One Day in Valdarno (Tuscany)

I've decided to go from Arezzo to Florence (three quarters of an hour by highway) employing, but only for personal lack of time, a whole day.

I won't tell you about Arezzo, lovely but already well known, so we start in the morning towards north-west taking the Via di Setteponti.
This is a road coinciding for many long portionss with the ancient Cassia Vetus, once connecting the two Roman "municipia" of Arezzo and Fiesole.
In late Roman and Medieval times it was called Via delle Pievi, and it connected the two Dioceses of Arezzo and Fiesole, passing by numberless churches that were stop sites for pilgrims.

Of these churches and chapels many still exist and may be visited, nice architectures which contain ancient sculptures and frescoes. The best known are Gropina, Castelfranco's Badia Soffena, St. Piero in Cascia, etc...

At present the Via dei Setteponti runs at the foot of Pratomagno slopes, on the plain formed by detritus laid in the pliocenic lake during some million years, that were after eroded by Arno and its tributaries.
The characteristic valleys acquired a shape absolutely apt in centuries to be exploited for any kind of agricultural production. These make a suggestive and varied hill landscape that's the one appearing in many Renaissance paintings.
Today there are mainly olive trees, vineyards and woods.

In many places, but between Terranova Bracciolini and Upper Castelfranco with much more evidence, you may see the "balze", rocks with a characteristic shape that show the ancient lake sediments strata.

A geologist might read there the soil "history" with great evidence, the strata incorporate pliocene's fossils (elephas meridionalis, bos primigenius, sabre tooth tiger). A nice small museum of them you'll find in Montevarchi.

For the simple traveller these make a wild and rugged landscape of great beauty and suggestion, which is crossed by several possible paths for hiking, horse riding or MB.

In this captivating landscape, where you may see as far as to Chianti's hills on the other side of the river, here an there you may see small villages grown around and inside feudal castles and fortresses of medieval period, whose inhabitants fought one another for centuries, now allied with Arezzo and then with Florence.

They are very well preserved small historic centres, where today you may find food firms with valuable local characteristic productions, as very tasty extra-virgin oil, caves selling Arezzo's hills Chianti, nice country residences and B & B, week-end houses, craftsmanship laboratories of all kinds, from wool knitting to wrought iron, to bags, etc.

In 13th and 14th century, as the territory was unified under Florentine domination, the original inhabitants moved to the "New Florentine lands", its to say the new foundation villages Upper Castelfranco, Terranuova Bracciolini, St. Giovanni Vadarno. These had the typical Roman "castra" structure, with "cardus" and "decumanus", the two main perpendicular road of the settlement still legible today.
I think that one should at least pop over St. Giovanni Valdarno to see the beautiful central square with Arnolfo di Cambio's town hall.
Just outside Arezzo we passed over the medieval seven arches bridge (probably the one the road was named after), Ponte at Buriano: according to several scholars it should be the very bridge that is painted in the landscape behind Leonardo da Vinci's Gioconda.

Of the numberless roads that we could take starting from our one, and always find something interesting to see, we'll take the one to Campogialli.
Three kilometres after leaving the village we enter the natural oasis of Bandella's lake, an artificial one generated by the building of a dam in a narrow Arno's gorge called Hell Valley. In a marvellous landscape its possible to see more of 150 species of migratory and local birds in their natural surroundings. If you, as we did, go there in may you'll see on the river sides the incredible show of the violet-blue flowering of water irises.

At dinner time we stop in an old farm adapted as a restaurant to eat typical Tuscany food: black lien canapés, yellow beans, mixed grilled meat. All seasoned with tasty local oil and washed by Chianti wine. Back on the via Setteponti, we pass by Castiglione Ubertini and Cicogna, always seeing by far beautiful 18th century villas and many farmhouses, called the Leopoldine, with their pigeon tower lofts, which are characteristic of Tuscany country. At the crossroads the "Madonnini", small chapels with Holy Mary's image.

Then we climb up past Loro Ciuffenna to Pratomagno's top, 1600 m. high, where from flowering meadows you can look at a charming panorama over Arno's valleys.
From there, across a road a little under the ridge, we get to Vallombrosa, and then, passing by the Consuma, we reach Florence.

Just now I realize that I only spoke about a very small amount of the thing one may do and see, of places where you can stop to eat, buy and wander around: I didn't speak about glass factories, or about Lupinari castle, a 1920's Medieval one that pops out beautiful and incongruous amidst the rural landscape, about the smart shoes and bags that may be bargain purchases in the factories near Montevarchi, about watermills, about fairs....
That's because it was silly of me to limit the journey to one day only, I advice you not to do the same....

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