Wedding Blog

The welcome note that accompanied a bottle of chilled prosecco on the first day of our tour.

Examined as one, complete part of the trip—”glorious blur” is probably a more accurate term—the six nights and five days of biking through Tuscany (which we booked with Bike Riders) were almost ethereal in how they affected us: a panorama of countryside browns, yellows and siennas (this being fall, and time of the harvest), amused farmers moving steadily down rows of grapes, hunched-over nonnas waving hello as they strolled leisurely on dusty roadsides, and a most extraordinary collection of secluded inns, sprawling villas, and postcard-worthy wineries—including two of the world’s most renowned—was where we’d rest our heads after long days of pedaling.

Overall, we wished we’d trained a bit more; our last major biking excursion had been the (comparatively easy) Five-Boro Bike Tour through NYC in May, and after the wedding, we’d spent six weeks depressurizing, working on thank you notes to generous well-wishers, and largely ignoring our previously committed fitness regimen. Our bike tour trip guides—grinning with private knowledge about how strenuous some of the trails really were—would dismiss large climbs, terrifying (and wonderfully so) descents down packed gravel, hairpin turns and highway crossings as much cheerier, easier, leisurely versions of what was actually there. But it was all part of the fun, and prompted constant redefinition of the term “rolling hills.”

By road, drivers were respectful of bikers and the car traffic was minimal—especially in the final two days, when much of the terrain was “white roads” (dirt and gravel)—and the weather was flawless: five straight days of gleaming sunshine, comfortable and rarely oppressive heat, and crisp air in the mornings and late afternoons. I can’t think of a 3-mile stretch of the entire trip–we averaged about 35 miles of biking every day—that didn’t necessitate at least one photo, and Mrs. Canary and I fast became the unofficial group caboose, being the last ones to finish the sections of the ride every day not because we couldn’t keep up or didn’t want to hang with everybody else, but because we were determined to savor everything we could and not stay too beholden to a set schedule. There was nary a town that didn’t necessitate a quick stop, and hardly a rolling hill that didn’t have a slack-jaw-inducing vista on the other side. We took hundreds of pictures, some of which you see here. For real: When they (the Bike Riders administrators) say you’ll ride through the type of sense-dazzling landscape you think of from movies and National Geographic spreads and stay in top of the line accommodations and feel beyond pampered, they aren’t kidding. They’re even then being too modest about what awaits.

Our room at Villa di Piazzano

Days 4-6: Cortona and the Chianina Valley

The bike tour began at the train station in Arezzo, where we’d traveled from Bologna and where we’d meet six other people with whom we’d become an ad hoc family for the next five days: two group leaders and four additional riders.

The view from our room.

Having all managed to arrive in Arezzo at least an hour before the designated pick-up time, we got the necessary salutations and small talk out of the way, and saddled up in our guides’, Melody and Massimo’s Bike Riders, van to drive to our first base camp, the magnificent, 15th century manor Villa di Piazzano outside of Cortona that had been converted from its original form into a country inn. We were greeted by its proprietor, Alessandra, who was of joint Italian/Australian descent and spoke Australian English with a layer of Italian accents, and led to a palatial room with a canopy bed on the highest floor. We then gathered for lunch with the whole crew: the discussion of each day on our tour and the general itinerary over sumptuous appetizers, a long lunch, and plenty of wine. The “opening ride” that afternoon—about 10 miles in the surrounding area—was useful to work out bike kinks and get the lay of the land. A few bruises and nicks later—having not ridden at length since the Five Boro, we had to adjust seating, pedals and balance—it felt like…well, riding a bike.

Our bikes– all ready to go

Mr. and Mrs. Canary– all ready to go

A vineyard at the Avignonese estate

Mr. and Mrs. Canary checking out the barrels of wine. Yum!

From that point on, every day’s ride was its own mini-adventure, and our first full day “by bike” brought us to Avignonesi, one of Italy’s foremost wineries and home to the country’s proudest and most delectable vin santo (the somewhat mythical Tuscan dessert wine, translated as “holy wine,” that from this particular vineyard starts, for a small bottle, at about 100 Euro in retail.) The entire Avignonesi empire actually encompasses four estates—Le Capezzine, I Poggetti, La Selva and La Lombarda—and we toured the fields, caverns, stocked cellars and production areas at the cypress tree-lined Le Capezzine, learning a great deal about production, science, technology and horticulture—and then were reminded, as a final above all by gracious vineyard tour guides, just how much of good wine production depends on the weather. The lengthy tour begat a four-course, three hour meal, inside Le Capezzine’s sixteenth century manor headquarters, that led off with wine tasting and sheep cheese and closed with yet more wines and house-made panna cotta. That we still had about 15 miles to bike to return to Villa di Piazzano was the only downside.

Dinners each night of the bike tour were equally sprawling: long, four-hour affairs where everyone made the best of being exhausted and still managed to find room for thirds, fourths, and dessert even though he or she was full an hour earlier. The food was too savory and too plentiful to pass up. Having eaten at the Villa on the first evening, the second night we ventured further into the hills to Cortona proper. Dinner would be at a well-known, family-run spot in town, but a few of us first took a detour and located the home of Frances Mayes, author of “Under the Tuscan Sun“, whose house is indeed a peach, even if its mountainside perch prevents it from a direct hit from the sun. (It’s called “Bramasole,” or, “craving sun”.)

One of our bike guides, Massimo, approving the homemade salami

Another long, lovingly protracted dinner brought some additional theater: personal attention from the proprietor, Romano, a bug-eyed eccentric who made big shows of slicing up wild boar sausage, pinching peoples’ ears and giving “is he joking or not” admonishment to anyone who didn’t clean his or her plate. He had his entire family in on the action, too: a wife who did most of the cooking, an elder daughter who managed the wait staff, and a youngest daughter, who couldn’t have been more than 10, opening and serving all the wine. It was a top-flight meal, heavy with plates upon plates of antipasti and different varieties of aged pecorino, and topped off with, for me, a ricotta cake that was one of the more delectable things I’d ever tasted. Burp, goes the fat and happy husband.

Days 6-8: Pienza, Montepulciano and Montecchiello

An impromptu treat. Hopping off our bikes and watching people harvest grapes for wine.

The next morning we bid goodbye to the Villa and embarked on what would be the hardest day of biking: a long, winding trip past Cortona (en route toward Pienza, Montepulciano and Montecchiello) whose capper was a rough, six kilometer climb with pretty steep grades along the way. No problem for a certain Mr. Armstrong world-renowned for his biking abilities, but for Mr. and Mrs. Canary, a bit exhausting—we had crossed the threshold past where the biking was fun and into where the biking was work, especially since much of the climb was nondescript highway, hardly scenic. But, as one of our fellow bikers noted, “There’s always a beer at the top,” and we did indeed take a beer-and-snacks break at a small pizzeria at the summit, continuing to soak in the marvelous scenery we’d experienced most of day.

Matching Keens

For the purposes of the bike tour, Mrs. Canary and I both had brought real bike gear. Thanks to the astute research and insistence of the (clear) brains of this little Canary marriage operation—me, I’d probably just have thrown on some crappy mesh shorts and hoped for the best if left to my own devices—we were equipped with the stylish padded shorts, the airy, workout-intensive shirts and—best of all—Keen-brand sandals, which are halfway between a sneaker and a closed-toe sandal and despite five days of constant use didn’t leave either of us with a single blister. I only had enough bike shorts to last for half the biking, however, so with no opportunity to do laundry I packed two pairs of regular cargo shorts and bought undergarment pads to wear underneath them.

Mr. Canary’s unraveling pants.

And so it came to pass—as only it can in Mr. Canary-like fashion—that a beloved pair of gray cargo shorts that I’d been carting around for probably 10 years (sorry Mom), met their end. By the time we had begun the 6 km ascent, a small hole on the rear left side of my shorts had expanded into a major rip, bordering on a full tilt seat disintegration. Seeing as nearly half my shorts were blowing in tatters like a shredded wind sock, I’m sure most of the Tuscan passersby got quite an eyeful (some song about a “moon hitting your eye like a big pizza pie” comes to mind), and I was careful to, uh, remain seated so as not to attract attention when we finally reached the top-of-the-summit pizzeria. It was drafty.

Our destination was another secluded palace: a ranch-style inn called La Saracina about 10 km outside Pienza, with Montepulciano—the highest, elevation-wise, of the Tuscan hill towns—in view in short distance. After I was finally able to put on pants that didn’t have, y’know, an 8″ x 7″ section missing from the rear end, Mrs. Canary and I soaked in a pretty, pool side scene, had some early evening aperitifs, and headed for Montecchiello, a town of only a few hundred people, a quiet, beautiful church, and steep, almost precariously inclined streets. (Montecchiello, like most Tuscan hill towns, requests that visitors park cars outside its main walls. Navigating an eight-person van up frightening inclines around streets scarcely wider than the vehicle itself would not have been the best bet.) Dinner that night included some of the better vegetable-based dishes we’d yet had—including eggplant and zucchini concoctions, laden with pecorino—though in trying to match my previous night’s ricotta tort I ordered a rice-and-ricotta cake that wasn’t nearly as flavorful. Can’t win them all, even if your belly expands regardless.

The views on our ride to Pienza

The following day was a looser schedule: another climb into Pienza—Huff! Puff!—and good time spent in the town, which was unlike the other hill towns we visited in that its main squares were somewhat flat, its commercial streets better organized, and its overall design a bit more modern (the Pienza-born Pope Pius II, we were told, gave it the first of many makeovers from what it had originally looked like, back when he held sway in the Vatican.) Mrs. Canary and I bought salami, cheeses, bread and honey for a picnic lunch—as well as some souvenirs—and the group then biked on to Convento di Sant’Anna, an ancient monastery where “The English Patient” was filmed.

Nonnas chatting it up in Montepulciano

Sometimes a picnic lunch just hits the spot; we cut up cheeses and meat using a small pocket knife we’d purchased in Pienza, and washed it down with another pristine view (and plenty of Gatorade). The late afternoon brought a change of pace: a car trip up into proud Montepulciano, well known for the Vino Nobile wines that made it wealthy (though still with a chip on its shoulder, seeing as the wine has always lived in the shadow of the Brunello di Montalcino), and later that night, back to Pienza for our “free night”, where we went off on our own in town to find our own dinner destination.

Days 8-9: Montalcino

Massimo, one of our bike guides, and Mr. Canary eating fresh-picked figs.

Montalcino might be the proudest and happiest of the hill towns: its main square is expansive, its merchants are always busy thanks to overflowing tour buses, and its overall air is one of easy pride. Makes sense, considering it’s ground zero for one of Italy’s most internationally beloved native wines. After a long day of biking—our last, considering the entire group opted out of the 6 AM  “morning optional” ride for the following day—Mrs. Canary and I finally got to sit down, catch our breath, soak in the scene, and taste Brunellos for close to an hour in a comely enoteca (wine store or wine repository) off Montalcino’s main drag.

Some of our favorite shots from the ride to Montalcino

The morning portion of the ride, which had led us away from Pienza, was advertised as a “Bike Riders favorite, a feast for the senses!” and once again, the rhetoric was hardly marketing blather—it was the most beautiful stretch (both intensely and serenely) of the entire trip. The landscape moved us; large acreages of farmland with stray cypress trees and voluminous hills, framed by mountains and endless sky, and we stopped on occasion to pick figs and walnuts off trees, take photos at spots where forest bled into sun-baked countryside, and enjoy dirt-road routes that saw cars maybe once every hour, if that. At one point, Mrs. Canary and I stopped on a windswept hill near a fortified estate someway into the tour, and just stared off into space.

Melody, our other bike guide, giving Mrs. Canary a lift into town in the support van. She wasn’t alone, check out the other fallen soldiers on the bike rack above the van.

A mini-tasting in Montalcino

The challenge of the day was a final climb: another 6 km monster—albeit significantly less difficult than the one 48 hours earlier—into the town. Half the group had opted out, and it was tempting to follow suit; Mrs. Canary’s knees were bothering her and my left hamstring had developed a pretty disagreeable cramp. Mrs. Canary, still the wiser, chose to take the van the rest of the way, content with the morning’s vistas being sufficient as a tour-capper. She was right in that regard; I did take the climb to Montalcino, and although it was satisfying to finish, my hamstring saw three days of tenderness afterward and there was nothing to match what we’d seen that morning. After five days of intensive pedaling, we were officially “biked out.”

Our beautiful room at Castello di Banfi

The view of the tower on the Banfi grounds

Watching the sunset by the pool. Alas, it was too cold to swim.

The last stop on our bike tour was Castello di Banfi, a magnificent wine estate that churns out some 8 million gallons a year, and whose hotel quarters were a part of its central castle complex. After soaking in the scene once more—and being greeted with a complimentary bottle of Brunello upon our arrival—we were treated to first a prolonged tasting of estate wines (three different vintages), and then a last group dinner in a private dining room, waited on hand and foot by white-gloved attendants. The meal began with gourmet bread—a switch, as most Tuscan table bread is a coarse, flavorless variety better suited to scooping up ragu than as a standalone eat—and proceeded through several classic Tuscan courses to a main entree of pigeon—yes, pigeon, and it was damn tasty—and a dessert of different apple-derived sweets.

The offerings at our farewell dinner at the restaurant on the hotel grounds

It was hard to leave the next morning; Banfi was arguably the most entrancing of our three accommodations during the tour. But after a brief visit to the on-site gift shop, it was time to exchange e-mails, hug, and go separate ways. For Mrs. Canary and me specifically, our legs were tired and we were exhausted—five days of long bike rides and late night dinners followed by early morning wake-up calls—and the idea of three straight days of glorious downtime in Siena sounded like a thin—OK, a fat—slice of heaven…

Melody and Massimo packing up the van with bikes and luggage preparing for drop offs at the train station.

… Stay tuned for the final installment of our trip, a visit to Siena.

* All photos taken by Mrs. Canary

** If you’re looking for an amazing, off-the-beaten-track honeymoon trip, and want to be pampered and spoiled without a worry in the world, definitely look into Bike Riders. You won’t regret it. Tell them the Canaries sent you! We have been talking about the bike portion of our trip non-stop and recommending Bike Riders to all our friends and family.