Читать книгу Walking in Tuscany. 43 walks including Val d'Orcia, San Gimignano and the Isle of Elba онлайн

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PREFACE TO THIS FOURTH EDITION

Extremely enjoyable wanderings through glorious Tuscany over the last few years have helped me extend this guide to little-visited corners and mountains of this justifiably world-famous region. But after all the walking came the hard part – selecting the finest routes to offer readers a flavour of each distinctive district, without making the book too cumbersome.

So Walking in Tuscany has now been greatly expanded in scope and completely overhauled, old untenable routes removed and brand new ones added along with heaps of new photos, mapping and information ranging from public transport to food, wine and cosy places to stay. Buone camminate e buon appetito! Happy walking and enjoy your meals!

Cypress-lined Viale del Nonno leads back to Volpaia (Walk 20)

INTRODUCTION

One of Italy’s largest regions, glorious Tuscany is awesomely beautiful. Everywhere you look are landscapes like paintings, pristine hill villages and hamlets crafted from stone that seem unchanged since ancient times. Gently rolling hills are clothed with fields of golden wheat dashed scarlet by poppies. Winding lanes lined with pencil-straight cypress trees lead to inviting villas with views to picture-perfect hill towns of medieval and Renaissance splendour, recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Walking in Tuscany means all this – and stacks more! The dense forests of the Casentino, rugged mountains of the Apennines and Apuane, Mediterranean maquis backing long sandy beaches in the Maremma on the Tyrrhenian coast, and there’s even the stunning island of Elba, a world of its own.