To set up the trip, we only planned our first night hostel stay. We had a general idea of things we wanted to see but no set structure to our itinerary...Clark Griswold would have hated this trip. We wanted to incorporate equal parts history/sightseeing, relaxation and outdoor activity. All in all, I think we did a pretty good job, especially considering the still healing broken left foot I was burdened with for the trek. I will delve into the history, relaxation and general travel tips in another post. Today, we're going to talk about the great Italian Outdoors.
Once you get out of the city, it's pretty easy to find beautiful, quiet places to explore. It will become even easier if you're up for an adventure on the bus (harder to navigate than trains) or are willing to jump off in small towns along the regular train routes. Our first outdoor experience caught us quite by surprise, in Sorrento. We hadn't been planning to hit the Almafi Coast on our tour but after hearing about the tourist horrors of both Naples and Pompeii (the town), we decided to take the train a little further south and explore an area we knew little about. Sorrento is a seaside town built right into the cliffs, near the island of Capri. We were fortunate enough to spend a lot of time walking around the town, getting off the beaten path, sitting by the ocean and hiking back up a long and steep hill toward the city center. While this city didn't provide a lot of seclusion, particularly as the throngs of cruise-goers set in, it was a beautiful, clean and well-loved place. Like many resort towns, I'm sure the locals love it when tourist season ends and they get to take full advantage of their own residency again. In short, Sorrento is a place to be visited in the off-peak season.
While in Florence, we decided to bite the bullet and pay 70 euros (about $100) each to take an all day bike tour of Tuscany. The tour included bike rental, lunch, a stop at a villa that makes its own red and white wine as well as olive oil....and, of course, our guide. This was an AWESOME experience. Being able to ride our bikes through the city was interesting in its own right (lets just say I was glad not to have had to drive anywhere) but there was something particularly special about biking through and then OUT of the city. An interesting tidbit about Florence is that you can actually see the transition from city to countryside. Once you hit the river, the city just stops. Beyond the river are olive groves and grapevines as far as the eye can see. Now, I'm not going to pretend that this was a leisurely bike ride by any means. Tuscany is HILLY! In fact, from Florence, it's straight uphill to get into the countryside. This caught us by surprise and ended up being a great, albeit unexpected, workout. It was totally worth it though! It was incredible to get up above Florence and see a view of the city that few tourists get. It also didn't hurt that our guide and the other couple who joined us were fantastic.
From Florence, we were off to the Cinque Terre. Theses are 5 coastal towns, inaccessible by car. The five are connected by a train and...a hiking trail. We slept in the westernmost town to start, Monterosso. Here we splurged to stay in a hotel right on the beach where we could fall asleep to the sound of waves crashing. We planned a whole day to hike from town to town and it did not disappoint. Again, being there in off season afforded us a lot of privacy on the hiking trail. The trails can get pretty narrow, steep and muddy while also incorporating quite a few stone steps. In some places it reminded me of the Inca Trail in Peru. I had a hard time imagining what that trail would have been like at the peak of tourist season. No thank you! The whole trail takes about 5 hours and while it's challenging (particularly on the west end), it is certainly worth it.
The last adventure I'd like to note was another, self-guided tour through Tuscany. We stayed in a small town called Greve, in the heart of the Chianti region. Here we were able to rent bikes, helmets and locks for a half day and about $15 each. We were given a map and it was suggested we take a 12k loop route through the town of Panzano before rounding back toward Greve. Well, this sounded great and off we set. Here, we found ourselves biking through fabulous scenery but along a narrow and busy highway full of drivers headed to/from Siena. Of course, this ride was also entirely uphill...how does that even happen?!?! While this was a physical challenge, our larger obstacle came in figuring out where the roads were that we needed to take to complete the route. We ended up just retracing our steps back halfway through the ride as there were too many unlabeled farm roads/lack of signage to continue in the direction we had been heading. Still, a great adventure.
I was thankful on many occasions to have packed mostly outdoor clothing for this trip. It's easier to wash out in the sink, less likely to stink and provides excellent versatility for a variety of excursions, including those I've mentioned here. It will be no surprise to most of you that I wore a lot of Icebreaker clothing. I also purchase a new pair of REI Rendezvous hiking pants, which looked nice enough to wear to dinner, had a nice long inseam for this leggy gal and were more insulated than my other Patagonia favs, providing a nice option for chilly days.
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