Castelfiorentino

The town grew up near a crossroads beside the Elsa. The town is dominated by the parish church of Sant’Ippolito, while in the lower town is to be found the great sanctuary of Santa Verdiana, with a museum of sacred art.

Worth a visit the BE.GO. , a museum of Benozzo Gozzoli’s frescoes of the Virgin.

Certaldo  

Further south rises Certaldo, a perfectly intact small medieval town which can also be reached by cable car.

With its ancient buildings and towers, it gives impression of being a place where time has never gone by.

The Palazzo Pretorio is a beautiful building with a lot of coats of arms on the façade. We recommend a visit to the house and museum of Giovanni Boccaccio, Certaldo’s most famous son.

Visit also the Chiesa dei Santi Jacopo e Filippo, now the home of the Museum of Sacred Art.

 Gambassi Terme

This town has always been celebrated for its saline waters, particularly efficacious for the health of the digestive tract.

In olden times it was also famed for glassware, and during the Renaissance the glaziers of Gambassi were much in demand throughout Italy.

You should not miss a visit to the nearby Pieve di Santa Maria a Chianni, a jewel of Romanesque architecture based on the models of Pisa and Lucca. If you are fond of classical music then in the month of June the church is host to a series of concerts of classical music.

Montaione

It stands on an eminence between the lowlands of the rivers Elsa and Egola. In the historic centre are the church of San Regolo and the Palazzo Pretorio, with a museum of Archeology.

Not far from Montaione, in the  lovely landscape  of the Valdelsa countryside, you find the Gerusalemme di San Vivaldo, a group of 17 sixteenth-century chapels, each with its group of polychrome terracotta statues, arranged according to the actual positioning of these churches in the Holy City.

Montespertoli

The town is the watershed between the valleys of the Elsa and of the Pesa, and looks towards the vineyards of Chianti. Wine, in fact, plays an important role here, in terms of both production and tradition.

A Museum is dedicated to the tradition of wine , “The Vine and Wine Museum” which includes a “Sense’s workshop”.
Nice to visit the pieve San Piero in Mercato, in romanesque aspect, which houses the Museum of Sacred Art.

If you want to know more about this area, visit the web site www.toscananelcuore.it

If you find a tourist information office in this area please check here.