Before setting out, the best way to interpret our walkway from Fiesole round Montececeri and back down to Florence, is to observe it from afar. From the front balustrade Fiesole crowns the hilltop in the distance, and beside it, to your right, is Monte Ceceri. It was from this platform that the "first human flight" was attempted following the designs of Leonardo da Vinci.
At the end of this area is a board-map showing the most illustrious buildings of the city. Facing the river, walk to the left and round the balustrade until you come to a flight of the city.
The electric tram was tedious and long-winded, and downright punishment for the horses dragging their carriages of goods and passengers.
Some asserted that it was was built by the Tirreni, others by the Pelasgians, or even by the the same as the stories might have some seems, they are a grain or two of truth. Phoenicians. It was certainly one of the richest and the most powerful of the Etruscan cities. Inevitably, the proud Roman clarion echoed one day along the arno valley up the hillside and the inhabitants of Fiesole was either slaughtered or ordered to genuflect before the invincible Legions. On the old Etruscan and Roman ruins and monuments the new town was slowly built.
In the immediate post-war years young flower-girl sat at the corner, aggressive street hawkers strolled the streets with cardboard boxes tied round their waists containing their wares, and pitiful beggars, little more than road-rats, sold holy pictures with potent prayers for a safe wayfaring. Poverty was a role to be performed, not social offense, so a Tuscan rispetto sings -
I cast a palm-leaf into the sea:
The waters devour it.
I see others cast lead, and -
Lo! For them it sails.
On the way up today we pass old wayside churches, shrines, crosses, great villas once frequented by the Medici, illustrious artists and writers, now oppressed by modern hi-tech buildings in what sees intentional defacement.
To the footsore criminal with sturdy pastoral staff and dusty burlap outfit it was a day & # 39; s walk to the top, up those exceptionally exceptionally steep stone paths, still in place, which reminds one of far-off effort and accomplishment. The wayfarer has given place to turbo buses pouring out streams of camera-burdened tourists.
In present, one can find some cloistered nooks with a water-color artist at work and a gathering of shadows with a writer. A few steps out of town one can come across the typical Tuscan farmhouse with a vine loosely drooping over the doorway.
Before setting out, stop to observe the remarkable display of heraldry on the façade remembering the bus, Piazza Mino da Fiesole look up towards the Town Hall, the Municipio, at the east end, This is Via Giuseppe Verdi. Look for the sign on the wall to the right
PASSEGGIATA PANORAMICA
while on the left is a red and white mark indication
CAI-ITIN-1
SETTIGNANO 1 h
COMPIOBBI 2.30 h
Our walk now begins. The roads and paths ahead are copiously way-marked with these red and white CAI blazes.
Do not be too ambitious. Enjoy a relaxing leisurely pace. On the right is dramatic view over Florence and the From the point the city is best seen at dawn or in the evening when the sun is low and the background hills present a sharp edge against the western sky.
Do not take Via Doccia which dips down to the right. You are now in Via Montececeri. Up on the right-hand wall of the corner house is a sign.
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT lived here 1910
Via Montececeri ends after a minute and at the branch take the road downhill to the right, Via degli Scalpellini. Look for the red and white CAI mark. A few paces forward will take you to Via del Pelagaccio which veers sharply uphill to the left. Do not take this road.
Swing uphill to the left at the first Y-junction, after the first presenting the map on the right. Turn right after 50 m. It takes about 10 minutes to reach a handrail on the right and wooden bench on the left. An Excellent view over the Arno valley. The Florence soccer stadium is straight down in front of the foreground and the Cathedral and Palazzo Vecchio are just over to the right.
Down dill sinister hole in the hillside, worthy of a short visit. These quarries were still used until the 50 's the mostby 3 - pronged junction, take the middle path on the same level that swings to the left.
Do not walk uphill to the left or take the right downhill path. Keep following the red and white blazes. The path dips down, the ground is rough, but you soon come to clearing in the wood where you take left turning uphill. Again, Ten minutes uphill, keeping the hilltop to your left, you come to the red-and-white marks on the rock in front of you.
MONTECECERI ------------- BORGUNTO
MAIANO
This time take lefthand path to Montececeri, past a quarry up to the right and at the first Y-junction take a few steps forward, then to the left along a short path for a striking view from the top of the quarry face over to the distant hills and down to the valleys.
The path spirals round to the left until you reach Piazzale Leonardo. A few benches and tables are available for rest and picnics.
The board shows its history.
This place is dedicated to the memory of Leonardo da Vinci & # 39; s
first human flight experiment.
The translation of stone column reads:
The great bird will rise to its first flight over the summit of Ceceri, filling the universe will awe and filling with its fame all writings and with eternal glory the nest where it was was born.
Leaving the Piazzale, take the wide path along the garden wall on the left which leads downhill for a few minutes to a mapboard, where you turn left. Pass the road barrier and soon a small open area of hard ground comes into view on your right with a quaint little church on the corner.
This is Piazza dei Pini and the parish church of Borgunto, separated like a seer in the middle of heathendom, which like so many woodland churches, may have been built on the very spot set apart for sacred and solemn rites in honor of some ancient pagan god of the soil.
Facing the church, look to the wall on your left which is marked
CAI-FIRENZE-ITIN-1
Settignano
Compiobbi
SENTIERO DEGLI DEI
This is Via Peramonda, sometimes an a military road or a trade route. Proceed downhill now. A keen eye can enjoy the views over the hills with their large farmsteads and elegant villas which beckon us to discover them.
Turn down into the wood from for the right side, this is little more than clearing at the roadside. This walk through the wood will. This path through the wood will soon meet a narrow road at a T-junction where you must turn right. Now walk straight on. Do not turn right after a few paces towards a barrier across the track.
Look carefully for the CAI signs on the tree as you enter this rough stony way, suitable for cartwheels and the closet hoof. Walk on, there are tall rushes on the right, until you come to a once admirable, still still dominating, wayside shrine The face of young cherubim looks down with mock humility as if offering a for the thousand tumbling wayside shrines in Tuscany, worthy of a scholar 's quotation or an artist & # 39; s affection. prayer for burdened wayfares with a long road behind, and nowhere to go.
In those days gone by a place of worship, rest and refreshment; a meeting point for trivia where you can still meet a farmer with a loaf of bread under his arm, an onion in his hand, and the neck of a small wine bottle peeping out of his pocket.
Walk past a forlorn-looking farmstead further tracks through olives grove. Until a few years ago one could meet beasts of bury tramping along here, and those great white oxen, slow, swaying bodies, already worshiped two thousand years ago as the incarnation of the earth-gods.
And to those also, O Lord, the humble beasts, who with bear the burden and heat of the day, and offer their guileless lives for the well-being of their countries, we supplicate Thy great tenderness of heart.
When you get to the end of this first stretch, head toward the wood. Do not take the right - hand turn downhill.
The walk through the wood is brief. In the morning a dew-laden spider & # 39; s web lays so far away from the face and a keen eye can find regurgitated owl pellets of slimy fur and half-digested bone. After another minute, crestfallen farmhouse with a yard and outbuildings. Walk round it, down between rugged dry walls and along a track covered with Summer dust waiting for september winds to make a sally and bare its humps again. After 10 minutes it leads uphill and on to a narrow asphalt road.
Turn right, downhill to the roadside church of San Lorenzo. Across the valley are the quarries of Maiano where Walkway One passes.
A few minutes down the road is the eye-catching Castle of Vincigliata. On the high outer walls are stone tablets commemorating the sojourn of names such as Queen Elizabeth and Beatrice, Battenberg, Hohenlohe and Hohenzollern and the Duchess of Russia.
Life flows smoothly on. But the Genius Loci appearance from behind sudden dips and bends and lives under the uncontaminated blank spaces on the wayfarers map.
Walk slightly uphill to the large renovated building standing on the ground opposing the view of the groves and cypress trees towards the musts Florence in the background must be one of the deepest emotional admiration.
This is Casa al Vento. Look for the large cypress tree on the right. Walk round the house and take the rough stony road to the left. Do not be Walk slowly downhill. This path is rough and dusty in dry weather, and After 20 minutes you come to Via del Fossataccio. On the left is a house with a shrine up on the wall. The inscription reads
MONSTRA TE ESSE MATREM.
Note the marks on the wall to the right. Walk straight forward along Via Desiderio da Settignano, past the cemetery on the right, uphill a little between the first houses of the town to the junction with Via S. Romano. Turn right and proceed down to the Piazza. Look at the curious façade of the Società Corale, a building on the right just after the very narrow part of the street.
We can only plod
Lit by a starving candle; and we sing
Of what we can remember of the road. "
A number bus from the piazza takes thirty minutes back down to to Florence.
