Start & end: Lucca\/Siena
Time: 7-8 days<\/p>\n
Bells tolling in clocktowers. Poppies and sunflowers lighting up fields. Chianti corks popped as the sun dips over vine-ribbed hillsides. The Tuscan dream is within grasp on this week-long, 83-mile trek from Lucca to Siena, one of the most scenic sections of the long-distance Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome, which is 1,383 miles in its entirety and takes around 100 days to complete. Following in the footsteps of Archbishop Sigeric the Serious, the ancient pilgrimage route ticks off walled medieval hill towns like rosary beads, including Unesco-stamped San Gimignano, with its 14 towers, and the walled medieval town of Monteriggioni \u2014 mentioned in Dante\u2019s Divine Comedy. To reach Lucca, you\u2019re best off catching a speedy ItaliaRail<\/a> service from Florence. Once on the trail, most hikers rest-up in cosy local B&Bs.<\/p>\n Tour du Mont Blanc<\/p>\n Start & end: Les Houches railway station Getting this close to Mont Blanc (the tallest peak in the Alps at 4,808m) and its snaking Mer de Glace glacier makes all the cursing and blisters worthwhile. If you\u2019re up for the challenge, try this epic multi-day Tour du Mont Blanc, throwing you in at the deep end of the French, Italian and Swiss Alps. A 20-minute ride from Chamonix, the three-country, 112-mile route loops around the Mont Blanc massif, vaulting over high-Alpine passes, skimming thundering rivers and crossing wildflower-freckled meadows. The off-the-chart beauty is matched by starry nights at remote mountain refuges<\/a>, which offer hot meals and sometimes even private rooms. Hike it anticlockwise from late June to mid-September. Much Better Adventures<\/a> also offers 10-day guided hikes that include accommodation and meals from \u00a32,144.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Start & end: Lucca\/SienaTime: 7-8 days Bells tolling in clocktowers. Poppies and sunflowers lighting up fields. Chianti corks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86643,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[16],"tags":[50,44210,44203,44209,44205,44204,44208,44207,44206,44201,44215,8662,309,44212,44214,6451,3798,44216,3346,423,1106,44211,44213,44202],"class_list":["post-86642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-alps","tag-alps","tag-best-hikes-starting-at-train-stops-in-europe","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-france","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-greece","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-italy","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-norway","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-slovenia","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-spain","tag-best-hiking-trails-in-the-uk","tag-best-rail-to-trail-hikes","tag-caminito-del-rey","tag-greece","tag-italy","tag-lais-da-macun","tag-lake-bohinj","tag-mont-blanc","tag-norway","tag-petworth-way","tag-slovenia","tag-spain","tag-united-kingdom","tag-via-francigena","tag-vouraikos-gorge","tag-where-to-hike-in-europe"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/116770186582393595","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86642\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Time: 7-11 days<\/p>\n