Hike the Poggio di Montieri

It’s the perfect time of year for hiking in Tuscany. The summer heat has yet to arrive in full, the flowers are blooming, and everything is green and beautiful.  Today we will go on a “guided” tour around the mountain of Montieri.  We will start at the Hotel Prategiano:

Leaving the hotel we walk up the paved road that leads to the top of the mountain.  Gaining altitude, the beautiful Tuscan panorama begins to peak out from the foliage.  At Il Piano Park we turn left and enter into the chestnut and pine forest to the left of the mountain.  Now we are above the town of Montieri.  In the summer, Il Piano is used to host sagras and local gatherings and picnics.  There are places to grill and tables for everyone.  At the bottom of the first wooded hill, we find signs telling us some of the history of this area.  Montieri and its surrounding community gained importance through mining.  The hills are called metalifere – full of metal.  Here they mined copper, silver, pyrite, iron ore, and more.  There are still old mining entrances (now closed) visible on the mountain.  Ascending another ten minutes we reach the highest altitude of the hike.  Here, there is a beautiful view of the southwestern hills.  Now, we enter into a shady pine forest.  Making our way around, we come to a fence that borders the trail to the left.  In late August/September this fence is composed entirely of blackberries.  Take a handful while walking through Tuscany!  This is my favorite part of the hike. We look out to the green distance and the towns of Bocchegiano and Prata.  This is the calm and warm side of the mountain.  A rocky ledge lies to the right.  After a few ups and downs we enter again into another forest.  This time, the trees create an atmosphere reminiscent of a jungle.  Shady with cascades of water and slate underfoot, these woods are beautiful and peaceful.  Finally we emerge onto a gravel road and turn to the right.  Here, workers are busy harvesting sturdy trees in their ten-year cycle.  When we reach the crumbling farmhouses on the left, we turn up to the right and pass the old Follavento site.

Continuing on, we enter the chestnut forest on the other side of the mountain.  In the fall, this area is full of people.  In October they come to collect mushrooms, and shortly after, they come for the chestnuts.  It is amazing how much a landscape can change within twenty minutes of walking.  Here, the atmosphere is vastly different.  Wooded with a thick matt of old leaves and dense dirt, the trees reach up on a steep terrain.  It is cooler and the trail narrow.  There is no view as the trees block the visibility.  Finishing the circle, we descend onto the asphalt road that leads back to the hotel. Surprisingly, one can find many wildflowers along the decent to the street and along the street itself.  We count ten to fifteen different varieties.  We pass the man with the roosters and his beautiful apple trees, and finish our walk across from our agriturismo in Tuscany, Rifugio Prategiano.  After a little more than two hours, we have witnessed a great variety of plant life (and hopefully animal too!) and have seen how slight differences in orientation and altitude can change the landscape of the mountain of Montieri.