We went for breakfast again this morning at the Cupido Bar beside our hotel and after coffee and a panini were out the a door a bit earlier than normal at 09:30. Looking at our planned route beyond Lucca, we knew that the road we were aiming for was on the opposite side of the town wall but were uncertain if it would be shorter if we went clockwise or counterclockwise around the walls. As it turned out we guessed wrong and went almost back to our hotel before finding the EV5 route out of town. For Top Gear fans, we did not find getting away from Lucca has difficult as this: Driving in Lucca, Italy | Top Gear - YouTube
Now the EV5 is marked on the the open source map all the way to the coast and our destination of Pietrasanta. However, you will be hard pressed to find a single Eurovelo sign on the entire route. Regardless, the route led us nicely to a gravel road right beside Serchio River. Crossing the Ponte San Pietro we cycled on a lovely stretch of road before turning on to Via Di Lupinagalia. And then the steep climbing began immediately and continued up 150 metres over for the next 1.5 kms-often at greater than 12 percent. It was a tough go up to the small town of Piazzano which we found to be surprisingly pretty town. There were no coffee shops but all the buildings and yards were quite attractive - so many flowers! A friendly lady even came out on her porch and we had a brief chat.
A nice crushed gravel path for the first few kilometres after leaving Lucca. It is through a park area and follows the Serchio River and is a local stage of the via Francigena.
This couple walking the via Francigena were viewing the statue of St. Peter on the bridge. The man was putting away his camera and unfortunately dropped one of his hiking poles over the bridge into a bit of a backwater below.
The retrieval would not be easy and would require going down an embankment, crossing a drainage ditch and stretch of shallow but moving river before reaching a pool of water where the pole had landed. We were both very sad for them, but there was nothing that we could think of that would assist. We hope that the recovery went well.
Our routing had us leave the ¨nice country road¨ and head up into the hills. This route is both the EV5 and the via Francigena hiking route. We passed a fair number of cycle tourers along this stretch, all coming from the other way.
It was a nice downhill beyond Piazzano and then a short uphill stretch on a quiet Strata Provinciale before reaching the town of Ristorum at the top of the hill. A great name for a place to stop and a coffee shop with also a great name,¨the Bike Cafe¨. When we arrived, the outdoor space was full of via Francigena walkers that had just completed the first six kilometres of their day's walk. We took a table inside which was great for us. The bar was part bike shop and part coffee shop. The walls were covered with cycling memorabilia as well as old road bikes. It was great fun to inspect the décor.
Leaving the Bike café, we were in for an even bigger treat that we were not at all expecting - a fast rolling 200 metre drop with a number of full on hairpin corners to navigate. Lots of fun!
Pietrasanta is part very large sprawling beach town and part suburbia for a two kilometre stretch back from the waterfront. As we were approaching the town, we found that our planned route went from a small backroad to a rutted, rocky track road. So much for EV5. We declined this plan thinking that we could find better. We did find reasonable roads but were frequently stymied looking for ways to pass over railway tracks or superhighways. After numerous backtracks we finaly did find the direct road to the beach.
Throwing our map out the window at this point, but this tourer had no issues with the rocky track. Oh, the joy of large diameter wheels!
Public access to the beaches in Italy are not so common. This one has a hand written sign in three languages letting know that you can find sand and water just down the path.
Checking into the Hotel Elizabeth. Our unloading process can sometimes look a bit chaotic. There are many many resort type hotels that line the beach but our hotel was just a block back off the beach and was a great place to stay.
As it turned out, the best street in Pietrasanta was one back off the main beach front resort street. We enjoyed a gellato after dinner as we walked along and checked out the tourist town. It was not busy but we were turned away from our first restaurant as we did not have a reservation.
We had a delicious, simple poke dinner and a quiet night. We had a gelato and headed back to our hotel after seeing the pedestrian area of Pietrosanta. This is really quite a nice area and greatly improved our view of this beach town but it is still not quite our cup of tea. Tomorrow we will move further up the coast to another large tourist town, La Spezia.
