flying only, without transport by car, bus, etc. 30 days sleeping in a small tent, day after day into the wild... 

The path:
Please have a look at approx. path I planned.
This is my offer to a generic pilot/walkers, medium level skill is requested for flying, walking, takeoffs, landing places, weather situations, for finding a B&B for the night, for finding a shop to buy a sandwich or a coke, to ask help if needed, etc. Happiness and health care first. The path I planned, just in front of Padana flatland, is free of snow and it is served of good roads and full of places for food and rest. At the same time support organization can do a better work and your safety and your fun will be at maximum. In this zone there are a lot of takeoffs and better landing places. 

An alternative, a Team:
As alternative, if you are a 3-4 persons team, high level skill, and you have "your" path, I am happy to support you to reach your goal along Alps, any kind of Alps: pre-Alps, medium Alps, high-Alps, south or north side. Please let me know as complete as possible about your previous experience to my email address reported below.

One more alternative, 2 instead of 1:
I consider as first part of the path from start point Mont Gros (Montecarlo) to Malcesine (Lago di Garda / M.Baldo), then as the second part from Malcesine to Trieste the final goal. My personal opinion is important to reach a "goal", after that your life will be better: your will increase your personal power and consideration inside yourself; the other face of the medal is not reaching the goal, you may want to retry another time. Avoiding the problem to leave the adventure before the goal is to try a shorter or a easier path.
It is a very good idea. You may find another pilot would likes to share Alps Tour with you, one for the first part, another one for the second part... as a relay... why not?

Deadline:
To start with it at may we need 3 partecipants at minimum and 5 partecipants at maximum. The deadline for pre-inscription is 28 february coming new year.
If your plan is to partecipate to the adventure but you are not so sure, anyway check your documents must be ready for that time: flight licence, international insurance, passport, etc. I know very well in some countries updating documents it may takes weeks and weeks.

Costs:
The average cost per person will be indicatively EUR 100.00 (one hundred) per day as following detail: 40EUR for sleeping, 33euro for the support, 27EUR for food.
Leaving unchanged the cost of the organization and support, price changes there may be for sleeping and eating/drinking. If you sleep each night in a Bed & Breakfast or small hotel you should spend between 25 and 45 euros including breakfast. If, however, will opt for three-and four-star Grandhotel then the cost increases to 50-80EUR per night, if you love to sleep in a tent then this reduces the cost to nearly EUR 0.00 (zero), I say "nearly" because in 30 days you'll want 1 or 2 days a week sleeping in a "real" bed and take a nice and relaxing hot shower.
General speaking, for eating and drinking is similar as sleeping, however, under a certain amount you cannot / should not spend less: eating and drinking a lot (and well) is important during a long adventure like Alps Tour: you have to take care of your determination, personal and mental power for a period of 30 days long.
Approximate amount per day cost for food is real; if you like go to luxury restaurants, of course prices will be higher.
Calculating total costs is quite easy: 30 x 60 = 1800.00 EUR (full tent sleeping), 30 x 100 = 3000.00 EUR (normal) and 30 x 180 = 4800.00 EUR ("luxury" version).

Calendar - Schedule:
I have prepared schedule for Alps Tour you may read below. Start, finish and intermediate days are during holidays, saturday and sunday.

- saturday 8 may MEETING POINT at Cuneo (20:00h)
- sunday 9 may TRANSFERT with XBus to Montecarlo (09:00h)
- sunday 9 may START from Montecarlo M.Gross (12:00h)
- sunday 23 may START/FINISH from/at Malcesine M.Baldo (12:00h)
- sunday 6 june FINISH at Trieste M.Carso (12:00h)

At this time (25.01.2010) there are 4 pre-inscriptions, 2 of those likes half path they change/relay at 15° day at Malcesine M.Baldo.
The deadline for pre-inscription is 28 of february.

For any questions please contact me or visit B&B website.
I speak italian and english.

Who am I? I love paragliding since 20 years and... (please read my complete sporting curriculum-vitae)

Marco Zonca tel. +39 348 2868641, email xweek@friulano.it , website www.friulano.it/xweek/    

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