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Forest in Tuscany in autumn

The first person passed me as I was just off the motorway from Bologna. Next, when the mountains came into view. There I was, trying to keep one eye on the tangled road, the other on the green-to-yellow colored chart that stretched across the abyss, and then they surrounded me: one, two , three, 20 motorcyclists, all riding outside to see the autumn foliage.

And why not? Autumn is the perfect time to visit Tuscany: the summer is over, the temperatures haven’t dropped to truly terrifying levels, and if the sun goes out, it’ll gild everything from a School painting. study Sienese.

And then there are the trees. Today, the most famous parts of Tuscany are manicured – perfect wheat fields surrounded by cypress-tree paths – but in the beginning those famous undulating hills were mostly Forest. Here, the Foreste Casentinesi National Park, straddling the border with Emilia Romagna in the northeast of the region, is perhaps the most magnificent area left. It’s not as big as it used to be – the Florentine Renaissanceers attacked it to build the wooden ceilings for their monumental new palaces and the struts for the world’s most famous cathedral dome gender. But today, its 142-square-mile oak, holm oak and chestnut trees showcase some of Italy’s most stunning colors every fall.

I was here for a special color: the rich brown of marroni falls to the ground in October every year. Although in English they translate as “chestnut” and to our untrained eye they may look similar, the locals will quickly put you straight. Compared to usual castagne, marroni are bigger, rounder, glossier and sweeter. And while chestnut is used to denote the poverty of mountain dwellers (chestnuts are nicknamed the “bread tree”, which aids those unable to grow grain due to the high altitude) today, one marroni review, including protected IGP (indicazione geografica protetta) status for the “marrone del Mugello” of this region, is turning them into cult ingredients.

Autumn colors in Foreste Casentinesi National Park © Getty Images

A deer in the national park © Alamy

I went to the annual marroni celebration in San Godenzo, a small town located in a ravine an hour northeast of Florence. It may be a little small, but it does make a splash when it comes to marroni – the hazelnut dough from here regularly tops the charts for the best Italian food, and for the past 50 years, sangodenzini, as they called themselves, celebrated the end of the harvest with a blowout of autumn.

In Castagno d’Andrea – a mountain village a few miles away, and named after the fruit – the main street is filled with stalls selling raw, marble-sized marroni for roasting, almost the size of a ball. golf to boil. There’s marrone jam, marrone pie and marrone dough, the latter from fruit that is roasted for three months on smoked chestnut wood, to dry them before milling.

Val di Corezza, in the Foreste Casentinesi National Park © Getty Images

The people here are so friendly that on my last visit, two locals paid for my lunch at Castagno d’Andrea’s only restaurant out of shame because they hadn’t invited me to join. join them. This time, Noemi Innocenti, a 26-year-old librarian of San Godenzo with a doctorate in Renaissance printed books and encyclopedic knowledge of marroni, introduced me to bruciati ‘briachi (“Drunk Roast”): chestnuts soaked in sugar, rum, and set on fire to create the best roasted nuts in the world. Then she took me to the forest.

The hills around Castagno d’Andrea abound with chestnuts, but the higher you climb, the endless oak trees on the slopes marking the beginning of the national park territory. Dante mentions Monte Falterona, the mountain behind San Godenzo, in Purgatory but in the fall it’s heaven. Flimsy drops of fog wrapped around the matches. Acidic leaves glow yellow on branches, vermilion feet.

Noemi said: We staggered up an almost absolute path – wartime guerrillas used these to get to Castagno d’Andrea supplies – to moss-covered rocks and trees. More spectacular, colors seem brighter as the light fades, the only sound is the crunch of leaves.

A street stall selling ‘marroni’ in the village of Castagno d’Andrea © Julia Buckley

Chestnut harvest time in Tuscany © Alamy

The next day, I woke up in Castagneto, a village high on the other side of San Godenzo, to see sheets of mist creeping through the valley, the slopes of the mountains glittering gold as the sun rose. As the village’s name suggests, a few of Castagneto’s houses – along with Tenuta Mazzini, the converted stone farmhouse I live in – are nestled among chestnut groves, streets carpeted with gourd stucco. , and chestnuts clung to the steep hillside, branches flying through the air like characters from Tolkien.


Usually this time of year I went to the Val d’Orcia, Tuscany’s most famous landscape, with thick Ribollita The soup and olive oil were so fresh that it tasted as if it was seasoned with chili peppers. But this year, after San Godenzo, I started looking for more fall colors.

I found it at Radicondoli, 50 minutes west of Siena in the Val di Merse, where golden forests are divided by green fields and silver olive groves. Wild deer graze the fields in front of me as I have breakfast at Albergo Giogliano, a farm just down the hilltop town.

From the Radicondoli’s Piazza San Girolamo, views of the rippling hills extend as far as Volterra and San Gimignano, but this is a world away from the tourist attractions of Tuscany. However, that square is the town’s main parking lot. For another, the only tourist-serving store on two main streets is the self-styled “Radcondoli lovers exhibition”: scarves, jewelry, and mini farm machinery models. . Sure, visitors love it in the summer and there’s a gourmet pizza restaurant where Margherita costs 17€ – but come November it’s just you and the sly old men in the only bar left open .

Sheep graze beneath the hilltop village of Radicondoli © Alamy

However, the place is just as beautiful as San Gimignano and its rocks. I passed 13th-century houses, later rebuilt and the hole-cutting created a faint patchwork of walls: stone, brick and boulders, all piled up, beautiful nicer and warmer than the more austere buildings of the province of Florence. Alleys are dug under the first floors, connecting from one street to another; one of the last surviving medieval city gates leans over the fields beyond. The most modern thing in town is from the 1920s: the dollhouse-sized theater, single columns, and two fierce arched windows add a touch of art deco amid the period setting. renaissance all around.

Fascinating further, no matter which way you look at it, are hills, their color broken only by plumes that look like smoke but turn out to be steam rising from magma, seven kilometers above the ground, now drilled and piped to generate clean energy; a line of surprisingly beautiful power stations stretching across the hills. Dante was inspired by this misty land for Hell; Galgano Guidotti would disagree. Born in 1148 to a wealthy family in Chiusdino, 20 minutes south of Radicondoli, he became a hermit on the hills of Montesiepi in the valley below. After he was canonized, a Cistercian monastery was built in the foothills, before being abandoned, its roof was built in 1786.

San Galgano Monastery © Getty Images

Motorists pass a cobbled street in Chiusdino © Getty Images

Today, tourists come from all over Italy to see the gothic (in both senses) Abbazia di San Galgano. Its rose window had been blown off and its corridors nearly collapsed, and it was home to birds instead of monks, but its walls and columns still stood. I’m staying at the Terre di San Galgano agriturismo, just a field away, so I walk around before breakfast – just me and the birds, mist drifting over the mountains in the distance. The vines on the slopes of Montesiepi have turned yellow, but there are still grapes in the monastery: clusters of grapes carved on the tops of columns, along with other dead plants and leaves. Amidst the ruins, it was an eternal spring.

Perched atop a hill overlooking the valley, Chiusdino is as beautiful as the Radicondoli – maybe more, as it seems forgotten. Grass sprouts among medieval cobblestones; The street spirals around the top of the hill. The alley leads to nowhere; Stairs end at houses, or collapse into the smallest squares. The opulent church features the saint’s skull, gazing from a modern shrine shaped like the rock in which Galgano is said to have dipped his sword, giving up his former life ( circular church on Montesiepi built around a mysterious sword hilt embedded in the rock).

One of Tuscany’s most famous saints, Galgano’s original pantheon was monumental: a 13th-century octagonal work, gilded, sitting a meter tall on a lion’s paws and decorated Embossed with 16 miniature scenes from his life. It was so precious that Siena kept it until 2015, when Chiusdino opened her own museum. And that’s not even the top attraction, here: the bas-relief of a shaggy Galgano stabbing his sword into a rock by Urbano da Cortona, a student of Donatello’s, is even more stunning. He stood, the folds of his cloak taut around the button as he gripped the sword, his flawless hair shielded from the elements by a dense canopy of trees.

Those Tuscan trees are, again: vigorous, attractive to cyclists, and seem to be guardian saints.

Details

Julia Buckley was a guest of the San Godenzo town council at Tenuta Mazzini (tenutamazzini.it), there are one-bed apartments from €80.
Albergo Giogliano at Radicondoli has doubled from €70, bed and breakfast (no website; book in advance booking.com or email hotelgiogliano@gmail.com);
Agriturismo Terre di San Galgano has doubled from €86, B&B (sangalgano.it)

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