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Anyone who has been to Tuscany and Umbria will realize what you don't need a book to walk and eat in these areas. Order the specialty of the house and the house wine. The subject can be summarized without a book. Wear good walking shoes, eat when you have an appetite and where the locals eat. Why waste time looking for places to eat when all the food is good. The book is pretty worthless.
Whenever I tell my friends that my wife and I just spent a week hiking through Tuscany, they exclaim, "That's my dream vacation." This is the book that makes it possible, even if, like us, you don't speak a word of Italian and were never in Italy before. It's a practical, how-to guide that enables you to just go off and "do it." Great restaurant suggestions (of course), places to stay, tips on how to navigate the bus and train systems, which tourist offices are helpful, with phone numbers, and snail and e-mail addresses. The authors describe 40 different walks, from 1/2 day walks near Florence to walks, that strung together, can occupy a week or more of your time. The trail descriptions are precise and easy to follow, but the book is much more than that. It was our Bible in Italy. Buy this book so the authors will be encouraged to write more.
The walks in this book are great.With this guide, you can truly get off the main tourist routes and into the Tuscan back country for a very different experience of Tuscany.In mid May 2007, we did the walk from Greve in Chianti to Radda, and a walk from Pienza to Montepulciano. On the Greve to Radda walk, we hiked in the woods, saw wild boars, and spent a most enjoyable two days in Volpaia, a little town of 50 people, some hundreds of years old, surrounded by vineyards in the Tuscan hills. The walk from Pienza to Montepulciano was beautiful. The classic Tuscan views of hills, cypress, winding country roads.If you enjoy walking and want a non tourist view of beautiful Tuscany, I do strongly recommend this book.
The original edition of this book, written nearly ten years ago, neededupdating, so we went back to Italy, this time with two young children. To order the new edition type "walking and eating2005" (without the quotation marks) into Amazon's search box.If you have any questions about the book, please feel free to email me at:walkingandeating@aol.com. We've updated the original walks and restaurant reviews and added some newwalks and locations. If you are thinking of buying the book, make sure youhave the newer edition (both editions are available on Amazon, and the newerone is also cheaper). Over the years we have had so many letters frompeople about the book, saying what a difference it made to their holiday. Wehope you enjoy it.
Next time we would plan to stay in this tiny village overnight.Note: we had the 2005 edition, and the friend who recommended this book says the san eutizio walk wasn't in the original. While my husband and I lingered over our "vino," the kids went inside the abbey and mingled with the wedding party stragglers, a few of whom - along with our kids of course - crawled through an ancient tunnel behind the altar, an action that is supposed to cure all ills.We also went up to Castelluccio, the mountain village about 15 miles from Norcia, which was stunningly beautiful, remote, and virtually deserted.
We have been to Tuscany several times and wanted to branch out to Umbria on this last trip, and can only say we wish we had done so sooner. We used this book for a trip to Umbria with our children ages 9 and 12 this September and thought it was great, both for the walking and the eating.
The walk - one of the longer ones in the book - was an ambitious one for kids, but gave them an exceptional feeling of accomplishment at the end, and they loved the beautiful abbey at San Eutizio, especially enjoyable on our visit because as we ate dinner at the tiny restaurant next door (the only building in the immediate environs) there was a wedding going on, which spilled into the outdoors. We stayed in the lovely town of Norcia, and did the "san Eutizio" walk: an amazing adventure with children.
Norcia was an easy place to be with kids, the hotel recommended in the book was extremely friendly, the town had such a safe feeling and enough of interest (particularly the gelato bar) to the kids to keep them busy. There is a small restaurant there which was fabulous, and the sunset behind the austere Sibillini mountains was a stunning backdrop to our outdoor meal.
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