4 Days on Monte Amiata: A Chestnut-Season Loop Around the Volcano
Four days around Monte Amiata in chestnut season, from the Siena side’s abbey and mercury mines to the Grosseto side’s springs, prophets, and olive groves.
Monte Amiata: Tuscany’s Volcano of Springs, Chestnuts, and Fire
Monte Amiata is an extinct volcano ringed by spring-fed villages, where chestnuts, mercury, and geothermal heat shaped daily life and winter is marked by fire.
Abbadia San Salvatore: An Abbey, a Mine, and Christmas Fires
The abbey town of Monte Amiata: a crypt of more than thirty carved columns, the story of an English Bible, a mercury mine you can ride into, and bonfires on Christmas Eve.
Campiglia d’Orcia: A Ring-Shaped Village on a Limestone Rock
A village on a limestone outcrop above the Val d’Orcia, with a street plan older than the year 1000, a turbulent family of viscounts, and a chestnut festival run by its three districts.
Vivo d’Orcia: Hermits, a 22-Day Pope, and Siena’s Water
A small mountain village on Monte Amiata where medieval hermits prayed by the springs, a cardinal who reigned as pope for 22 days built his villa, and Siena found its water.
Piancastagnaio: A Palio, a Rocca, and a Town Named for Chestnuts
A Siena-side town on Monte Amiata, where four contrade race bareback every 18 August and the Crastatone celebrates the chestnut around 1 November.
Santa Fiora: The Sforza Town Built Around a River’s Source
A former Sforza county seat on Monte Amiata’s Grosseto side, where the Fiora river rises and Andrea della Robbia’s glazed terracottas fill the parish church.
Arcidosso: A Castle Town and Its Two Prophets
A castle town on Monte Amiata’s Grosseto side, bound up with two religious visionaries a century apart: David Lazzaretti on Monte Labbro and the Tibetan master Namkhai Norbu.
Seggiano: Olive Country Under Monte Amiata
The lowest of our Amiata villages: olive country, with a Renaissance famine-vow sanctuary and an artist’s sculpture garden of about 16 hectares.
Meet La Casina di Giannetto: Olivastra Oil Named for a Donkey
A family olive farm near Seggiano, on the slopes of Monte Amiata, making Seggiano DOP oil from centuries-old Olivastra Seggianese trees.