Lost in Tuscany

When you're on a walking vacation, a sense of direction can seem like a serious character flaw.

I squint at the crumpled paper for what has to be the hundredth time today-as if narrowed eyelids will somehow improve my odds of finding the right path. Like some modern-day Magellan, I've consulted, crumpled, and repocketed my map so frequently that the act has become more a ritual than a precursor to discovery. "Turn left at the stone cistern built into the stone wall," it appears to read. "EASY TURN TO MISS". This is a little-used grassy track. At the barn on the left, turn right toward the abandoned farm house 125 meters away."

We walk on, past a grove of gnarly olive trees, through terraced vineyards hundreds of years old, beyond what our map calls "a thick cluster of young oaks." And then we descend into the medieval village of Lecchi, where the Backroads crew waits in a stone-rimmed courtyard for us and the others in our group. Our reward is a gourmet picnic that relies on local specialties: olives, wines, prosciutto, grapes, figs, cheeses.

"Now this is my idea of a great vaca tion," sighs walk-mate Flo Grossenbacher as she redines near a cluster of statuesque, sweet-smelling irises in shades of purple and white. Muses the Sacramento, Cali fornia, school teacher: "We'd never get to see this side of Italy from a car window."

The benefits and appeal of walking vacations are obvious. Exercise and the good feeling you get from it-sure. But there's much more to it than that. Here I was, walking through gardens, backyards, and fields as though I'd lived in Tuscany all my life. God knows I'd never have found all those paths and back roads on my own-much less the people who live along them. And there's the clarity, the detail, the ability to touch and smell that driving would blur or eliminate altogether: the peal of a church bell at dusk, a field of swaying wildflowers, the musty fragrance of grapevines, the pop and rush of a cypress-shaded brook. They all take on such intensity when experienced on foot instead of by wheel.

My wife loves to walk, too, for all those reasons. Until now, though, Ginger worried that a walking vacation would mean mildewy tents, behind-the-bush bathrooms, and meals of trail mix and tepid water. That's why the five-day, four-night Backroads trip to Italy's Chianti region sounded so perfect: up to 10 miles of walking a day, punctuated by visits to a winery, two cooking schools, and the homes of local residents