Unexpected treasures in the villages of Pratomagno

The Pratomagno is not only its beautiful turf on the ridge from where we can enjoy incredible views. The Pratomagno is not only green forests of chestnut, beech and fir, fresh streams, flowers of a thousand colors. Pratomagno is also history, art, architecture, traditions and folklore. Things that we find in small villages on the slopes of the great massif, both on those of Casentino and Valdarno. Places that in most cases have medieval or even older origins. Centres that were once fortified and that still today show us the suggestive testimonies of the castles that were there.
Walking through the alleys of these villages we find a harmonious architecture, able to relax our spirit and show evidence of a distant and near history. In these places we often find small churches that are real architectural jewels. Not only that, visiting them is very likely to find works of art of good artistic value as valuable gold background of the fifteenth century, wooden crucifixes of various periods, works in terracotta, interesting paintings of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Works that in addition to their artistic value, have a historical value because they are strongly linked to the history of that place, events sometimes belonging to a remote past, other times to a past very close to us.
These villages are often the scene of folk events that draw inspiration from traditions, ancient crafts, products that were and are of these places.
The photos in this web section will take us on a virtual journey to these places that have an altitude above sea level between five hundred and nine hundred meters. An itinerary that, if traced on a map, would result in an ellipse around the Massif of Pratomagno. Slightly widening the ellipse and going down a bit 'of altitude, the route would touch most of the known Romanesque churches of Casentino and Valdarno. This virtual journey will start from Montemignaio, the village of Casentino on the northern slopes of Pratomagno, and moving clockwise will end at the Abbey of Vallombrosa at an altitude of one thousand meters, a well-known place of worship very close to our starting point. In its path the route will meet Cetica, the Parish Church of Strada in Casentino, Quota, Raggiolo, Carda, the Parish Church of Socana, Faltona, Capraia, the ruins of the Abbey of Santa Trinita, Pontenano, Anciolina, Chiassaia, the parish church of Gropina, Poggio di Loro, Rocca Ricciarda, Trappola, the Abbey of Soffena in Castelfranco, the parish church of Scò, the parish church of Cascia near Reggello, Saltino and finally Vallombrosa, already mentioned above.
Today these places are all easily accessible by car, once, from the nearest to the furthest from each other, were all connected by roads that went to create an incredible road network on the mountain. For this reason, Pratomagno can easily be defined as the mountain that divides and joins Casentino and Valdarno