The travels of Tim and Megan: Bike tour in Tuscany, Italy

Thursday

Before leaving London for our Italy trip, we had booked in for a day-long bike tour around the Chianti wine region with Tuscany Bike Tours. On Thursday we set off to join our group - around 10 people led by our guide, a Scotsman called Rowan. We were looking forward to seeing some of the Tuscan countryside, as well as experiencing some of the additional extras on the tour, such as visiting a 12th century castle, wine and olive oil tasting and lunch at a local trattoria.

We hopped into a minivan and were driven for around 40 minutes out of Florence to the start of our tour at the castle, Castello di Popiano, which is the spectacular residence of the Count and Countess Guicciardini. The Guicciardinis own not only the magnificent castle, but also around 640 acres of perfect Tuscan landscape and use it to produce award winning wine and olive oil. Their family have lived on this land and in the castle since the 12th century! After a brief tour of the production facilities of the castle and some photo opportunities from its turret, we tasted some of the wine and oil - delicious! Then it was time to get measured up for bikes, listen to a lecture about Italian roads (narrow) and Italian drivers (respectful, but fond of the horn) and we were off!

The tour was about 21km through essentially flat or downhill countryside. The biking was easy (for the most part...see below) as we were told to keep a good distance from the person in front and with our guide leading the way, no one got up too much pace. We also had plenty of stops for water, which was appreciated as we cycled past a temperature gauge reading 37 degrees...

After an hour or so we pulled in for lunch at a charming little restaurant - salad, pasta, dessert, espresso and wine followed. We enjoyed the chance to talk to some of our fellow travellers, including Brendan and Julie who live in one of our favourite cities (NYC) and work three-day weeks as nurses - nice life! After lunch our tour leader let Julie lead the group off, which turned out to be a mistake, since she is clearly mad on a bike. In no time she was a speck in the distance leaving us (and Brendan) regretting the amount we had eaten at lunch.

The group caught up with Julie at a beautiful big field of sunflowers where we got some more photos. By this time Megan was rather disgruntled with the heat, which was pushing 40 degrees, so when it came time to do the hill climb and the option of a lift in the van was offered it was a no-brainer. Most of the group followed suit, but Tim and a couple of other hardy souls battled their way upwards to a cafe at the top of the hill. The hill climb was only 900m, but it was very steep and the intense heat made it extremely tough. Tim had to stop a few times on the way up the hill, but he managed to ride the whole way, rather than get off and walk the bike up. Hats off to the Tour de France cyclists, no idea how they do it.

After another drink stop, we completed the tour with a gentle ride alongside more sunflower fields, grape vines and other delightful sights on our way back to the castle. Tuscany Bike Tours did a fantastic job - everything was very well organised and we had a super day. If you're ever in Florence, definitely set a day aside for this. The scenery is magic and it is a really fun day out. Rowan and the other guys running the tour were nice guys too.

Back in Florence, we were ready for a relaxed stroll back to our hotel before grabbing some dinner and settling in on the train to Rome - very excited about visiting the Eternal City at last!