This content was automatically translated. View the original text.
Stage along the route via Vallombrosa
Once able to turn away from the splendor of the Basilica of Santa Croce—the largest Franciscan church in the world and the starting point of this stage—the route winds through streets lined with ancient palaces, steeped in the Renaissance atmosphere of Florence, before quickly leading to the river landscape where history and urban nature blend along the Arno.
Crossing the river, the path continues along its left bank, passing through Florence’s second-largest green space, the Parco dell’Albereta, before heading toward Rimaggio, a hamlet of Bagno a Ripoli, where the terrain soon becomes more hilly, offering glimpses of Brunelleschi’s dome in the distance. Along the way, travelers encounter the ancient site—now in Neo-Romanesque style—of the Church of Santo Stefano a Paterno, which houses a fresco depicting the Virgin and the Angel, a work of the 15th-century Florentine school. The route also passes near the historic Spedale del Bigallo, a building founded in 1214 that, both then and now, serves as a place of welcome for pilgrims and wayfarers.
Winding through small paths and trails that follow medieval and even Roman-era routes, the journey continues past the saddle of Monte Cucco, eventually reaching Rignano sull’Arno—a medieval town rich in history and home to remarkable religious and historical buildings, including the thousand-year-old Pieve di San Leolino.
