Casentino Itinerary

IN SEARCH OF MIDDLE AGES - The Casentino Valley, embellished by the National Casentino Forest Park with its tall fir and beech trees, almost like a piece of North Europe in Tuscany, is also the home of medieval buildings: castles and fortified towns, age-old churches, abbeys and monasteries.

The Casentino valley is one of the four main valleys in the province of Arezzo. It varies from large forests in the mountainous areas to the lowlands and hills on the valley floor. The particular characteristics of the area are probably one of the reasons why St. Francis of Assisi chose the Verna (now the site of a Franciscan convent) as a place of prayer and why St. Romualdo founded the Camaldolite hermitage. The medieval castle of the Guidi Counts can be found at Poppi and at Pratovecchio, where Paolo Uccello was born (1397) and many more religious buildings can be admired. Then there is Romena Castle, a stronghold belonging to the Guidi Counts and also St. Peter's parish church at Romena, a magnificent Romanesque building. Stia, famous for Leonardo Pieraccioni's film The Cyclone, boasts the remains of medieval buildings and the Romanesque church of St. Maria Assunta. Not far away, the village of Porciano houses a homonymous castle, one of the Guidi Counts' first residences.

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