November 6 - Cycling up to Pizzorne - 47km

Lucca is surrounded by hills, and mountains. It sits in the center of a fertile valley and makes an excellent base for cycling. Today we embarked on a fantastic, yet challenging, scenic ride to a small village at the top of a mountain at 990 meters. The area towns that lead to this place are just northeast of town. The intention was to do a loop, but when we got to Pizzorne, we followed signs to our intended destination, but got to either a dead end, or unpaved roads (this is quite typical in Italy when it comes to signage, or general information for that manner). After cursing in four languages, we decided we had better descend to where we had come from. This is when we realized just how high we had come. The scenery was fantastic, but the hands didn't like the prolonged squeezing on the brakes. The pavement was rather wet, and covered with leaves from the chesnut trees that are so abundant in this area. The long descent chilled our bodies, and we were happy to finally arrive at the flats where we could start pedalling again, and raise our body temperature to a comfortable level. On the flats we managed a good clip of 30kmph, and arrived in Lucca tired, but satisfied. It is hard to say which of our circuit rides around here is the prettiest. This ride definitely stands alone as one of the best!