Mount Amiata, an ancient mysterious volcano, was the Sacred Mountain of the Etruscans. It experienced a period of great splendor between the 1000th and XNUMXth centuries, thanks to the positive influences that the Abbey of San Salvatore, built here to control the Via Francigena, perpetuated throughout its territory. During the Middle Ages, in the period of the Encastellamento, all the villages that we can still find today truly well preserved arose. It is very likely, in fact, that the landscape of the villages and the countryside that surrounds them is the same that we could see XNUMX years ago.

In recent centuries, the territory has been almost entirely untouched by industrial and economic development, with the exception of the epic of the mercury mines that were founded at the end of the 800th century. If in the past this represented a cause for degradation and backwardness, today it allows visitors to enjoy a reality that is largely uncontaminated by the negative influences that economic growth necessarily brings with it, both socially and environmentally.

We find an extraordinary variety of landscapes.
Below 1000 meters, the beech forest that imperiously envelops the top of the mountain giving that halo of green giant, the lung of Tuscany, gives way to the chestnut grove, which here represents not just an environmental reality, but also a cultural and social one for what it meant in the past and for what it continues to mean today thanks to the quality production of chestnuts.
Then it slowly slopes down towards the historic villages, which at around 600-800 metres, at the height of the springs, form a crown around the volcano.

Going further down we find the hills that then reach the Val D'Orcia and the Maremma. This is the kingdom of the olive trees and then the vineyards, which extend over the gentle hills of Montecucco, Montalcino, Scansano and Montepulciano.
The reasons that induce guests to visit our lands are extremely diverse.
Nature with trekking routes, mountain biking, parks and nature reserves, plants, flowers (the extraordinary spontaneous orchids), animals.
Food and wine with companies producing typical products, cheeses, cured meats, honey, oil and the extraordinary Montecucco area with its wines.
The spas in the area and finally the historic villages, churches and castles.

It is a unique landscape, but to discover it, to understand it, to enter this dimension you have to pay attention.

Here tourists have not yet brought the massification that is characteristic of many famous destinations with all their advantages and disadvantages.
Therefore, some services will be missing, many indications, but you will be welcomed in a different way, not as tourists, but as friends.

The cuisine of the Amiata area has a boundless richness. Fortunately, in recent years an activity of rediscovery, study and valorization of our products and our traditions has begun. In this, the quality brands, oil, wine, chestnut, mushrooms, truffles, and food and wine events have great importance.

Last but not least, you will give us the opportunity to offer you our hospitality.
I hope that in the end you can take away a beautiful memory from our territory.