Poggibonsi
“Per buon augurio, i poggibonsesi attendono la pioggia tra la festa del Patrono e la Madonna di Romituzzo (prima domenica di maggio), perché non si devono mischiare le polveri “tra San Lucchese e Romituzzo polvere bagnata, annata fortunata”.
Poggibonsi, industrial city and beating heart of the Valdelsa, hosts its ancient imprints in the Poggio Imperiale hill that frames a modern built-up area offering important works of contemporary, environmental and street art.
The Fortezza Medicea, built at the beginning of the sixteenth century for Lorenzo il Magnifico, today is the home of the archeological park that holds testimony of the forming of the first rural village in the fifth century BC. A while later the Curtis Carolingia formed, and is today visitable thanks to the exceptional reconstruction made by archaeologists of the Archeodrome, the first and only open-air Italian museum dedicated to Early Middle Ages. The process of settlement formation in Poggibonsi took further impetus from the twelfth century with the foundation of Poggio Bonizio and the passage of the Francigena.
The mysterious Fonte delle Fate (Fairies Spring), the convent of San Lucchese, the Magione and Badia castles, and the Rocca di Staggia deserve to be visited, along with the agricultural products born in many of the farms of the territory that should not be missed.
The Via Francigena offers the best of opportunities for a bike journey north in the direction of San Gimignano or south in the direction of Siena. Poggibonsi, also in an intermodal logic for the presence of its busy railway station, constitutes the main starting point for the "Grand Tour Valdelsa-Valdicecina". Those who want to dive into the streets surrounded by vineyards have the opportunity to enter the "Canto del Gallo tour", with the possibility to find interesting excursions offered by the routes in the touristic Chianti area. For those who prefer to get acquainted with the most remote places of Valdelsa the advice is to equip a bike gravel or MTB to calmly cover the route called "Le acque della Valdelsa tra misteri e realtà". Finally, the "Grand Tour della Vernaccia", in which you can also enter from Poggibonsi towards Ulignano and San Gimignano.
