Home » Italy » Bicycle Tour: Marche, Umbria, Toscana

Total distance: 1000 km.<br>
Total altitude gain: 10 km.<br>
Tour date: May 2000.

Bicycle Tour: Marche, Umbria, Toscana

Thomas Driemeyer
2005-10-16 14:16:11

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store was working overtime to get the bicycle fixed. They actually managed to find matching components and reinstall everything for a very reasonable price, in record speed. (The owner, a friendly old gentleman who used to race, only spoke Italian and it took a long time to explain why we were in such a hurry...)

FIRENZE (FLORENCE)

Florence is a big city, probably as big as all the others described above combined. It's packed with tourists. The road between Siena and Florence is scenic but we did not have the opportunity to ride it this time; see my other tour report. We rode to the center of Florence from the train station, to the Piazza della Signoria. We visited many of the usual suspects but didn't go to any museums. If you haven't been there, don't miss the Uffizi, but forget the duomo, whose inside looks like a concrete bunker compared to the one in Siena. We finally rode to the other side of the Arno river, where we had a nice view over Florence (8).

You can see the river Arno in the foreground. The fat-looking bridge at the front left is the Ponte Vecchio, which is lined with tourist shops. The tower in the center is the Palazzo Vecchio at the Piazza della Signoria (the central square), and the duomo is to the right. If you want to visit Florence, I strongly recommend to read up on Florence's history in the 11th through 15th centuries, closely tied to the Medici clan, or you won't be able to enjoy the experience properly. It's all just stones if you don't know the living history behind them.

Contrary to common misconceptions, it is hard to take a bicycle on an Italian train, with the exception of some local trains but these can't be used to go longer distances. Consequently we had to leave Florence at a really inconvenient time, sometime late in the evening, but since the train left over two hours late we didn't get to our next destination (Rovereto, near Lake Garda) until two o'clock in the morning, where we met with more friends. I'll leave that for another page.

Looking back, the best part of this tour were the first three days, around Ascoli Piceno and Norcia, in the Apennine mountains. When I go there (when, not if), I'll spend more time in Umbria and Abruzzo to the south.