AlterRoads Cycling & Leisure

A trip with Alter Roads cannot be found on a tour guide; we have selected every single route and hotel; we have tasted traditional local dishes; we have been embraced by locals; and this combination of factors gives us the opportunity to create the cycling holiday you have always dreamed of. We are just talking about cycling but with the addition of three very important ingredients: passion, love and fun.

We do not want to provide products but emotions, not for everyone but exclusively for you.

We cycle by choosing the roads that can bring you closer to the local culture, to the people who live in that territory, giving you the opportunity to see places that you would have not been able to discover on your own.

Here in Alter Roads, we meticulously perfectionate our tours, offering luxurious accommodation in signature hotels that will make you feel jut like at home; we want you to discover the character of a region through the best culinary experience, whether that is in a small typical restaurant, away from tourist routes, or in front of a perfectly prepared dish by a Michelin-star chef! We ride with the idea that only the best is good enough!

In our tours you will find everything you could need; from wonderful boutique hotels and gourmet meals paired with excellent wine to excellent bicycles and support vans during all the cycle rides. Entries into historical and archaeological sites and most importantly, travelling in small groups in order to experience more intimate and special moments while visiting beautiful places.

But let’s start from the beginning! My name is Francesco Paliferi and I am Italian and therefore, needless to say, but I have some Cycling DNA in my blood; as my grandfather used to tell me about the champions of the past and how he used to love their simplicity and beauty, from an early age I began to love this sport! It all started with short bike rides around my family’s summer house during the holidays, and as with the passing of the years, the rides became longer and more beautiful, growing my passion and start with my cycling trips.

The bicycle is my favourite vehicle to cross a region! You get to know the locals and their daily routine! You enjoy the flavours and the food that give an identity to that land and you truly travel on a human scale, without having to hastily arrive at the end of the day; sometimes losing yourself among beautiful country lanes and maybe ending up at the home of a local family, who just decides to share their stories with you, is truly an emotion that one cannot experience if traveling in another way…

Italy, France, Spain and Greece have opened the horizon to my eyes and my mind; I love to travel in small towns, away from the touristic routes, in search of the real and simple life of these places! I taste their local products, I stop to rest in small cafes, where you always find someone to have a laugh or a chat; only through good and simple things in life you can start to really discover the world around you and yourself!

These amazing experiences have brought me to travel even more and got me to start my career in the tourism industry. And with time I realized that there isn’t a better way to travel than cycling, that it should become by only way of travelling and that it would have been so much more interesting and full feeling for every single traveler I have cared for so far, to show them the beauty of these places from a different perspective! Cycling!

Thus the idea of Alter Roads Cycling & Leisure was born, a project that I love and that I really believe in because it has given me the opportunity to combine what I love with what I do, cycle and guide. As a founder and guide, I get to share the beauty of these places, the regions, the countries and by bicycle, to visit villages hidden from the mass of tourists and corners of countrysides where people are still in contact with the nature and produce excellent quality products! Altogether, you can create perfect authentic moments and give the right meaning to your journey!

Alter Roads is now my life, my passion, what I love the most!