Getting started - the Lunigiana

Early on Thursday morning (6ish), which was easy thanks to the wonders of jet lag, we snuck out of Derek's apartment and cycled to Milano centrale station and hopped on a train to Villafranca in Lunigiana. This is pretty much south of Parma towards the coast and in Tuscany.

Testaroli al pesto

It was another stinking hot day and after buying supermarket provisions we had a worker's lunch at restaurant Al Pozzo (which consisted of 2 pasta courses before the main course, but we skipped one of the pasta dishes)

Bri had these interesting pasta which were actually pieces of pancake. Very ancient and typical of Lunigiana apparently. Shortly, after this, a bit sozzled, we cycled off up the hills towards Fivizzano via some amazingly beautiful countryside and villages like Castiglione, Gabbiana, Magliano and Agnino.

 

Looking to castiglione

This was, seriously, the most beautiful countryside I've been in. And we kept stumbling across amazing villages and drifting through air scented with the smell of wild flowers. The only downside, and it mainly affected the non-perspiring Briony, was that it was bloody hot! By mid afternoon, though, a thunderstorm erupted and we got drenched - it was lovely and warm and refreshing

By dinner time, we hungrily climbed the switchbacks leading up to Fivizzano where we had a beer at a small bar then had our picnic dinner, consisting of bread, salami, casciato cheese and white anchovies, in the park next to the bar.

Next, we had to find a sneaky campsite, so by about 8pm we started cycling again up the climb on the road to Garfagnana looking for a hidden flat spot. Hidden because, we'd heard that Italians don't like wild campers. About 2km up the road, we spied a little field that was on a side road and hidden from all houses and the roads so we set up there and had a beautiful cool sleep with just the screen set up on the tent

Waking up at the secret spot

 

 

 

 

 

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