Day one of the Tuscan 400 – for me the home stretch to Rome, and for Susan a stretch of numerous muscles that haven’t been required to walk for six hours in a day for a while.
Our thoughts of a day’s walk through picture postcard Tuscan scenery were clearly the stuff of dreams, as for the bulk of the day it was a disheartening trudge through what passes for Italian suburbs and some industrial areas. Not very inspiring! The guide recommends Altopascio as the night stop, but as it is only 19km from Lucca, we made it a lunch stop instead. Another good reason for stopping for a long lunch break was the weather: there had been a heavy thundershower in Lucca at 0500 and we had been nervously looking over our shoulders all morning. While sitting smugly (and snugly) in the restaurant we watched and listened as the thunderstorm passed all around us.
The section after Altopascio was, thankfully, a trail – although it was mostly in forests with some farmland, so the photos of typical Tuscan countryside will need to wait for a future blog post. The village of Galleno could not come soon enough for Susan’s aching feet. Now that day one is behind her, she can look forward with some trepidation to days two and three!
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