Biking Tuscany: You are There

Tuscany. We went on this trip with DuVine Adventures of Summerville, MA. They only do bike trips and they only do them in wine country all over the world. We chose Tuscany because we wanted to see Italy and we wanted to learn more about Italian wine. We knew Tuscany was beautiful (and hilly) but we really had no idea. DuVine asked me originally to try to organize a private tour for my friends but too many friends had complications with kids still in school or financial constraints. But no one said, “no, we never want to do that.” In the end only 2 friends joined us along with 10 other people who where not yet our friends. We had 2 groups from Calif, 2 from Colorado, 1 from Michigan, 1 from NYC and us from Boston. And of course the guides made 14 total people.

Logistics. DuVine–well, Holly Beatrice in particular–really took care of logistics of travel to and from wonderfully. She told us when to land and take off so we could choose appropriate flights. She told us hotels that they had screened and were in good locations and we chose one which turned out to be great. She then booked it for us. She booked the trains to and from the ends of the bike route as well. Everything she did worked out perfectly so the travel part of the adventure was simple and flawless.

Guides. When they met us at the train in Chiusi they just looked like young guys who would be showing us the way along the route for the week. But Angelo and Gregory turned out to be something quite special. Angelo is Italian but lives in Barcelona working as an actor when not guiding bike trips. He speaks fluent Italian, French, Spanish and English. His Italian was beautiful and musical as he pronounced the names of the places, told us the history of the area, and waxed euphoric about the various wines he loves so much. Gregory is a French citizen but has made his permanent home in Switzerland. He is a major skier and teaches skiing and boarding at the resorts where he now lives. He is an entrepreneur and wants to so his own kinds of tours at some point. He convinced DuVine to start doing ski tours. He has been all over the world and has spent many years doing all sorts of guiding in the western US. He speaks fluent French, Italian, English and Spanish. Both guides innately understand the real meaning of customer service and could stand up as models of that concept for anyone trying to build a sustainable customer-centric business. They are undoubtedly one of the reasons for DuVine’s success and continued rapid growth. Whatever we needed, whatever we asked for they just took care of it. When we got up every morning the bikes were all set with fresh water in the bottles, the day’s map on the handle-bar holder, minor repairs completed and everything ready to go. We could put things we needed whenever we stopped (like my crutches) in the vans and they quickly gave those things to us whenever we took a break from riding.

They told me that when they heard there was going to be a 1-legger on the trip that they knew they would have to “take extra special care” to make sure I got rides up hills and could keep up with the group. Then at the end they brought tears to my (and their) eyes when they told me that as they instead saw me consistently stay at the front of the group and motor up each and every hill no matter how long or steep they said they were so strongly impacted by that that they would never forget it.

Sleep. DuVine takes care of everything once you are on the trip proper. The hotels along the route are all ready and waiting for us–we don’t even have to check in. The hotels were wonderful, historic, charming and always had great views. Beds were comfortable. Bathrooms clean and modern. Bags are moved from place to place and all we had to do was pack up each morning and leave bags outside the door. Each night our bags were already in our new room. They have worked and worked the route so that it is fun, full of sites to see, and timed perfectly for good lunch stops and excellent timing (not too late) for the end of each day.

Eat. I don’t have enough superlatives in my vocabulary to describe how great the food was. I thought I had eaten Italian food but I had no idea really what authentic Italian (Tuscan) food is really like. They serve moderate portions so it really does make sense to have pasta and then an entree. The pastas had succulent sauces with complex and enticing flavors. The meats were tender, flavorful and presented in beautiful ways with interesting and flavorful sides. Wild boar was pretty common as it was boar hunting season. Each meal began with thinly sliced Prosciutto and cheeses especially Pecorino which is a special favorite in Tuscany. Fresh fruit was plentiful with every meal. Great breads were always abundant. I thought I had tasted Tiramisu but again, I had no idea. They just do it so much better than I had ever experienced over here. Same with Cappuccino; we use coffee beans, we use the fancy Italian espresso machines but in the end, I have never had Cappuccino this good before. And of course, there was always plenty of wine.

Drink. Carole and I have gotten pretty familiar with the well-known varietals of french wines and of course, of all the big categories of wine coming out of Oregon, California, Australia, New Zealand and so forth. As for Italian wine, we knew Chianti and Pino Grigio and that was about it. The system seemed different than France and we just never learned it. We got ours eyes opened wide. The master grape of the entire region is Sangiovese which is then the basis for Brunello, Rosso, Chianti as well as other wines of the region. The rules are strict to call a wine one of those names and it has to do with how much Sangiovese is used and how the wine is processed and aged.

Bike. Overall the biking covers 129 miles in 5 days. They built all the cities on the very tops of hills in Tuscany so you can be sure there are a lot of hills to cover. Some were very challenging. The hill up to Montalchino was a steady, unbroken 4 mile climb. And there were several 2 and 3 mile climbs as well. Of course there were some incredible downhill runs as well. I got my bike up to 45 mph on one of those and sustained that for over 5 miles. The bikes they provide are pretty good but not great. This is the single solitary thing I would have them improve. And no one doing this ride should use a hybrid bike. They allow guests who are not very experienced to choose a hybrid and that is backwards: the people who are not as in-shape need the road bikes even more. You cannot do this ride if you did not train hard. Oh sure, like they say you can do it and ride in the van on all the hills but that takes a lot of the fun out of it. The scenery you see from the bike and the satisfaction you receive from conquering those hills is a big part of the experience. We had come just a month earlier from the 192-mile PMC ride and then had continued to ride in preparation for this. Still, I never know how the one leg is really going to do on major hills. But I not only was fine on the hills but I was always in the front of the pack. Proudly, I will also proclaim that Carole was the one who was usually close behind me!

Now let me give you a bit of a travelogue of the six day trip.

Entering Italy: Rome. We landed in Rome, did sightseeing in Rome and slept a night in Rome before catching the train to meet up with the biking group. In the process we got to see some pretty cool stuff!

Sunday 9/19: Montepulciano. It all begins in the tiny train-stop town of Chiusi that is roughly half-way between Rome and Florence and sits on the boundary of the states of Umbria and Tuscany. Angelo and Greg met us right on the train platform and carried our bags out to the waiting vans. We began to meet our fellow travelers and waited for one more train. It had been raining when we left Rome and was still drizzling here. That seemed not to bode well but little did we know it would not last. Two vans transported us away from the hustle and bustle of even the small town of Chiusi out into the Tuscan countryside and eventually up a seemingly very big hill to the quaint town of Montefollonico where we will actually be staying for two nights at the villa La Chiusa. The hotel is an old converted olive oil mill that has been turned into a beautiful and luxurious hotel with incredible views across a valley.

Appropriately, as we quickly get ready for a short afternoon ride, they served us the sparkling wine of the region called Prosecco along with some snacks. We did the meet and greet and then were off to fit our bikes. It’s hard to get used to a different bike from the one you ride 1500 miles a year on but I had no choice. It was a decent bike but very different from my own. I was glad we had a pretty short afternoon ride to get us started on.

With nice prescience it has stopped raining and the roads were just a little wet. The hill out of the hotel was a bit of a shock for all of us. It was not very long but at the end had better than a 15% slope up. In my lowest granny gear I was pushing and pulling, huffing and puffing at my absolute max going as slow as 3 miles per hour up the final few feet of that and barely made it to the top. That is the steepest doable slope there is for me and for most people. We then rode just a short 7 miles to Montepulciano one of those cities on a hill that has beautiful historic buildings. In this case it was a fantastic church called San Biagio.

Montepulicano is best known as the home of Vino Nobile the king of wines. It has existed and been known for that since the 8th century. Back at La Chiusa after completing our first ride of 14.5 miles, we cleaned up and got ready for dinner at their Michelin-starred restaurant. Dania, the owner-chef, is world famous and an accomplished cookbook author. The food was specatcular. We slept blissfully in a very comfortable bed.

Monday 9/20: Pienza. Our second day is going to be another loop ride starting and ending at La Chiusa in Montefollonico. But this time we headed for the ancient little city of Pienza. We began to see the nature of the terrain: nothing is flat, you are either climbing or descending sometimes quite rapidly. Like most of the towns, Pienza is perched on the top of a large hill so there was a significant climb to get there. Pienza is where Pope Pius II came from. After becoming Pope he decided to turn Pienza into an ideal Renaissance city. Some say it is the most beautiful village in Tuscany. Here we took time to wander around the city, see the sites, shoot photos and shop. You might recognize this city because both Gladiator and English Patient were filmed here. A little ways outside town we stopped for a picnic lunch catered by our indomitable guides and then it was off again to complete the loop and make the final climb back up to Montefollinoco. We had just completed 23 more miles.

We learned from Umberto, the founder of La Chiusa, how to eat ripe figs right off his tree: you must split them open by hand and check to make sure there is not a bee inside gorging himself but ready to sting you if you try to eat him. The figs were like honey inside. Our first official wine tasting was walking distance from the villa at the winery of Vittorio Innocenti. He let us taste his Vino Nobile sitting outside at dusk looking out over an enormous vista that stretched for miles. We felt compelled to buy a few bottles of his wine which seemed unbelievably inexpensive for how great they were.

Tuesday 9/21: Montefollonico – Montalcino. On day 3 we were finally moving on and had a one-way trip from Montefollonico to the mountain-top village of Montalcino. We were warned that this hill was a major one. We were leaving the region of Vino Nobile and entering the land of Brunello a wine that is so expensive we had never bothered to taste it before. Lunch was in Montisi, a pretty long hill of its own. Its medieval streets are windy narrow cobble-stoned like some sort of ancient castle. We wound around all the way to the very top where a little plaza at the back of a hotel was set up for us to have a picnic lunch. Three of us in the lead got there and sat on the wall looking hundreds of feet down to the road where a long time later the rest of the group started to appear. Some ended up taking the van up this hill. Greg could not get the van anywhere close and had to shlep all the picnic stuff up himself. We had lots of cheese, meat, water and wine. Well not so much wine as we had a long way still to go.

A pretty easy ride after lunch got us to a nice rest place called Torrenieri where we got water, coffee and prepared ourselves for the biggest climb of the trip. Some flat sections got our legs warmed back up and then you could begin to see way up on a hill the ancient city of Montalchino. Once the climb started for real at first it was quite gradual and I only had to use my middle chain ring. I was far ahead of all the others. I just bared down and kept a nice steady push-pull going. The hill gradually increased in pitch so that I had to drop down to my lowest gear. Still I kept a nice slow steady pace going. The leg felt ok but after 4 miles the arms and butt are what were feeling it the most. Switchback after switchback the town was getting closer but I still had to raise my head up a lot to see up that high. I was determined to make it all the way without stopping. When I finally saw the final landmark we were to watch out for, I stopped for a picture to get the impressive scene of an entire stone city with a fortress on top sitting above olive groves and vineyards. This had been a 36-mile day.

The hotel this time was called Vecchia Oliviera, again, a converted olive mill built into the walls of the town. The warm shower this time felt especially wonderful because I had to admit, my leg was tired and sore. It was fairly early and we had several hours to tour the town. People that live in these towns built on top of hills must all have very strong legs. We did some major stair climbing to get up to the very tippy top and see the churches and fortress perched up there. My leg, especially the pull up muscles, was complaining as we climbed.

Wine tasting of their famous Brunellos was in the 14th century fortress at the top followed by dinner a few blocks away at Re di Macchia. We saw such a fantastic deal on these Brunellos–many cost $120 a bottle in the US–that we snatched up a case to have shipped home. We retired early as this had been a most tiring day.

Wednesday 9/22: Montalchino – Siena. After a classic breakfast it was time to head down the hill. As it turns out the downhill run lasted about 8 miles before you really had to pedal again. Everyone else was worried about being chilled but I loved the temperature. As with every day since we hit the bikes, there was not a cloud in the sky. Our first stop on the way to Siena was to be the 14th century Abbey of Monte Oliveto Maggiore. A long hill preceded it and the final stretch up the driveway of the Abbey was particularly steep. I arrived 10 minutes before the next rider. I found Greg and the van, got my crutches and found a resting place where I could see the other riders arrive. Angelo was our tour guide and in his sing-songy accent he regaled us with the history of this Benedictine monastery. This gave Greg time to set up the most magnificent picnic I have ever seen.

A lot of discussion at lunch was about the 10 mile stretch that would end our day in Siena and who wanted to ride in the van for that stretch. Many chose to do so. Not me and I was glad for my choice. This was in my view the best single stretch of road on the entire ride. The vista was wide open. We were riding along a ridge. There would be a significant hill and then a long downhill stretch followed by another climb. The climbs were tough but not extreme. But both up and down the views in all directions were magnificent. You could see for at least 50 miles in 3 directions. Finally we arrived in the outskirts of Siena after a total distance this day of 40 miles.

Siena is a gem of a medieval city but its a real city not just a village and is considered too busy and congested for safe riding. So we all packed the bikes into the van and rode to the hotel 10 minutes away in the van. The hotel was old and beautiful with lots of open space and wonderful grounds. Carole was ahead of me and had already caught the bus into Siena center. I was to catch up with her when I could. I showered and donned my one-legged pants as touring a city like this is best done on crutches. A short bus ride into town and we were in the center of a mass of Gothic buildings. All roads lead to the huge Piazza del Campo where we were to meet Carole and others for more shopping and eventually dinner on our own. We ate dinner in an alley off the main Piazza sitting at outside tables eating magnificent food and drinking Rosso–considered an everyday table wine but it still beats most things you pick up at the liquor store.

Thursday 9/23: Siena – Radda in Chianti. Luckily we were on the other edge of Siena and so could safely continue that way and ride out of the city without bundling up in the van again. Again, the guides had the bikes all set for us with fresh water and maps all ready for the new day. Today was to be Chianti day. This region is extra hilly but most of the hills were short so we were going up and down but never for very long. As Angelo loved to say with his Italian accent, we were “undulating”. We passed names even I recognized like the Chianti Classico estates of Bossi and San Felice. We were headed for the Castello di Brolio a castle that has been a Tuscan landmark for over a 1,000 years. Next we headed down, then up, to the town of Radda in Chianti. This was another tough stretch with some very long climbs and a few very long fast downhill runs where you had to be very careful to look ahead for the sharp turns and cut your speed in time not to skid off the side of the mountain. In Radda, Todd and I led the pack by about 20 minutes. I just had to find a resting seat to wait for the van where my crutches were. I didn’t mind that so much. When all the rest arrived it was time for a special lunch with many many courses of antipasti and pasta.

With very full bellies, including the best Tiramisu any of us had ever tasted, we were off to the final leg of the biking adventure. This was just a short 4 mile final run to the hotel and winery called Borgo di Vescine. This day had been 25 miles to take us to 129 miles for the entire trip. Our hotel was a 13th century hamlet that was converted into a resort complete with a pool. Most rooms were actually separate stone buildings but inside they were completely modern and comfortable. The winemaker here was a total character. Vincenzo liked to quiz his quests and in the process he taught us a lot about Chianti Classico, the region, the wine-making process and even the origins of the Chianti Classico black rooster logo. Our final dinner was just as good as all the others but it was bittersweet as it was the final one. Biking was over.

Friday: Radda – San Gimignano – Florence. We took the van the rest of the way to Florence and our various forms of transportation. But we stopped in San Gimignano on the way in a tiny little town that is really the most touristy of any place we had seen. It was a final place to do some shopping and we actually partook quite successfully and got quite a lot of Christmas shopping done. Sadly, the next stop was Florence where we all split up and said goodbye. The trip was over except for us getting to Rome, back to our original hotel, some more sightseeing in Rome and catching the plane home the next morning. It was without a doubt the best trip we had ever taken.

Thanks Duvine!