North of Lucca is the Serchio River valley, features the Apuan Alps to the east, the Gargagnana Mountains to the west. The devil lingers nearby.

Ponte del Diavolo bridge – legend has it that the Devil constructed the bridge in exchange for the first soul to cross it. The villagers sent a dog.

We decided to do a ride out to Devil’s bridge on an active recovery day.

But firstly we needed to solve a travel issue I had not been able to do from home with trip planning.

With airfares booked we had time parameters. In deciding to ride to Elba Island and spend three nights there, that effectively meant we could not do a perfect loop ride.

So we needed a train to join the dots from Lucca to Milan.

I have caught Italian trains before, with a bike. Roma to Orvieto and Orbotello to Roma. No issues.

Online I just could not book this required train trip. Some trains do not take bikes also eliminating the high speed route via Florence.

Anyhow, nice young lady at the Lucca station tried seven different combinations to get us on a train, with bikes, and failed.

My stress levels were getting pretty high, feeling quite anxious by now.

She described it as “weird” and did a system shut down and reboot. Voila!

She was able to book us on the one I had originally wanted to Viareggio then Milan! Only one train station change.

I realised I was shaking so we went and found some colazione (breakfast) and espresso.

We then headed off via the walls, 5at are so wide you can ride along them on perfectly sealed pathways.

Some view from the wall before we exited from a northern porte.

The pathway we followed for about 10 km was gravel of various compaction levels. Nice to be away from cars. We then ended up on road for the rest of the ride to the bridge.

There is the first sight of the Devil’s bridge. There is no way you can ride up it. As I pushed my bike, the angle peaked at 19.8%. The cobbles were particularly difficult to walk on.

Ponte della Maddalena was a vital river crossing on the Via Francigena, an early medieval road to Rome, an important medieval pilgrimage route.

It was constructed around 1080.

We had refreshments nearby then headed off back to Lucca where we did some more riding on the wall.

Back on the wall, this is a good example of where other wall structures crossed.

One of my favourite views today summing up Lucca, history and Tuscan hills.

After grabbing an earlier dinner, we came across crowds of people, police, barriers and banners. We had no idea what was happening but Miglia 1000 was featuring everywhere, so we googled it.

It is billed as the world’s most beautiful car event, and Lucca was about to be inundated with 110 Ferrari’s that were participating.

I think it is a bit like Tasmania’s Targa event but with a lot more Ferrari’s. Tony loved it, saying there were car models passing by he’d never seen before.

However before the cars arrived, there was lots of time to kill. I think we waited close on two hours.

Waiting for the cars, we walked further down the road, away from the crowds, closer to our exit porte through the wall. It was better as there were less people, and shade available.

Finally the cars started arriving, crossing a number of checkpoints. Tony picked these two out for the blog.

Quite the car show Lucca, Enzo Ferrari would have been very happy with 110 Ferrari’s in one place.

Another day done, only a few days ride left before we commence our long journey home.

Thanks for reading 😊❣️