Stage 22

Firenze-Palazzolo

This is the first leg of the segment through the Upper Valdarno, from Florence to Arezzo. Incredible is the amount of personalities who over the centuries were born here or came to exercise their immeasurable skills. Painters and poets, scientists of every age and, today, sportspeople and political figures, including Francesco Petrarca and Albert Einstein, who lived in Incisa; Marsilio Ficino, humanist philosopher, who was born in Figline; Masaccio in San Giovanni in Valdarno, and then Giorgio Vasari, Poggio Bracciolini, Leonardo who drew the panorama painted behind the Mona Lisa here. This section is also on a historic roadway: the Old Aretina-Lauretana road, which picks up the Etruscan and Roman road system, and the Cassia, one of the major consular roads, which connected Rome with Arezzo and later continued to Fiesole, Pistoia, Lucca.The stage starts from Santa Croce, the Franciscan church founded by the first brothers of St. Francis heading north. Taking the reverse route of the one taken by the saint, we cross the Arno and ascend it to the Badia di Ripoli, where we find another church dedicated to our patron saint St. Bartholomew, whose blessing will accompany us all the way to Arezzo. On the first spurs after Florence we encounter the ancient Hospital del Bigallo, an admirable building that still provides the ancient service to pilgrims and wayfarers. At San Donato, a historic pass connecting with central Italy, the climb ends and a pleasant up and down in the Tuscan countryside begins, among olive groves and historic villas, until we arrive in Palazzolo.