Most people picture Tuscany as cypress-lined ridges and postcard hill towns. A writer for Outside Online just came back from the other Tuscany — and it sounds worth the detour. He joined a friend for roughly 50 miles of the Via Francigena between Camaiore and Sarzana, a stretch of the medieval pilgrim route from Canterbury to Rome that passes marble quarries, industrial lots, and a lot of road shoulder. The Apuan Alps, scarred bright white by 2,000 years of marble mining, on one side; the sea a few miles off on the other; and the constant hum of traffic in between.
The Via Francigena runs about 1,250 miles in total and takes around 90 days end to end, which few attempt. Most walkers pick a section — usually Tuscany — and many just do the final 60 miles into Rome, the minimum on foot to earn the Testimonium completion certificate. That's why the last stages are the busiest. Even so, the numbers are striking: in 2025, a Jubilee year and the route's best yet, only about 12,000 people collected a Testimonium, and roughly 100,000 touched some part of the 2,000km route. Compare that with the 530,919 Compostelas issued on Spain's Camino de Santiago the same year. Completions are doubling yearly, but from a tiny base — meaning you can still walk a famous route in Italy and see almost nobody. On this entire leg, the pair met perhaps six other hikers.
The trip also came with a gear lesson. The writer had planned on 'slackpacking' — walking with a daypack while a service shuttles luggage between hotels — only to learn no such service exists on this stretch. Twelve hours before his flight, with his real backpacks in storage, he improvised with a running hydration vest he'd never worn. Day one: hatred. Day three: grudging affection. The route's governing crowds haven't spawned the support infrastructure of the Camino yet, so pack accordingly.
What the unglamorous stretch lacks in views, it pays back in food and solitude. The trail passes working towns — Carrara with its marble trade, Seravezza, Massa — where dinners require zero reservations and the tables are all locals. Standouts from the walk: corn-flour maltagliati called curchua in Massa, calamarata with prawns at Origine, and a finale at Locanda de' Banchieri near Sarzana, a former Malaspina post station now run by Michelin-starred chef Giacomo Devoto. Between meals there was foraging along the way — bay laurel, mint, blackberries, chestnuts — and a nightly glass of Franciacorta, Italy's under-appreciated answer to Champagne.
The takeaway for travellers: the crowded, beautiful bits of Italy are crowded precisely because they're beautiful, but the connective tissue between them is often where the real trip happens. If you want the Via Francigena before it fills in, the unfashionable middle sections are your window — just bring a proper pack and a tolerance for asphalt.
