MONTERIGGIONI


Monteriggioni has became famous for its fourteen towers' walls which are among the best preserved all over Italy, also mentioned by Dante in the Divine Comedy, in the italian language used once upon a time. If you came close to the walls by night, you will find the new nightlights which let it seems as if it was witches' castle dancing in the skies. Within the walls, just beneath them, there are the vegetable gardens of the villagers, which during the medieval times were used to survive. During the battles between Siena and Florence village people used to cultivate potatoes and onions; they had also chickens and rabbits to eat. After this ring of vegetable gardens there are the villagers' houses and on the middle of the village the church' square with its belfry used to call devotes early in the morning, at midday and at sunset. When there were sieges the belfry singed more often to advice of the coming attacks. They say that the smaller higher towers of the walls, called torrini, were destroyed by the villagers themselves to avoid their debris falling inside when the invaders shot them by cannon or catapult.
Afterward they have been rebuilt at the beginning of the twentieth century. But they have been rebuilt just on one side of the walls (that one visible by the roads outside) just for show of the village itself. The main road was at that time the so-called Cassia road, which cross the valley under Monteriggioni on the west side of it: so the towers are on that side. Unfortunately nowadays the main road is the joining road Siena -Florence on the east side of the valley! Anyway, for us Monteriggioni is beautiful how it is…

WHAT TO SEE

Castello di Monteriggioni , Pieve di S.Giovanni Battista Castello di Monteriggioni,
Castello della Chiocciola ,

Market day = Thursdays FROM 08.00 UNTIL 01.00 PM TO CASTELLINA SCALO PS = REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST LEFT THE CAR OUTSIDE OF THE VILLAGE

Abbadia Isola
Close to Monteriggioni, so close that from there you can reach it in one-hour walk, there is a nice church called in a funny way Abbadia Isola (Island Church). It is so called not because surrounded by the sea, which from here it is really far away, but because around the XI century AD, there were a lot of marshes all around the church and the monastery, so that these two buildings seemed to stay as an island. Until nowadays you will find that the fields surrounding the church are really flat and they are plantations of wheat, sunflowers and forage. All around, there are just three trees: the soil is still clayey and it would be difficult for any kind of tree to resist. If you go there in July, when the area is so full of sunflowers to be astonishing beautiful, you could make pleasant walks through the fields and the country lanes, without hurry having Monteriggioni in front of you and the church behind. If you would teach your children to drive a bike this is the right place
WHAT TO SEE

WE SUGGEST TO MAKE A LITTLE EXCURSION TO:
ALONG THE ROAD MONTERIGGIONI-CASOLE D’ELSA ON YOUR LEFT YOU MEET THE OLD COMPLEX “ CASTELPIETRAIO “
A series of struggles and occupations, fought in order to the conquer the territory and the castle itself, characterize its history. At the end of the 10th century Strove and Staggia were under the rule of the Franzesi, a noble family of the Salic law, who is thought by several genealogists to be descended from the Countess Ava Zenovi whose sarcophagus is still on view in the right aisle of the abbey in Abbadia a Isola. In the 12th sentury the Castle was under the rule of the Soarzi. In the 13th century it belonged to Ginibaldo Saracini, Sapia Salvani's husband. She was the daughter of a noble and powerful Sienese family and she was also quoted in Dante Alighieri's Purgatory. In the 15th century it was under the rule of the Capacci, a noble Sienese family coming from Monteagutolo del Bosco, who chose as their own coat of arms a boar's head, carved as ornament on the stones of the floors and of the portals of the castle, and which is still in part visible. The most ancient part of Castel Pietraio is its high tower with its particular Guelph battlement. The next buildings were built later (from 1300 to 1500) and now they form the present quadrangular plan of the complex with the inside cloister, where a well for the collection of the rainwater provided for the water supply of that time ; and the outside stone staircase which connected the tower to the most recent buildings. The construction of the church dedicated to the Saints

Peter and Paul is of the same period. The buildings of the little village completing Castle Pietraio date from 1700.
The restoration under present conditions is due to the Baron Massimo Neri - Del Nero who devoted much of his life to Castle Pietraio. He achieved refined and wise restoration and maintenance without any violent interventions ; he adapted the room to the present needs but he always respected the architectural and decorative elements and characteristics. In order to get a deeper penetration of historical, stylistic and landscape elements ; and to respect, from an ecoenvironmental point of view, the traditions and the places, the aim 5B of the Law about biological agriculture has been pursued for many years : biological cultivation, low environmental impact and organic managing. The olive-trees and the vineyards have been and are still being replaced in order to get a better and better quality. The shortage of factories, the typical traditional Tuscan cultivations such as olive-trees, vines, wheat and sunflowers, the woods of the Park in the Sienese Montagnola, make this Tuscan area a natural oasis.

NOT SO FAR FROM CASTELPIETRAIO , YOU CAN MEET IN YOUR LEFT THE INDICATION FOR “ STROVE “ . HERE YOU CAN SEE A LITTLE MEDIAVAL VILLAGE

FONTEBECCI
A little mediaval village, there is not so many to see, but don’t forget to see .

BADESSE
It’s the last exit of the superstrada direction siena , before siena . the centre of “ badesse “ is nominated also in the middle-age for a “ mulino inside of the convent Di Santa Petronilla and for his position ( the middle age road : Francigena )