From Florence: Tuscan Wine Tour and the Legend of the Sword in the Rock

Overview

Highlights

• San Galgano Abbey
• The Sword in the Rock
• Pienza & Montepulciano

What's included

Itinerary

1. 1

   Eremo di Montesiepi

   30min

   The Hermitage of Montesiepi and the Abbey of San Galgano in Valdimerse constitute the most important religious and monumental complex in the Chiusdino area and, more generally, in the entire Siena region, and one of the most significant examples of Gothic-Cistercian architecture in Italy. At the center is the famous boulder containing the sword of San Galgano. The circular wall is punctuated by four asymmetrical double-splayed single-lancet windows. Opposite the entrance is the semicircular apse. To the left of the entrance is a rectangular chapel covered with a cross vault; this chapel was built in the early 14th century and frescoed between 1334 and 1336 by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.

2. 2

   Abbazia di San Galgano

   30min

   “The church of San Galgano, as it stands, is a monument of grandiose and evocative beauty. The ivy that clings to its gray, gold, and red walls; the broken lines of the walls, which give the whole a fantastical appearance; those large, empty windows that our imagination completes with slender marble columns and stained-glass windows; the green lawn, a silky carpet that changes hue with every hour of the day and every breath of wind; and the blue vault of the sky that arches luminously over the naves; and the silence of the fields that stretch out all around—all combine to make this abandoned and deconsecrated temple more solemn and more mystical.”

3. 3

Before you go

Location