TUSCAN
DRIFT

Tour Plan

Day 1 (20/05)
‘Welcome to Rome’

Arrivals, bike pickup, briefing and dinner in Rome

The afternoon belongs to arrivals and introductions. We collect the bikes, run through the route and kit, then spend the evening in Rome over dinner — the right way to start an Italian riding tour. Tomorrow we ride north.

Day 2 (21/05)
‘The Lake Route’

Lakes, volcanic tufa towns and the first evening in the Maremma

We leave Rome on secondary roads that cut north away from the traffic, and within half an hour the city has completely let go. The lake country of northern Lazio unfolds through the morning — three volcanic lakes appearing in sequence through the trees, each one a reason to slow down — and we stop for coffee at the edge of the first one before continuing north through the oak and chestnut forests of a regional nature reserve. By midday we are at the water's edge of a larger lake for lunch and, if the day allows, a swim. In the afternoon we cross into Tuscany, a border that announces itself not with a sign but with a change in the stone and the quality of the silence, and ride through the first of the ancient tufa towns before reaching the agriturismo as the light drops — our base for the next three nights. Welcome dinner by the pool this evening.

Day 3 (22/05)
‘The Coastal Route’

A loop west to the Tyrrhenian coast — Bolgheri, Volterra and the macchia.

We leave the agriturismo heading west, dropping through the Maremma scrubland — low coastal macchia that smells of wild herbs in the morning — and climbing to a medieval mining town for the first coffee of the day, a place that made its fortune from silver and copper long before anyone thought to put it in a guidebook. From there we reach the Bolgheri wine country and its famous cypress avenue, which marks the horizon long before we arrive, and stop for a long lunch in the village at the end of it. The afternoon carries us inland and upward to Volterra, an Etruscan city on a ridge above three valleys that has not found cause to change its position since the Romans came through and found it already there. We walk the walls, drink a coffee in the main square, and take the chestnut forest road back to the agriturismo, where we enjoy another marvellous outdoor dinner.

Day 4 (23/05)
‘Into the Chianti’

North into the Chianti hills, and an evening in the vines

From the agriturismo we head north and after a long passage through dense Tuscan forest the landscape opens into the Chianti hills — one of the better moments of the week, vine rows running across every slope, watchtowers still standing on the ridges from a time when this valley was fought over seriously. We stop for coffee inside a perfectly circular medieval walled town and then continue into the Chianti Classico zone for a long terrace lunch above the valley. On the return we cross the Crete Senesi, the bare lunar hills south of Siena, and pass a castle that has been producing wine in the same valley for six centuries. We arrive back at the agriturismo earlier than usual, with a reason: the neighbouring winemaker has agreed to open the barrel room. The evening ends in the vines, with a glass that earns its setting — the right way to spend a last night in the Maremma.

Day 5 (24/05)
‘The Umbria Turn’

Val d'Orcia, Orvieto at lunch, and a medieval river town for the night

Today we pack up and leave our dreamy agriturismo and the Maremma, heading east through the Val d'Orcia, stopping first at a thermal village where the main piazza is a Renaissance pool of steaming water rather than a paved square — one of those places that is impossible to describe adequately and immediately understood on arrival. We reach Orvieto in time for lunch: three thousand years of habitation on a single volcanic rock, approached by a road that gets better the closer you get. In the afternoon we follow a quieter route through the Umbrian hills, stopping for gelato in a hill town that touring itineraries tend to miss and shouldn't, before the final descent to tonight's overnight — a small medieval town set between ancient walls and a fast mountain river. Dinner is a short walk from the door.

Day 6 (25/05)
‘The Wild Road Home’

Apennine mountain passes, lunch in Rieti, Rome by evening

We leave the Umbrian river town and cross back into Lazio, climbing immediately into the Apennine range on a mountain pass that most touring itineraries skip entirely — which is why it is here. The morning coffee stop sits at the foot of a significant mountain, the kind of place where you find yourself looking up rather than around, and then we take the high road along the ridge before the descent to the valley floor for lunch in an old Roman market town that deserves more time than most riders give it. After lunch we climb again into a large wild natural reserve — the riding here is technical and largely empty, which at this point in the week feels exactly right — before dropping to the ancient villa town of Tivoli for a final coffee. Rome follows, bikes returned, and this evening we eat and celebrate like in true Roman style, because that is how the tour ends.

Day 7 (26/05)
‘Departure Day’

Breakfast and the road home