Travelling Italy: Four road bike tours in eastern Tuscany - feasting and cycling around Arezzo
Sven Bremer
· 12.03.2021
The province of Arezzo borders the Tuscan provinces of Florence and Siena to the west and the regions of Emilia-Romagna, Marche and Umbria (from north to south) to the east. Our country house, which belongs to Fattoria La Vialla, and our starting point Castiglion Fibocchi are located in the east of Tuscany, not far from Arezzo, which is around 80 kilometres south-east of Florence. Castiglion Fibocchi is situated on a hill on the edge of the Valdarno, the valley through which the Arno flows to Florence. Towards Florence, a lot of industry has settled in the Valdarno; further south, where our routes run, it is fertile farmland and home to numerous wineries. The valley is flanked by the Pratomagno, a mountain range up to 1,592 metres high. To the east of this - and north of the picturesque town of Arezzo - is the upper valley of the Arno, also known as Casentino, which is surrounded by wooded mountains.
Our four routes lead primarily through the hills and mountains of Casentino and Pratomagno. The majority of the climbs, some of which are just over 1,000 metres above sea level, can be described as moderate. However, two sections - from Capolona up to Bibbiano (Tour 2) and the climb in the Parco de Lignano (Tour 3) - are really nasty, with an average gradient of over ten per cent and peaks of around 17 per cent. The road conditions are very mixed, the tarmac is often cracked and only amateurishly patched. As the roads at the edge are usually even rougher, it is better to ride a little further in the centre. However, this is not without danger, as many Italian drivers seem to believe that a distance of a few centimetres from cyclists is sufficient. If you complain about this, you can usually expect to be verbally abused - a bit bitter in the land of the supposedly biggest cycling tifosi in the world.
