Discover Poggiolo: Trails, Chapel and Cultural History

Poggiolo between Settlement and Landscape

Poggiolo is an agricultural settlement that has more recently been partially converted, predominantly for residential use. As a settlement and with its buildings, Poggiolo forms part of the landscape heritage of the Province of Arezzo. There is a chapel in the village. For you, this makes it a small place where its agricultural character, present-day residential use and individual historical references stand closely side by side.

Hiking Trails and Cycling Route

A hiking route leads from Camprena via Bosco di Marena, Castello di Gressa and Poggiolo back to Camprena. A ridge road between the Archiano and the Torrente Vessa passes through Marena, Poggiolo and Gressa and climbs through the Corsalone valley. For cyclists, the Soci–Biforco–Soci cycling route leads from Soci towards Poggiolo, crosses the Torrente Gressa at a ford and runs along Lago di Marena di sopra. The different routes help you compare hiking and cycling according to their landscape connections and course.

Castles and Religious Architecture in Bibbiena

Castello di Gressa stands on the summit of a rocky spur above the ravine of the same name, a tributary of the Archiano. It was built between the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century at the behest of Bishop Elemperto. In Bibbiena, Santa Maria del Sasso is considered the only Renaissance architectural complex in Casentino; in 1899, the complex was declared a national monument. It includes a friars’ monastery with an adjoining pilgrims’ hostel, as well as a Dominican nuns’ monastery.

Chiesa e Chiostro di San Lorenzo combines a church built in the second half of the 15th century on the site of an earlier oratory with a 17th-century cloister and the former rooms of a Franciscan monastery. The side altars house two glazed terracottas by Andrea della Robbia depicting Cardinal Dovizi and Pope Leo X; they represent the Nativity and the Descent from the Cross.

Photography and Archaeology

CIFA, the Centro Italiano della Fotografia d’Autore, is located in Bibbiena in a renovated former 19th-century prison building. The Museo Archeologico del Casentino is located on the ground floor of Palazzo Niccolini. It comprises six rooms and presents the development of the Casentino Valley from prehistory to the late Roman imperial period. It has a dedicated exhibition area for the Etruscan sanctuary of Socana, featuring a reconstruction of its structure and its ceramic terracotta decorations. For those interested in culture, Bibbiena therefore offers several clearly distinct themes: religious art, photography and archaeology.

Local Orientation

From the Fattoria di Poggiolo, a farm road leads to the local road to Molino di Gressa. A local road runs via Terruzze and the Podere Lombardelli to Marciano. These road connections complete the picture of the routes linking Poggiolo with the surrounding natural and cultural areas.

Other destinations that you may also wish to consider: Partina, Banzena, Farneta, Soci.

For the higher-level travel overview: Bibbiena.