15 TUSCANY TO TURIN (AND THE BITS IN BETWEEN)
Lago di Bolsena was our starting point for this week. After completing our morning routine of waking up, brushing our teeth and jumping into the closest water source available in order to avoid melting like Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (perhaps a niche comment), we drove to our first Tuscan destination: Val d’Orcia.
Famous for its rolling hills and picturesque landscapes (and depending on your film knowledge, the set location for films such as Gladiator and The English Patient), Val d’Orcia was exactly what I had in mind when planning our visit to Tuscany. The scenery was breathtaking and not in the way that I’ve found other landscapes like the Mont Blanc Massif, or perfect Greek sunsets to be breathtaking. No, Val d’Orcia was almost forcefully calming and as cliché as it sounds, the closest thing I’ve seen to a painting. We visited a couple of villages including Bagno Vignoni and Pienza. Pienza had a perfect view of the landscape as well as an abundance of shops selling local produce and trinkets. I felt very at home and have since been devising a plan to acquire a villa in the area, along with a cypress tree driveway and an enormous swimming pool.
Following plenty of oohs and aahs, we left Val d’Orcia (hopeful to return one day) and made our way north to Siena. At this point we were incredibly hot and peckish having not had breakfast, so we decided to have a late lunch in Siena. After some searching, we winded up at a restaurant that did not have a menu, nor a waiter with good English and given that our Italian is shamefully bad, we allowed the waiter to decide what we should have (not on purpose). In fact, from the moment he walked away after ‘taking our order’ up until the point at which our food arrived, we weren’t even sure we had ordered at all. Thankfully, our terrible communication skills pulled off because our hunger void was filled by a starter of cold meats, cheeses and bread, followed by a spaghetti ragu dish (by ragu I mean corned beef with tomato sauce). On the whole, I would say it was a little underwhelming but cheap, therefore I wasn’t too disappointed.
Siena itself was pretty, but probably my least favourite of all the Tuscan towns/cities we visited - by least, I mean it was still absolutely stunning, but just less so than the the villages of Val d’Orcia and the capital of Tuscany: Florence. We visited Siena’s Duomo and generally explored the town which was lovely, but unfortunately when it’s 35 degrees, enthusiasm for being in a city is slightly diminished. Therefore, we soon escaped north to a campsite not far from Florence which importantly, had a swimming pool.
The swimming pool was well used by the time we left the following day. We left for Florence at midday - rather traumatically. I was driving out of the campsite with not a care in the world, when suddenly I heard a noise and felt a bit of resistance from Bert to move forward. I had forgotten that Bert was connected by cable to the electricity box at the campsite. By the time I realised, I had, quite spectacularly, ripped the plug off the campsites electricity box, exposing the wires to the elements. I was mortified. The other campers just looked at me with a mix of pity and amusement. I slid out of Bert to check the damage. Bert was unharmed, but their box on the other hand not quite so good. I did a unique kind of walk of shame - the one you do when you’ve just torn out the electrical box of a campsite - to the reception to own up to my sins. Thankfully, the owner was very forgiving and did not charge me extra. This however, did not effect my feelings of shame and embarrassment.
Anyway… we left for Florence at midday, which, looking back may have been a bit of a mistake given that it was 38 degrees. I think that I’d acclimatised to the hot weather because of my exposure to various European heatwaves this summer, but Han was suffering which was unsurprising and completely understandable.
We found a free parking spot just beside Piazza de Michelangelo, which, perched at the top of a hill, offered an amazing view of Florence.
We then bravely ventured into the oven that was the city centre. We visited the dozens of statues scattered around Florence, including some by Michelangelo. We nosed around some shops and eventually ended up at the cathedral which was striking. However, you can’t tell me that the Duomos of Orvieto, Siena and Florence aren’t extremely, perhaps even, inordinately similar. I’ll insert a picture of each below. All I’m saying is perhaps when designing each one back in the 16th century, they could’ve at least hired a range of architects with varying ideas to prevent me from seeing basically the same cathedral three times. Is that too much to ask?
Whilst in Florence, I also had my third (yes only third) crepe of my entire trip. I know, rooky numbers. My choice of topping: Nutella and vanilla ice-cream. Perfect. After exploring a little more, we made our way back to Bert via the famous Ponte Vecchio, which reminded me a lot of the Rialto bridge in Venice. On the whole, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in Florence - it was definitely worth the heat stroke that guided us back to the lovely campsite with the swimming pool that we had stayed at the previous night. I felt ashamed returning after how I had left that morning, but heat drives you to do crazy things !
The following day was uneventful. We relaxed by the pool until 2pm and left (this time without embarrassing myself) to head north towards a camp spot in Sarzana, on the Italian Riviera. On the way, we happen to pass through Pisa and caught a glimpse of the top of the tower. We had been told by various people that Pisa itself was not worth visiting unless we were desperate to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa - spoiler: we weren’t.
In the morning, we continued along the Italian Riviera to San Terenzo, a pretty seaside town. We spent the day on a nearby beach, dipping in and out the water every 5 minutes to cool down which was necessary, I promise. After a day of solid tanning, I had found us a campsite for that evening. In general, I have noticed that Italy has been one of the more tricky countries to find well-reviewed, free camp spots. This was especially true in the Italian Riviera region and thus unfortunately, Italy was becoming an expensive visit with campsite bills adding up.
The idea for the campsite that evening was to be reasonably close to Portofino which was our destination for the following day. We set off early in order to park up in Santa Margherita Ligure- which was absolutely gorgeous - and catch the bus into Portofino. We arrived at the bus stop and waited a good 40 minutes, but with no luck and an ever increasing body temperature, we decided to sack Portofino off and head to the beach in Santa Margherita Ligure instead. Upon reflection, and even at the time, I’m glad we did so because we had a lovely day on the beach (despite the Americans) with a pizza break in between.
In the evening, we enjoyed a long but beautiful drive along the coast past Genoa and inland towards Turin. I hadn’t expected the coastline to be so spectacular. It reminded me of what I imagined the Amalfi coast to look like had I bothered to spend 100 euros to hire a boat to see it for myself. Once again, I don’t think pictures really do it justice so I’d recommend you google the Italian Riviera and you can see for yourself its beauty.
That evening, we camped outside the town of Ovada - 50km inland from Genoa. It was suddenly extremely windy in this little town and as a result, we were rocked asleep in Bert that evening. It was a convenient stop because from there, it was only 2h30m to Turin.
We set off fairly early the following day, stopping in Acqui Terme on the way for a croissant. Acqui Terme itself was pretty uninspiring, but it made up for it in croissant quality. Saturday marked a significant change in weather. There was a three-day storm forecasted for some parts of the Med and we were experiencing the start of it. By the time we reached Turin at 3pm, we were in the midst of a mighty thunderstorm. Therefore, we hid in our enormous hotel room in Lingotto (our hotel had the famous Lingotto race track on its roof which was pretty cool) until the early evening.
Thankfully, the weather had calmed down, enabling us to venture out of our nest into Turin centre. Han and I went to a restaurant for some drinks, before my university friends (Jonny, Ben, Surekha and Evie) joined us. Just before you think any crazy thoughts like: what a mad coincidence that they were in Turin at the same time - we had planned it, it wasn’t fate! We caught-up over some drinks and headed for food soon after. We winded up at an extremely busy Italian, but the chaos did not spoil the dinner because the waitresses were amazing given the customer-to-waitress ratio. Everyone was pleased with their food (bar me who paid 15 euro for penne with tomato sauce) and the 2 litres of wine went down a treat. It was a lovely evening.
In the morning, we headed back into Turin, convened with everyone once again and visited Mole Antonelliana - Italy’s national museum of cinema. It was really funky and well worth the money. There were some cool movie exhibitions and I even had my first interaction with VR (virtual reality), which, although I found to be a bit underwhelming, I could still see the attraction. We had lunch at some kind of Italian fast food place called La Piadineria, specialising in what I could only describe as thick wraps. To be fair, it was super tasty. I also had a Nutella one.
Jonny, Ben, Surekha and Evie then left to go to a football game (I couldn’t offer more detail than that) and given that Han and I’s interest in football is limitef, we decided to give the game a miss. Instead, we roamed around Turin, nosing around shops, looking at clothes we couldn’t afford. Following that exhausting day, we treated ourselves to some macarons which were very tasty. As it began to rain again, we returned to our hotel and relaxed for the evening.
SUMMARY
What a week! Upon reflection, we crammed a lot of Italy into one week, exploring a variety of cities and landscapes - it never fails to surprise me that by driving just an hour, the scenery can change so significantly. I would have say that Tuscany has been my favourite Italian destination and it certainly lived up to my high expectations. I just hope that Han enjoyed this week as much as I did! Join us next week where we relax in Lake Como and explore my final Italian city: Milan. Once again, thanks for reading and appreciate the support :)
