Cycling Pelgrim Trail across Tuscany! Meeting wonderful strangers. Italy ep4.

Okay, here we are. Welcome to the next episode. And we are now going to go into the countryside to explore a little bit. Explore local Italy. That's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. And we have some very exciting challenges prepared. So you're not going to want to miss it. Welcome to our travel series across Italy, where we try and do as much as possible on a thousand euro budget. That's why we're called The Budgeteers. In this episode, we're getting out of the cities into the beautiful countryside, become holy pilgrims and meeting the kindest of people. As we challenge ourselves on our cheap and crappy bikes to cycle across the stunning region of Tuscany. This adventure series is made possible thanks to these amazing travel brands. Ortlieb, Commute and Tropic Feel. This morning got off to a very weird start. As we left the train station, we were immediately questioned by the police. They thought we were stealing bicycles when in reality, we were just locking up and storing our own bikes. Bye bikes. See you tomorrow. Yeah, we're even taking our saddles. Just we don't want them to get stolen. Oh, I almost hit my face. But in the end, we got into the car with Lorena with very little hassle. Today, we're leaving our bikes at the train station because we're doing something very special and unique today. Because before we begin our crazy cycling adventure in Tuscany, which is the biggest physical challenge we've ever done on our series, our friend Lorena is taking us all the way into the Italian countryside towards the Italian Alps to show us a very special region famous for its wine called the Prosecco Hills. And today, we got the opportunity to ride along with a farmer named Andrea to explore his extraordinary vineyard. Feels like we're almost like suddenly in another country. So we're in the Andes mountains or in the... It kind of reminds me of the tea plantations in the... Yeah, they say it has something like that. It's like the same style they wrestle. Yeah. What a view. Wow, these are all the grapes. Ciao. My dad. So that's the patron? Yeah, the patron. Still at work. Of course. Always work. He's a farmer. Yeah. As we followed Andrea's father on the tractor up the hill, the most stunning and unique landscape revealed itself. Which made us understand why these hills are sacred and now labeled as protected UNESCO World Heritage. UNESCO World Heritage means that this landscape is a heritage of everybody forever. So what we have to do is to maintain this area, to promote this area, not to change the peculiarity that it's got. And also one other particular thing is that the kind of terraces we have are not made by, you know, stone or dry walls. It's just soil and grass. So there's no other areas in the world where viticulture is made... There are other areas where viticulture is made on hills, but not in this kind of hills. And you see, this is the kind of soil we got. So the roots of the plant are really in the middle of rock. The depth of the soil is very, very low. So the roots just, you know, they dig into the rock. The taste of the wine is different, of course. So a lot of minerals in the grapes. That's why you're feeling, Lina, you're feeling all the minerals. Feeling all the minerals. So here we've arrived in the Prosecco Hills and we've been lucky enough to be here while they're actually picking all the grapes, which is only apparently 20 days a year. So it's lucky that we made it here. Andrea here is showing us around. Venice is just down there, but it's a little foggy today. Yeah, we came from Venice this morning. And you can see them picking all the grapes over there. We're now experiencing the harvest. So the fact that we're allowed and be able to be here while they're harvesting is pretty unique. Yeah, we're very grapeful. Grape. Grapeful. Oh, nice. In the meanwhile, these men and women are working hard picking all the grape vines clean by hand and piling up huge amounts of grapes. This year, Andrea's lucky with the yield since it's more than usual. And we're so lucky to be able to witness all of this in a landscape that is just unbelievably beautiful. It really is no wonder that the grapes here are prized as world-class. The best of the best. We're even lucky enough to have a taste. Cheers! It's so weird for us, but it's tears to be drinking prosecco. I know. We're living the luxury life. It's next level. Yeah, next level. This is amazing. We really can't thank Lorena and Andrea enough for completely spoiling us. And if you're ever curious to taste a really good prosecco, try some of the Miyoto family. It's amazing. Afterwards, we went back down down the steep hills and visited their winery where they process the grapes. It's not the easiest moment of the year, but... Yeah, it's probably very, very busy for you. Yeah, but so much to see in this moment, so... This is where all the freshly picked grapes arrive. Yeah. So the skin stays inside. Yeah. And the juice comes out. And from here, the juice just goes into the winery. Whoa, okay, okay. This is a big collection of... Okay, we don't have to bring it all today. Andrea showed us all the different stages of fermentation. Starting from grape juice to finally becoming a godly sparkling wine. If you're ever in the area, they offer tours. Link below. We're not sponsored. They were just so kind to us. Chin-chin. I'm Miyoto. Miyoto's family. You can have an aperitif, maybe tomorrow. No! Thank you so much. Enjoy! Oh, you're the best. The girls are quite fond of Andrea. After all that winemaking, we drove down to Lorena's place and spent the evening thinking of a plan for the next days. Since we still had no idea where to go in Tuscany and how to actually get there. Good morning. It's really, really early. It's six o'clock. Six thirty in the morning and we're packing up because we're gonna get on a really, really, really early train. There is nothing more... There's nothing more comforting than waking up to this. To that beautiful face. Buongiorno, buongiorno. Thank you so much for everything. That's Prosecco. Oh, yeah. Oh, she's showing us Venice. I don't say thank you to that one because she found us Prosecco but we found her her future husband. We're walking up on the bikes to see if they're still here. We're at the train station where we parked them. You're gonna live this moment with us because we have no idea. They might be stolen, they might not be. I hope they're stolen. I see it. I see J Balvin. This is the proper technique. We need to get the train. Bikes for sale. The reason why Lina would rather be rid of the bikes today is not only the fact it would be easier to access the trains but there's one big issue we just found out. We're not allowed to go on these trains. These are the fast trains. These are the high-speed trains. If we would get on this train, we might make it today easily. Easily. In like three, four hours, we'd be there. But we can't because we have bikes and they are not allowed on the train. Yeah, we wish we knew this before we started this big travel adventure with trains and bicycles. It will now take us a lot longer to travel across Italy. Especially today since we have to make it from Terviso to Venice, Bologna, all the way to Firenze and Tuscany. We will have to switch and take many, many different trains. We don't even know if we'll catch our next trains and with us not understanding anything of the Italian language, we could sense that today was going to be a tough and exhausting challenge. But we just gotta wing it and make the best of it. And I think this is where we park the bikes. We've made it on the train and this is going to be our first train. First train of many. Of many. Many. So this is usually the part of the series where Paddy f***s up. Oh, I can't say f***. This is usually the part of the series where Paddy comes on camera and says he messed up. But Paddy's not here so I had to take that role over. Again, I'm not the brains of the operation. I made us walk across the train station to a platform that wasn't for our train. So we missed it. We missed the train but that's alright. We can hop on another one and get back on track. And Ty's only hates me a little bit. It's gonna be fine. We just have to take another train, do an extra stop, and it should be possible. A little bit crowded. The guy behind me has my butt in his face. Crazy cold on the train and now it's crazy hot again. But we're in France! I hate air con, I'm serious. We're almost there, Lina. After seven, eight hours, we're here. I think it's... San Miniato Puccecchio is what it's called. A mouthful. We're not the only cyclists here, which is a good sign. But we've seen enough trains for today. Oh my god. Are you Re-e? I'm Re-e. Are you Re-e? Aye, Cap'n Aye. Aye, Cap'n Aye, vamos! We're now on the bikes and we're trying to find the way to the hostel. And this is going to be the first hill that we're going to do because our hostel is all the way up the mountain. Of course. So let's see how these bikes do, how they perform. And how Lina... How our legs... Both of our legs... How they would perform against the Tuscany hill. Lina's still having problems with her chain. And I think her saddle loosened as well. Shit. This hill is like your first challenge. So hard. It's also so hot. Made it up the first hill. This gorgeous view. This mountain was immediately the highest one there was in the region. Why are these villages always on the top of the mountain? Lina's behind, but she's coming. And... This weather is a bit hotter than Venice was. What a challenge. Sweating buckets already. This first thing. This is actually a pilgrimage hostel. And these are our beds. I have the tub bunk here. Extra small size. Lina has the other tub bunk over there. The good news is this hostel is very cheap. It's only 16 euros a night. The bad news is I'm very hungry. We need to go. Let's just drop our bag. We are in a little town up on a hill called San Miniato. Up on a very very steep hill. But this is known to be a pilgrimage town. It's a very religious town. And why we chose this place to come? Because it is right on the route of the Via Francisena. Which is the pilgrimage route all the way from Canterbury in England all the way to Rome. And since we are in Italy. We wanted to do a little bit of a nice cycling along this ancient ancient route. Yeah, so we're not going to do the whole section in Italy. But we are going to do a part of it. And I'm really excited. I hope I can imagine that a lot of the towns along the way look like this. And I have to say this is probably the most photogenic town we've been in. Tuscany is supposed to be very beautiful. And according to this town if this is anything to go by. This is very very beautiful. But you'll see more of that in the morning. I saw some gelato. After a long travel day. Obviously we're finishing the night with gelato. Super cheap. So much better than Venice or Sirmione. This is the cheapest and the best gelato. It's so good. Perfect dessert. So we'll see you tomorrow. Cheers guys. We deserved it. We earned it. We climbed these streets all the way up the top. Without porters. What now Carl wants. There's a guy who said like tell God your plans and laugh with it. This is where our biking adventure actually begins. We're in the mountains of Tuscany. The sun has just risen up. We actually don't have any plan on where we're going today. We're gonna follow the route of the Via Francisena. Which is the old pilgrimage route that has been around for centuries. And we're gonna follow it on our app commute. But where we're going and how far we're gonna go we have no idea. Yeah just as far as we can get. We have no idea about our capabilities as bikepackers. This is literally the first time that we're doing this. We're also in the Tuscany hills which are all hills and steep climbs. Very steep climbs as we've noticed yesterday just to get up here. This hill oh damn so hard. It's impossible to like calculate where we're gonna go. How far we'll get on our cheap bikes. Yeah we're just gonna follow the yellow brick road. Yeah and hopefully it'll take us to Oz. Everything is starting off well. Trying to get a drone shot over here in Tuscany. The drone for some reason reached maximum altitude which is just like this height. And crashed into a tree all automatically. The controls were completely like overwritten by the security measures. So thanks to that the drone is stuck in a tree. Our drone is right there. Got Thijs throwing sticks down there. We have a drone and a stick stuck in the tree. So we have a ladder, three sticks, no four sticks and some tape. We're gonna try to MacGyver. At least we can only go for like half distance. Four sticks, five, six, seven. So in total this thing is about 12 meters long and we need to reach it over there. We're on top of a point here. If this works, this is the best MacGyver solution I've ever thought of. Lina we did it. Got the drone out of a tree. Took us over an hour. We got it. I'm gonna now go and search for it. Oh no, I got smudged a bit. But at least we got it back. Damn, that was quite a fall from all the way up that tree there. Right, we were meant to be on the road at about 8. Now 11. But we have a drone. We didn't lose a 600 euro drone. I was so stressed. We didn't lose the drone and now tell me how much better does your coffee taste? Now that you have a drone. A thousand times better. It's the coffee of salvation and also the drone footage that we didn't lose now. Yeah, so anyway we're gonna have breakfast and then we're gonna try to cycle. This is what travel is all about. You have plans and plans go awry and they don't go the way you want them to. But you deal with the consequences and you make the best of it. And now we have a breakfast with an amazing view. And a story to tell. Quite a story and another MacGyver skill. Something to add to our CV, you know. Drone rescuers. We had to overcome a lot of challenges to get here. But now finally we can hit the road. And this is what we wanted to do most. To cycle Italy. Taste the freedom, explore the unknown and soak up the views. Whoa, this is a very beautiful view. It's kind of a fun thing about being on a trail of pilgrims. That we see a lot of other people here. Makes it a little bit more social. Yeah, you're gonna make it. These climbs are crazy. The more and more climbs we do up all the steep Tuscany hills. The more we start to realize that these old bikes are just not suited for this at all. We're still making it up the hill. And we started to doubt our crazy plan. If we might have done something which is just too dumb, even for us. Okay, we made it at our first stop point. And Lina has already put in an extra challenge. Because she missed this exit and went all the way down. All the way down. Down was fine. It was coming back up. That was the extra challenge. Look, he didn't miss the turn. And he's on a mountain bike. Let's do a cycling series, I said. It'll be fun, she said. I don't know what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. I wasn't. But I don't regret it. No regrets. To put things in perspective and in context. This is one of the most difficult cycling paths you can choose. On Qmute it says it's expert level. And you need to have an excellent physique to be doing it. Yeah, yeah, literally. So it's very normal that we're struggling. Because we're not on professional bikes. Our bikes together cost less than 200 euros. Cycling is hard. I consider myself a pretty fit person. This is a legit challenge. This is like a very physical challenge as well. We're on a budget challenge. And now a physical challenge. Now there's an even bigger challenge. Because we're coming up on gravel paths. We don't have gravel bikes. Look at my bike. It's a city bike. Her is a mountain bike. But it's at least 10 years old. It's very old. And we've got a lot of bags. So it's gonna be... We're hoping not to get any flat tires. What did we get ourselves into? Just a couple of idiots wanting to challenge ourselves. Yeah. Whatever. I'm having fun. I've never felt so beginner at something. It's nice to be a beginner. Like we're total idiots. So if we can do it, hopefully you can do it as well. If this is the only inspiration and motivation that we can give you is... If we can do it, total idiots. Then hopefully it gives you that little bit of a motivation to go out and do it as well. Or just like the intelligence to not go... Oh yeah. Or not do the mistakes that we do. We do tons of mistakes. No, I'm just kidding. You should do it. And with that little pep talk, we were ready to go. Vamos! Come on, mate. You can do it, mate. But that's all right, mate. This cannot be good for our bikes. Oh no. Come on. You can do it. You gotta lean on your skills and talent. Don't worry about me, mate. I love you. Go on, mate. Budgeteers forever. Good job, Ty! This part is very treacherous. It's so steep and gravelly. And we don't have enough weight on our front tires. So it's crazy. I mean, all I can do is laugh. That's all you guys watching on YouTube. Still a long way to go. Sorry. Okay, we made it up to the top of the gravel road. And we actually went off-route to see what the gravel roads are like. Well, and I think we can fairly say that we are not equipped for gravel roads. That's something that's really cool and that we've really liked about Komoot, is that it's kind of like by travelers for travelers. Because as a traveler, you can add whatever route you've done that you like. So, you know, we've been following this route. We tried to be a little adventurous. And now we see why the traveler who added that route made the route. You are actually able to follow our route if you go down in the description. There's our link to the Komoot journey that we did the entire trip. So you'll see where we ended up and where we probably failed countless times. Yeah. So follow us. But now we're gonna go down into the village. I'm thinking if hopefully we don't fall. Hopefully we don't break our bikes or ourselves. And then what do you think of a lunch or just something to refresh ourselves? Yeah, I love that idea. Maybe a beer. No, cut that out. My family thinks I'm an alcoholic. We just made it. Whoa, a paved road. Nice, nice. Look at this. First disaster. Well, small disaster. Small bump in the road, as we say. And Lina's got a flat tire. Wee flat tire. Probably from all the weight on the back tire. All the weight of my wee bum. Yeah, up to until that tire decided to pop. We changed our first tire. Cheers. It's really hard to get them to get them replaced. And the other tire and the new one that we got doesn't fit the frame. The hole's too small. One hour delay, pop tire. Sounds like an adventure. And wasn't that just what we were really after in the first place? A true adventure on the road. So we didn't mind. Even with just a few biscuits for lunch, it didn't ruin our mood. Because we were actually loving this. All the way straight. Today we might be the worst backpackers out there, but we're starting to get the hang of it. And things can only get better from here. So we continued for another few hours until the sun started setting and the evening rolled in. Until we arrived in a small little village where we literally hit another roadblock. So we hit another roadblock. We are now at a cycling tournament for kids. So the road's completely blocked off until the tournament. I know they're cycling just there. The things you see when you're cycling in Tuscany. This is where the competition is held. Yeah, come on. The last lap. Oh my god, that was hilarious. We just interrupted that kid's race just to like cross the finish line. Yay, we won. All right, we made it. Cheers. The most well-deserved beer we've had this entire trip. We made it into a town which is not far away from where we actually started. Like today was a complete write-off. We made so many mistakes. Like everything went wrong almost. We took turns making mistakes. Anyway. It was a fun day. We're gonna try and do better tomorrow. The only thing is like we are so hungry. That's why we just quickly stopped here at this pizza place. But we still have to find a place to stay for tonight. And it's almost six. Like it's gonna get dark soon. But we just we needed something to eat. We haven't eaten since this morning. So we're just gonna quickly get a pizza in our stomachs. And then try and find somewhere to sleep. And yeah, bikepacking is super fun. Like the places you end up with. Like you would never otherwise get there. So we did find adventure. Oh, but here are our pizzas. This is gonna be amazing. We're gonna cycle outside of the city and search for a garden to camp in. Like the sun is going down. So we only have a limited amount of time before it's dark. And after that it's really gonna be impossible to find a place to stay. Nope. The cycling path just ends. We're now outside of town. And we're hoping to find a place to stay here. While just knocking on people's doors. But I see a farm up there. So we're gonna try and get there. We are cycling around and we're looking for a place to maybe in the garden pitch of our tent to sleep for one night. We're looking for a place to sleep to camp if we have the ticket. Ah, to camp. Yeah, any spot is here. No. Yeah, we have two tents. So we can put it up anywhere where it's maybe a little bit flat. High five. We found a place to camp. Oh, that was terrible again. Okay, again. We found a place to camp. Yeah, we cycled outside the city and we see up this hill. There's a bunch of mansions. But at the top of the top of the hill we see a big beautiful yellow house with a tractor. We're like, oh, they're farmers. The sun's down already. Yeah. So we're like pressed for time. And what people to choose to like as camp is probably gonna be farmers. Because they're like always friendly and they have lots of land. And hopefully also land that is a little bit flat overlooking this beautiful view. And they kindly allowed us to camp here and they even gave us water bottles. These people are, they're super, super nice. They're like so kind. They are going so far out of our way to help us. And they just met us like two seconds ago. So, I can't speak. Too overwhelmed by their kindness. And I also need to help Alina because the tents aren't set up. It's all right, mate. I'm the faster tent maker. Hi. It's unbelievable how our luck changed today. We honestly thought we'd have to camp illegally in a ditch somewhere. But instead, we have this amazing camp spot for free. And we were even invited inside the farmer's home to have a shower. How fancy. We're getting the star treat. And on top of that, they insisted we eat with them too. So over here you have Janna. At times, it was massively confusing because they didn't speak a word of English. But with a bit of Google Translate and a mix of French and Spanish words, we made it work. Now we're trying their wine. Wow, where is that? Iceland. We haven't traveled there yet. So now we're trying the local Tuscany liquor. Similar to wine, but yeah, very strong and clear. We're quickly learning that Italy isn't just beautiful scenery. But the people we were meeting were also incredibly generous. And after an eventful, tiring, but honestly amazing day, it was eventually time for us to say goodnight so that we could have some much needed sleep. These people are just the kindest. Even if it's gonna rain, it's gonna be worth it. No rain covers. I love to get a bit wet, you know what I mean? We're gonna go to sleep, aren't we, Lina? With this view and an open tent with an open sky and lots of stars. We're gonna sleep so well. This is amazing. It's been such a great night. So, buona notte, see you tomorrow. Goodnight, Lina. Buonas noches. Next time on The Budgeteers, we're continuing our backpack adventures across Tuscany. And we explore Italy's capital, Rome, and see how much you can do in this big city on a budget. Please let us know what you think about these last episodes and if traveling by bike might be something you would try as well. Give us a like and see you in the next one.