The Hidden Side of Tuscany

When you live in a beautiful place, you can sometimes take it for granted. It  becomes such a regular and accessible part of your life that you forget to  take full advantage of it. You think you know it inside out already; you’ve  been there, you’ve done that. I used to live in Tuscany and since it was a  temporary lodging from the start, I knew I had to savour every moment and  leave no stone unturned. On the many trips I took back to the region  following my move away, I felt the comfort and the familiarity of it which I had honed over a long period. It was only last October – 7 years after  moving away – that I realised how little of Tuscany I actually knew. For this  time around, I was hiking through it starting in Lucca and ending in Siena. I  was covering 150km of terrain all by foot stopping off in little villages along  the way some of which I had never even heard of.  

The course we were taking was called the Via Francigena. It had been  forged centuries ago in the Middle Ages and had served, for many, as a  pilgrimage route to St Peter’s Church in Rome. The trail began in  Canterbury in England and snaked all the way through France, Switzerland  and Italy to finally reach the Vatican. In its entirety, it covers 1,200 miles of  road and it was a journey which medieval pilgrims took several months to  complete. Nowadays, the paths are being reinvented as forms of slow  tourism and offer its wanderers and wonderers a simpler way of travelling.  Our last modern mode of transport was the train from Lucca to our starting  point in Altopascio and for the next week, we did not go near anything with  wheels. 

On the first day, we covered 30km of Tuscan soil. In the morning, we departed from Altopascio where we were dressed in layers of thick clothing  protecting us from the biting fog. But as the day wore on, the skies cleared, and those layers came off one by one. The rest of the October week saw  days of glorious sunshine and warmth which brought the landscapes to life  with brightness, colour and autumn scents. 

Much of our hike on Day One took us along the Arno river, the same which  flows through Florence and Pisa but which extends ever westwards  towards the Ligurian sea. We passed quiet towns in the middle of nowhere filled with silent piazzas where the only sign of life was laundry drooping out of shuttered windows. We had no idea how much civilisation we would  pass and so the day before, we had picked up sandwiches from Ciacco in  Lucca. At lunch we devoured every morsel of the focaccia stuffed with  cured meats, marinated vegetables and luscious spreads all grown and  produced in the region. As we feasted, we cooled our feet off in the river  and dozed underneath a birch tree before pulling our boots back on and  continuing the journey under the now beating Tuscan sun.  

Just before dusk was falling, we hauled ourselves up to our home for the  night, the hilltop settlement of San Miniato. It is an ancient town filled with  cobbled lanes, looming red brick turrets and pristine piazzas flanked by  intricately painted structures. Our urge to reward ourselves overpowered  that of collapsing onto the hotel bed and so we bee lined as fast as our  weary legs could take us to Birre e Acciughe, a neighbourhood deli selling  endless varieties of beer and bruschetta. We ordered two bottles of crisp  lager and 2 toasted breads one topped with brie and truffle honey, the other  with butter and anchovies. These were enjoyed whilst watching the sun setting over green valleys and red-tiled roofs which were gradually silhouetting with the fading light.  

The beauty of walking tens of kilometres each day is the hunger which is  born from the physical exertion. Where better than to have copious  stomach space than Tuscany?! That night in San Miniato, we devoured  piled plates of seasonal truffle pasta, brimming glasses of Chianti wine and  bulging ramekins of tiramisu at Piccola Osteria del Tartufo in the town’s  main piazza. Refuelled, it was then all too easy to melt into our pillows and  prepare for the following day. 

The next day’s hike (18km) showed us landscapes which fulfil the iconic imagination of Tuscany; pristine rows of cypress trees lining never-ending driveways; abandoned farmhouses with peeling facades of yellow paint  and shutters hanging by a thread; rows of vines weighed down by grapes that were ready to be harvested (a few of which we plucked and snacked  on); the surprise of a medieval monastery peeking through dense  woodland. We ended that day in Gambassi Terme and took it back to  traditional basics by sleeping in a convent. We sat in the gardens sipping a  glass of the house wine, playing cards and stretching our limbs after  another satisfying trek.

The week wore on and whilst the routine of each day was consistent – wake  up, big breakfast, big hike, big dinner, big sleep – the sights we saw and  places we encountered were wonderfully varied. One morning, somewhere  between the towns of Colle Val d’Elsa and Monteriggioni, we stumbled across a little spring which we bathed in before continuing onwards.  Another time, we passed through a valley where, as if in a fairytale, a  singular house stood by a trickling stream. At the end of the large garden,  there was a persimmon tree and we couldn’t resist plucking its most  golden yield. Like giddy schoolchildren, we devoured it whilst constantly  looking over our shoulder for fear that the owner of the house would chase  us down.  

On the final day, we reached the Piazza del Campo in Siena and the  bustling town was a culture shock after 7 days of rural countryside. The  sense of achievement was mingled with an urge to continue the Via  Francigena until Rome; there was so much more of hidden Italy to unearth.  That night, at dinner in La Taverna di San Giuseppe we rewarded ourselves  with wild boar ragu, Bistecca Fiorentina, and Brunello di Montalcino wine,  and promised that we would return to Siena and continue the journey we  had only just begun.