Published on: 2 February 2014  | Last updated: 6 January 2020

The Val di Merse is the area of Toscana to the west of Siena. It’s only a short distance from Siena, and you could easily combine this route with a visit to the city, but it feels like a world away. This is a route to go for if you want to explore an unexplored part of Toscana.

The Grand Tour goes past one of Toscana’s most iconic places, the ruined Abbazia di San Galgano, but its main attraction is the countryside and the cycling - but there are also some attractive and inter­esting villages to visit along the way.

The route is a total of 159 kilometres long. It mainly follows quiet local roads - at some points extremely quiet - on one section I went for an hour without seeing a car. The total climbing is about 2500 metres, there are a couple of short sharp climbs at the southern end of the route.

Officially, the tour starts at Sovicille and goes anti-clockwise. I did a long section of it heading clockwise and this seemed to work fine, but it is only signed in one direction.

The route is the result of an initi­ative by local cyclists (the Gruppo Ciclistico Val di Merse) who planned the route and persuaded the local author­ities to put up the signs.

An extended version of the Grand Tour is also used as the course for a one-day Audax race. Cycle tourists will probably want to take the route over two or three days. There are three campsites along the route, but these are all concen­trated at the southern end of the route, other accom­mod­ation is available but isn’t as plentiful as it is in the parts of Toscana that are more on the tourist track.

Bear in mind that the tranquillity comes at a price - there are sections of the route where services like shops and bars are few and far between.

Map and altitude profile

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Variants and options

The official version includes 12 kilometres of unsur­faced road and track - including a section of the Eroica - although these can be avoided. I’ve suggested a couple of variations if you want to avoid the sections of sterrata.

  Map:  FT-maps-toscana-GTVM-show map in overlay    |    FT-maps-toscana-GTVM-show map in new window 

You could combine this route with the excellent Grand Tour della Maremma cycle route by taking the very scenic road through Roccastrada. Here’s a map showing the two routes and the links between them:   show map in overlay   show map in new window.

You could also incor­porate sections of the route into a longer distance through route - for example heading south from Siena via Murlo and Montalcino.

Day-rides

The Grand tour’s website has a selection of day routes in the area. At the moment the route descrip­tions are only in Italian, but there are maps to download. The book The Val di Merse by Bicycle includes descrip­tions of a number of day-rides.

Route description in more detail

From Sovicille to the Abbazia di San Galgano

North from Sovicille after Trecciano you come to a turning on the right with the first section of sterrata (3.4 kms and about 200 metres of climbing). I haven’t done this section of the route, but from the pictures on Google Streetview it seems to be a section of smooth strada bianca. If you want to avoid it just continue on towards Ancaiano and from there follow the road to Pievescola where you can rejoin the official route.

At the end of the strada bianca the route follows a minor road (the SP 101) continuing to climb for another couple of kilometres through woodland to the high point at a little under 600 metres. After that there’s a long 8-kilometre descent, turning left off the SP 101 onto a minor road through vineyards towards Pievescola. 

At Pievescola you need bear right onto the SP52. There’s a bar in the village and a fontanella (water fountain) on towards Ponti di Pievescola where the road crosses the rail line and then comes to a T-junction with the SS541. The route follows the SS541 towards Firenze before taking the first left towards.

From here the route climbs for 26 kilometres - but pretty gently: the altitude gain is a relat­ively small 230 metres. At the 28-kilometre mark there’s a left onto the SP 107, and another bliss­fully quiet road, towards Chiusdino (543m), at the 42-kilometre mark, and the Abbazia di San Galgano 8.5 kilometres further on. 

The Abbazia is one of the iconic places of Toscana - you’ll see photo­graphs of it on postcards all over the region. The nearby Eremo di Montespieri is also a must-see.

More about the Abbazia di San Galgano and the sword in the stone

As you head from the Abbazia di San Galgano towards Monticiano look out for the Roberto Ciulli sculpture park on your left as you approach Monticiano. the park was created by the collector and sculptor Marco Ciulli in memory of his father. Some of the works were specially created for the site. Admission was free (or at least, I went in and wandered about and no one asked me for money.

From Monticiano to Casciano di Murlo

At Monticiano you have the option of heading south on the road to Roccastrada, where you can join the Gran Tour delle Maremma.

After Monticiano the next village is Iesa (marked as Lama on maps) where there is a bar-alimentari (bar with a grocery shop), and then no services until you get to Casciano di Murlo some 30 kilometres (and a fair bit of climbing) further on from Monticiano. 

There’s also a sculpture park near the village estab­lished by the Swiss sculptor Kurt Laurenz Metzler in the grounds of his villa. There’s some more inform­ation and some pictures at the ecomuseovaldimerse.org website. You can visit Metzler’s website klmetzler.com there are pictures of the works in the park but I couldn’t find any inform­ation about opening times etc.

After Iesa there’s a descent and then a 200-metre (altitude) climb over four and a half kilometres, followed by seven-and-a-bit kilometres of salis­cendo (up and down) before a 5 kilometre-descent into the valley and then the last major climb on the route: a 6-kilometre climb (320 metres of altitude gain) to Casciano di Murlo (480m).

There are plenty of shops and services at Casciano plus a nice campsite on the route just before you get int the village.

Casciano di Murlo to Sovicille (54 kms)

From Casciano the route heads for Vescovado di Murlo (where there’s a hotel) and then a detour to Murlo itself. Murlo is a nice place to visit in its own right (and there’s a decent restaurant) but the main reason to visit is the curiously-named Antiquarium di Poggio Civitate (opening hours). The museum holds the remains of an Etruscan villa recovered thanks to the work of gener­a­tions of archae­ology students from the University of Massachusetts spending their summer vacations labouring under a Tuscan sun (University of Massachusetts Poggio Civitate Excavation Project). Almost everything we know about the Etruscans we know from the remains recovered from their tombs - so inform­ation about their daily lives is something truly exceptional.

At Murlo you could opt to head south towards Buonconvento and from there to Montalcino, or to San Quirico and Pienza.

If you stick with the Grand Tour della Val di Merse there is then a section unsur­faced road which forms part of the Eroica course. This section doesn’t present any particular diffi­culties, but further on there is a short climb on a section of unsur­faced track which could be problematic if you are on a full-loaded tourer. You could always opt to push, for a hundred metres or so. Otherwise, if you want to avoid both sections you will need to take the road that connects Casciano di Murlo with Grotti crossing over the main SS223 near La Torre and from there, via Sant’Andrea a Montecchi and picking up the official route near San Rocco a Pilli, and then head for Sovicille via Ampugnano.

After San Rocco a Pilli there’s another brief section of unsur­faced road before the route comes out onto the main road (the SP99) leading to Rosia. Rosia is the main town in the area and the road is likely to be, relat­ively, busy. 

On the way to Rosia (well on the way with a bit of a detour) is the Monastero della Santissima Trinità e Santa Mustiola with its cloister - the only one in Toscana to have maintained its Romanesque character. The monastero is still a monastery but it is visitable on Monday and Friday mornings between 9 and 12. I wasn’t able to visit but you can see what I missed on the Comune di Sovicille website.

There’s also the Ponte della Pia - a Roman arched bridge recon­structed in the medieval era. The bridge across the Rosia torrente formed part of the ancient Via Massetana that linked Siena with the coast. Although it features in the promo­tional photo­graphs for the route it’s actually a short way off the route.