Nearly Neutral Travel

Having spent the last couple of days exploring Lucca itself, we were keen to see some more of what Tuscany had to offer.

In the morning we hopped on an early-ish train Pisa, since no trip to Tuscany would be complete without a visit to the famous leaning tower. Knowing that tickets were sold out online, we joined the queue to find a lone ticket was still available for the final slot before we needed to return to Lucca. We snapped it up for Sara, since I’d visited the tower only last month as part of a highly cultural stag weekend.

We spent the next few hours exploring the cathedral and some of the quieter piazzas around the leaning tower. More importantly, we also squeezed in lunch at L’Ostellino. I’d also visited this tiny sandwich deli last month, and had hyped it up quite a bit to Sara. I picked up a roast pork, brie, olive tapenade and chilli sandwich, while Sara went for prosciutto, pecorino, honey, pear and walnut. Both lived up to expectations, and this place now occupies two spaces in my list of top ten sandwiches ever. I asked Sara for her opinion, but apparently she doesn’t keep a list of her top 10 sarnies 🤷🏻

Sara then joined the queue for her tour up the tower. However, a combination of slippery steps and wobbly knees meant that she only managed a single lap of the top deck of the tower, pausing just long enough to give me a wave. Good luck trying to spot her in the photo!

We returned to Lucca following a power walk back to the station. This was necessary to make it to our next excursion on time – which was almost certainly the most romantic date I’d ever planned – a tandem bike ride through the Tuscan hills followed by a wine tasting at a local vineyard. However, the reality of a 35 degree bike ride in the afternoon sun set in quickly as we wobbled our way through one of Lucca’s city gates. Then, just as we’d started to hit our stride and the buildings and traffic made way for vines, the road turned steeply uphill. I frantically searched for a lower gear as our bike lost speed, only to find that there were no gears, and we quickly ground to a halt. I have no shame in admitting that we pushed the tandem up the final stretch, arriving at the vineyard with very rosy cheeks even before we’d hit the wine.

The wine tasting itself turned out to be more of a set menu accompanied by wine pairings. In fact, the 4 courses and 4 glasses of wine was probably the best dining experience in Italy so far, and the views over the Italian countryside were just the icing on the cake. The vineyard itself was owned by a half-Italian, half-Wisconsin chap who was understandably proud of his dual heritage, and who gave us the warmest of welcomes. We happily grazed our way through the courses, and all-too-soon it was time to head back to Lucca in order to return the tandem. This direction was easier now that gravity was on our side, not to the mention the additional ballast and dutch courage.

The following morning, we passed another couple on a tandem cycling serenely through Lucca’s cobbled streets as we made our way to the station. I can only assume our arrival at the vineyard was similarly graceful.

Lucca is a medieval town in Tuscany, known for its staggering number of churches and towers. We spent a couple of slower days here without a set itinerary, mainly wandering the streets in the walled old town.

It is one of those places (there seem to be many in Italy) that is nonchalantly beautiful, with stunning historic buildings, ornate doors, traditional shop fronts and just the right amount of peeling paint and graffiti so that it doesn’t look like Disneyland. Bicycles were the preferred mode of transport, there were vineyards within easy reach (more on that to come) and the town even had its own craft brewery (which we dutifully sampled more than once – we are nothing if not thorough). This felt like a town that had the measure of us.

On our first afternoon, we picked up a delicious picnic of focaccini (tiny bread pies, filled with delights like fior di latte or gorgonzola, radicchio and walnut) from the iconic Forne a vapour Amedeo Giusti and walked the 4km footpath around the 16th century walls that encircle the old town.

Walking the walls was a popular tourist activity, although most people seemed to opt for renting Quadracycles. Having got in a right pickle in one in Santa Barbara with the Appletons a couple of years ago, we knew that they weren’t the easiest to control, and sure enough we overheard some great family arguments on our way. This was a really lovely introduction to Lucca as we could peer into the old town from above but also see lots of the ‘new’ (still quite old) town beyond the walls.

During one of our walks, we came across the Torre Guinigi and climbed the 230 steps to the top for the view over the red rooftops that the Lonely Planet described as “predictably magnificent”. The thing that really set this tower apart was that there were seven mature trees growing on the very small rooftop. It didn’t seem like the greatest idea in terms of structural integrity, but it did look lovely!

We returned to the same spot on the city walls on several evenings to watch the sun set over the Tuscan hills. On one evening, as we ate our poke bowls (you can take the girl out of London…), an opera singer and classical quartet began a performance just behind us. SO Italian!

After a relaxed couple of days, we were ready for some exploration further afield, so we set off to see a bit more of Tuscany by train and bike.

Everything we’d read in advance about Cinque Terre described the area in similar terms – spectacular and very, very busy. Given our normal preference to avoid crowds at all costs (making Italy in August an interesting choice), we were excited but a little apprehensive to visit.

We stretched our budget slightly to allow us to stay within one of the five villages so that we could enjoy the relative quiet of the early morning and late evening. After poring over descriptions of the distinguishing characteristics of each village, we decided they all sounded fabulous and made our choice based on booking the only apartment we could find that was well-rated, somewhat affordable and, crucially, available. Riomaggiore it was!

On our first afternoon, we rented a two-person kayak and spent a happy couple of hours bickering paddling along the Ligurian coast.

After a spectacular storm overnight (which kept me awake and that Oli slept through – sound familiar?), we got up early and caught a train along the coast to Monterosso al Mare, the westernmost village of Cinque Terre.

Here, we joined the famous Sentiero Azzurro (blue path) and walked the two open sections from Monterossa to Vernazza and Vernazza to Corniglia. It was just challenging enough, genuinely spectacular and much less busy than we’d feared – we loved every moment.

The first section took us on a rough mule track through steep terraces of vines, with glimpses of the sea on the right and of Monterossa far below us.

The views as we descended steeply into Vernazza were absolutely gorgeous – we took hundreds of photos but sadly none of them quite capture the scene.

In all of the villages, we found the central areas were really busy but the back streets (which were even prettier) were beautifully quiet. Our impression was that as long as you were in the area to actually do something and didn’t just want to spend time posing for insta pics in the villages and on the beach, then you could easily avoid most of the crowds.

We stopped briefly for gelato in Vernazza before climbing up, up and then up some more towards Corniglia. Here we bought some focaccia, fresh tomatoes and cold beers in a small shop and ate them while admiring the view from a terrace overlooking the sea. I know everyone says it, but we’ve been blown away by the quality of produce you can buy from just about anywhere in Italy and we’ve been eating SO well.

At this point, we had visited all but one of the villages and decided to make it a clean sweep, so we caught the train to Manarola and went swimming off the dock, which was glorious (and not strictly allowed, but it seemed to be where the oldies were swimming and round the corner was utter chaos!)

When we arrived back in Riomaggiore, we were ravenous and shared a cone of fried anchovies, king prawns, squid, octopus and mussels (no pics as we absolutely devoured it) and then headed to the rocks to watch a spectacular sunset. There was a slightly tense moment when our wine cork broke but Oli finally managed to open the bottle (to cheers from bystanders) and showered himself in white wine. A happy ending 😉