It’s Italy and it’s summer, so the food, accommodations and sightseeing are splendid.
On a motorcycle tour through the Chianti region, I made side trips from my agriturismo lodging — these farm tourism sites now dot the countryside in increasing profusion — riding through north from the Val d’Elsa, inspecting the charming hilltop villages of Certaldo and Montecatini Alto.
I cruised through the narrow, winding streets early enough to catch the aroma of cafes and bakeries serving their first customers of the day. The street markets were brimming with fresh apricots, nectarines, zucchini and their fiori di zucca blossoms. My wife, Julie, and I and our friends ate our fill of regional specialties such as pappardelle con cinghiale — wide pasta noodles in a sauce of wild boar.
We ate more than our fill of gelato, overindulging in the freshly made albicocca — from all those fresh apricots — and a subtle, creamy vanilla-like concoction known as buontalenti. We were told it was named after Bernardo Buontalenti, a 16th century Florentine architect, engineer and artist better known for the fountains and grottoes he designed for Florence’s Boboli Gardens.
Though we visited the Boboli, I believe we admired his ice cream even more.
The wine drinkers in our foursome were delighted by the Vernaccia, a local varietal long associated with San Gimignano. (Dante mentions it in his “Purgatorio.”) This dry white wine proved the favorite of the trip.
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Serious street riding in Italy
A word, please, about Italian drivers. They were weaned on Ferraris, Alfa Romeos and Lamborghinis. They are expert operators, generally, who seem to think every trip to the supermarket is a Formula One event.
On a quiet country road, they’ll come up behind you fast and sit on your bumper before executing a daring pass, seemingly in the face of oncoming traffic. On a multiple-lane road, the “fast” lane is for fast cars only. If you’re in their way, they’ll let you know it with a flicker of high beams, often followed by a flick of the finger.
And the motorcyclists! Street riding is taken seriously in Italy. The riders are all helmeted — it’s the law — and they are also for the most part well-equipped with high-grade leathers and boots. On the Chianti and Mugello roads I saw mostly well-protected riders, riding professionally.
Lane-splitting is allowed in Italy, and local riders lane-split across the center line. On some of the famous northern passes the more aggressive ones pass across the center line on the curves.
I never saw the head-on, two-cycle collision I kept expecting. As I said, these are good riders. I tried to resist the impulse to emulate them.
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In motorcycle paradise on the route of enchantment
I based my riding route on a pair of roads that bisect the Chianti region, following the recommendations of motorcycling friends. Both were said to offer the best in curving climbs, bella vistas and access to attractive hill towns.
I left Florence headed south on SR 222, which twists and turns as it climbs into the foothills. Along the way, the narrow two-lane road slows for the hill towns of Strada and Pieve di Panzano.
The traffic was light and the going was good, and road reviews proved accurate. As the day warmed, I skimmed past fields of wheat and corn, groves of olive trees, and farms growing sunflowers and lavender. Oh, and vineyards — this was Chianti. The highway passed hundreds of acres of vineyards, the knotty grapevines dotting the rolling hills like stitches on a tapestry.
Entranced and happily humming along, I rode the Ducati Multistrada 1200 south to the walled hill town of Castellina in Chianti, where I met my car-bound traveling companions for lunch.
We ate a delightful meal at Le Tre Porte on a pine-shaded patio overlooking terraced vineyards. Then I left them to their rented Fiat Panda and continued south, riding the 222 all the way into Siena, where I turned around and repeated the route past Castellina and east on SR 429. This equally twisting two-lane road led me to Radda in Chianti, another walled hill town dominated by the massive San Niccolo church.
Fortified by a strong macchiato, I rode the 429 back toward Castellina, then on past Poggibonsi to an agriturismo (farm stay), Podere La Lucciolaia, near San Gimignano, where I’d booked a room for the night.
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