Stage Lucca - Pisa

The fifth stage covers 28.6 kilometres between Lucca and Pisa along the natural corridor of the Serchio. The ascent is slight and spread over the pulls on the flank of Monte Pisano, so the real difficulty lies in the distance rather than the terrain.

Leaving Lucca, the way crosses the rural picture that surrounds the city, a mosaic of villas with their parks, rammed-earth walls, Romanesque parish churches and worked fields that has changed little in centuries. The route heads west, gaining height slowly above the valley floor.

It then traces the southern flanks of Monte Pisano, the massif that separates the two basins and that throughout the Middle Ages marked the border between two rival republics. The climb offers views over the valley and over the terraced olive groves that cover the mountain.

The key point of the day is Ripafratta, where the Serchio is squeezed between mountain and hill. The Rocca di San Faustino dominates the narrows: whoever held this passage held the traffic between Lucca and Pisa, and so the fortress changed hands time and again. It is the most photogenic spot of the stage.

Past the gorge the way drops to the Pisan plain and advances without difficulty among irrigation ditches and fields to the city outskirts. The entry culminates in the Piazza dei Miracoli, with the cathedral, baptistery, camposanto and leaning tower on the grass: one of the most recognisable monumental ensembles in the world and a stage finish hard to match.

The stretch between Lucca and Ripafratta passes several Romanesque parish churches and small rural settlements with fountains and bars, so supplies are no problem in the first half. The second, already on the Pisan plain, is more monotonous and exposed, with little shade among the fields: carry enough water from the Serchio gorge and save something for the last kilometres of tarmac on the outskirts of Pisa.