I feel very privileged to have received a good, rounded education and I would like to pass that opportunity on to others via the Mustardseed Junior School in Uganda – a partner trust to Magdalen College School, the school which I attended. It aims to provide a quality education to the children in its care, which would otherwise be out of their reach. https://mustardseedschools.com

I will be documenting my progress on Instagram which can be found here:

archiewhite_06 (Instagram)

I set off for Naples on 27th July and will embark on my journey the following morning, carrying everything I think I might need with me and a lot of unknowns - including where I will find places to sleep. I hope to see some friendly faces along the way and I already have a few promises from friends and family to join me in cycling short segments of the route. I suspect that I won't have many offers to share the Alpine stages....

Why a cycle ride? Over two days during the 2020 lockdown, I recorded a solo CD of Baroque Music to raise funds for charities important to me, inclusive of Mustardseed. The CD entitled ‘A Baroque Progress’ represents a musical journey or ‘progress’ through time and geography. It begins with Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater and his death in Pozzuoli, Naples, and ends in Oxford via a route passing through key places in the lives of a selection of composers, including Antonio Bononcini, Vivaldi, Stötzel, Bach, Purcell and Handel.

I plan to travel a route which reflects the geography of the day and which will take me across modern national boundaries from Italy, over the Alps, into Austria, Hungary and Germany, before making my way back to England.

Owing to the time constraints of my own ongoing education, I will not be going by horse, on foot or by 18th Century carriage but on the closest modern equivalent – the bicycle.