Exploring secret Tuscany on foot
A slow travel itinerary beyond the crowds and glossy guides: clifftop towns, hotels, walks, restaurants, aperitivos. Lots of snaps.
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This guide was a labour of love - I really hope you enjoy it! As per my usual travel-related advice, maybe don’t read on an empty stomach…
Why exploring on foot is so great
I’ve never really understood why walking holidays are associated with people of a “certain age”. I personally can’t think of a better way to explore than by moving my body and breathing fresh air with the sun on my skin — I’m forever grateful I have the physical ability to do this.
As opposed to — say — being stuffed into an air-conditioned hire car that cost more than the flights, whilst ploughing through fuel, having to deal with parking and missing all the beauty beyond the roadside.
Whilst I’ve done my fair share of multi-day walking - including to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and a week hiking along the South West Coast path in England - I have never previously used a walking tour company.
The kind that books your accommodation, organises your luggage transfers and provides detailed self-guided walking instructions that you can’t find online.
Until now.
Walking in Italy
Earlier this month I spent a week hiking in Italy, passing from Umbria into Lazio and onward to a quiet corner of Tuscany. Full of medieval clifftop towns, ancient woodland and olive groves, path side figs begging to be picked, silly amounts of pasta, cheese and pizza and wines so local I had walked through the vineyard just hours earlier.
The route covers a remarkable range of landscapes and lots of archaeology, including mysterious Etruscan tombs excavated out of tufa (or tuff - a type of rock made from volcanic ash), all surrounding the largest volcanic lake in Europe. Despite its proximity to Rome, it is as little-known as it is beautiful.
I had no intention of writing this trip up but I enjoyed it so much that I figured I couldn’t keep it to myself. If you want to skip the crowds that visit the well-trodden Tuscan paths and instead discover the 'secret' Tuscany - not the one from glossy guide books but a wilder, quieter and more enchanting one - this is a superb itinerary.
I share where we visited, what the walking routes were like, where we stayed, and the pretty fabulous eating and drinking spots we discovered along the way, plus lots of snaps. You could of course drive the route instead of walk it but at the expense of some spectacular scenery and a means with which to work off some of that pici.