Hiking and Biking Guides
1.
Get away from the crowds into the Tuscan countryside
2.
Immerse in a diverse nature full of history and beauty
3.
Learn from your guide about the land and its traditions
Hire a professional excursionist for an adventurous outdoor activity among Tuscany’s rolling hills. Enjoy hikes across neat farmlands and wild forests and stop to rest in historical sites and scenic spots. Bike tours are a great way to immerse yourself in the landscape of rolling hills, follow your guide along the best secondary, panoramic routes away from traffic and breathe in the clean air of one of the world’s most beautiful areas.
Treks and bike rides can be either half day (3 hour) or full day (6 hour) experiences.
Chianti Area
The Chianti area between Siena and Florence is not only a land of vines, olive groves, medieval castles and old monasteries. The Chianti is also dense forests, a nature that is a real pleasure to behold. The slow traveler to this seemingly remote rural world is always accompanied and surprised by historic sites, hamlets and old farms, Renaissance Villas and other remnants of a long forgotten past. The Chianti gives its best in autumn when the heat has receded and the trekking and biking happens among changing colors (late September, October and early November).
Val d’Orcia Area
The UNESCO protected valley of the Orcia river, crossed by the old Roman road of the Cassia is guarded by medieval castles and embelished by renaissance hill towns. This area offers some of the most photographed and iconic landscapes of Tuscany.
Surround yourself with cypress trees that crown the rolling hills of wheat fields, and follow country roads between neat rows of vineyards just paces from Montalcino and Montepulciano the hill top towns that produce some the best wines in the world such as the Brunello and Nobile.
Crete Senesi
The Crete Senesi are a soothing landscape to look at, with their basic and harmonious formations. They are the rolling clay hills, friable and sensitive to the erosion of wind and rain that have shaped them, over the centuries, like dunes or sea waves with mere pockets of towns and hamlets. The hills offer pastures for sheep farming, underground truffles can be unearthed from the wooded areas and old travertine and marble is quarried near the thermal waters that spring from its depths. Itineraries here are best enjoyed in the lush green of spring and in the arid and bare winter.
Montagnola Senese
The Montagnola is a hill and area of great naturalistic heritage, one of Tuscany’s great hot spots of biodiversity, with important quarries for the extraction of natural stone and marble like the precious Giallo di Siena which can be found inside the Duomo. Many paths in this area lead to uncontaminated landscapes and woodlands around forgotten Romanesque churches, medieval castles and hamlets, and the shaded woodlands, sleepy towns and historical sites usually show their best in the heat of summer.
Val di Merse and Val di Farma
The valleys of the Merse and Farma rivers are evocative regions for the continuity of their forests, interrupted only by the ancient, fortified villages, hermitages and monasteries, like the Abbey of San Galgano with its Sword in the Stone. The wealth of these areas derived from their waterways and mills. Along the banks of the Farma you can find the ancient Petriolo hot springs, thermal waters that have been appreciated since the Romans for their healing properties. Itineraries here are enjoyable all year and the adventurous may bathe in the rivers and baths.