Cecina Valley
The territory of the Upper Cecina Valley, in the southern part of the Province of Pisa, bears the traces of a millenary human presence and activity in a very peculiar natural context. The landscape is marked by the signs of the ancient settlements, still perfectly visible: the castles high on the hill-tops surrounded by villages, churches, farms and country houses.
The monuments and the works of art are to be found in Volterra, the unquestioned centre of the whole area. All this in an ever changing landscape: the typical scenery of the Tuscan countryside with its cypress alleys, vine yards and olive groves against a backcloth of seasonally changing colours, alternating with stark and forbidding crags and ravines; and the boric-acid fumaroles of the geothermal area, steaming jets now harnessed to produce electrical power. And to complement all this, as if to make a everlasting impression on the nature lover, the vast wooded areas, the rivers and minor water courses, true wildlife sanctuaries like the Forest of Monterufoli and Berignone with their unforgettable naturalistic intineraries.
In short: a region whose attractions transport the visitor to a distant and less frenetic world thantoday's.
