A week in Tuscany

We have made it to Rome after a week filled with a mixture of cycling, catching trains and avoiding crazy hunters! We left Florence on a fine day after a couple of days exploring Florence and sheltering in our house tent from the rain, with the plan to cycle through to Pisa beach that day. However, after abour two hours making our way through the crazy streets of Florence and some rediculously busy roads we decided the train sounded much more appealing. After following some confusing signs we located the station, bought tickets and had an interesting time carrying pannier laden bikes up and down steps and onto the train. Once onboard it was a relief to watch the countryside whizz by and not have to be amongst the traffic. We caught the train as far as Lucca.

Lucca is a cool wee city with old city walls and was a lot less busy than Florence. We ate ice creams before heading off on our bikes to Pisa. The natural park were we wanted to camp was was closed, so we had to continue into central Pisa, where all the camping grounds were shut! So we biked a few km out of Pisa and camped in a really nice piece of forest not far from Marina Di Pisa which we visited in the morning. We then returned to Pisa central and ate lunch beneath the leaning tower on the grassy lawn which was very pleasant.

Then we decided we would continue on with the train to Sienna, seeing as the trains seemed cheap and pretty easy with the bikes. They have a bike compartment at either the front and the back where we can stash the bikes.

We reached Sienna quite late and faced the same problem as in Pisa, all the accomodation was either closed or completly full. So off into the forest we went for another camp. We spent the next day wandering round Sienna's pretty bussling streets. By late afternoon we cruised out of the city and into the rolling hills of Tuscany farmland. We both breathed a little sigh of relief at another peaceful stretch in the hills - as cool as the cities are it is nice to get out of them!

As we cruised down another hill I heard a mighty crash behind me to see Chris panniers flying through the air! His pannier attachment had completly broken, so we spent some time manufacturing a new one. Then we continued on to a pretty foresty spot to camp.

In the morning we were woken to the usual sounds of guns of the thousands of hunters who seem to roam the countryside. Only this morning there were even more of them! We continued through the forests on a well marked walking and 4wd track only to find ourselves in a grove of hunters! They we all hiding in wee camoflage sheds shooting at birds! So we retreated very quickly! Once back on the road we agreed that sad as it was we would have to avoid all forest camping and forests in general! There were hunters everywhere and the whole day the sound of guns reverberated around the beautiful countryside.

We continued on along the big ups and downs, all the villages seem to be located on the tops of hills and the roads went to all of them. Later in the afternoon we came across a very strong sulfur smell and found oursleves amidst hundreds of campervans, and beneath the road some great steaming hot pools! So we stripped and joined the throngs in the pools, it was like an extensive superior Sylvia Flats.

After a good soak, and some chilly dips in the cold river we jumped back on the bikes and continued through the countryside. It was a lovely balmy warm day making a great change from our normal frigid climes. We camped in a paddock in the wide open, deciding that being told off was less scary than being shot!

Noone disturbed us and in the morning headed into Grossetto back on the Mediteranian coast. We wanted to find out some info about all the hunters and where we should go, or not go, but there don't seem to be helpful information centres anywhere, unlike the Dolomites. So in the end we decided to finish with Tuscany, too dangerous, and continue our journey South. We caught the train to Rome, and carefully cycled through the busy roads to our preplanned campground. The Vatican was all lit up in the night.

Rome, we have decided, is much more suited to cars and buses and trains than little bikes so we have caught the local bus to see the sights. Today we are planning to go see the Collosseum which looks very exciting! Then we catch the train to Pompei tommorrow where we head off on another adventure through a bit of National Park along the coast.