Giro di Gelato – Biking for Gelato

A bike tour in Tuscany, in search of the perfect scoop of gelato…

Many have heard of the Giro d’Italia, Italy’s version of cycling’s Tour de France, but few have ridden Giro di Gelato in Tuscany.  Admittedly, this competition is not about the bike.  It is all about the gelato.  One of my friends likes to ask, Why would you want to ride a bike in Italy?  Aren’t you on vacation?  Many fear cycling in Italy, where the roads are curvy and narrow.  Being from Illinois, I find that the Tuscan hills are intimidating.  Fear not, a well organized bike tour takes all of that into account.

Before talking about the gelato, let’s talk about the biking.  Our tour was organized by I Bike Tuscany, a small outfitter in the Chianti region of Tuscany.  This area immediately brings to mind sunny vineyards on rolling hills.  Hills!  We started in the small village of Cassalina in Chianti, where we had our pre-ride coffee and shopped at the weekly traveling market.  My daughter Molly bought a fun little leather jacket – that she still wears today – for a song.  After knocking about the village for an hour, we met two other families taking the tour.  Then our guide fitted us for our bikes.  After practicing braking and shifting gears in the parking lot, the guide had a serious safety chat with us about the hills.  The bulk of the ride to San Gimignano was… downhill.  We would see rolling hills, but we were riding downhill!  Better still, there would be very little car traffic that morning.

The scenery was spectacular, from vistas of distant green rolling hills to roadside vines dripping with ripe purple grapes.  We took time to bask in the Tuscan sun, while remaining focused on our mission.  We were riding to learn about gelato, and learn we would.  Our first stop was at Gelateria in Castellina.  The owner taught a private lesson on gelato making, methods and ingredients.  His wife and daughter assisted as we worked through flights of gelato out in the showroom.  With this base of new found knowledge, we were ready to begin our research in the field.  It was time to go gelato tasting.  Pedaling, pedaling downhill, we quickly worked up an appetite after several photo stops at remarkable panoramas over vineyards. 

Eventually, we finished in San Gimignano, the Tuscan hill town known for its many medieval towers.  After stumbling into a small family restaurant for a lunch of grandma’s homemade pasta, we were ready to put our gelato knowledge to use.  We joined the queue at Dondoli, the award winning world champions of gelato.  (Who issues these titles?)  We fought off the uncivilized tourists who attempted to cut the line.  Could this place live up to its fame?  We enjoyed the Dondoli gelato, but… How did it compare to its less famous neighbor?  As a contrast, we decided to finish our gelato tasting at the nearby Gelateria dell’Olmo, with a Google rating of only 4 stars.  Given my newly acquired expertise in gelato, Gelateria dell’Olmo is the winner for the town, with Gelateria in Castellina winning for the trip.

You might be thinking… Wow.  Three, or was it four, gelatos before dinner?  Sure, it was a lotta gelato, but it was in the service of gaining an education on a very important topic.  Perhaps next time we will talk about our learning adventures with wine, without the bikes of course.

The tour can be found here: https://www.ibiketuscany.com/tours/view/gelato-ride