The Nobile Trail
The Nobile Trail is a fascinating path that encourages hiking and cycling, and allows you not only to see, but also experience the territory, exercising all the senses, through a landscape that has been created by generations who moved mainly on foot or on horseback.
The landscapes are beautiful: the colours, the architecture, the vineyards and the olive groves, but also the possibility to watch wildlife, such as pheasants, roe deer and birds, along the Montepulciano Lake.
Then the Nobile Trail looks at all the key characteristics of Montepulciano: from the Renaissance historical centre to the hills with their vineyards where Vino Nobile is produced, from the Cerro woods to the area around the lake, from religious sanctuaries to the country plains born from the reclamation of the ancient marshes of Valdichiana.
A route sprinkled with beautiful landscapes, wine, nature, history, art, tradition, and sports. In one word: Montepulciano.
Crossed Areas
A valley that was formed by man’s history, art, and ingenuity.
Legible traces left since prehistoric times, then by the Etruscans who have long dominated these lands and left exceptional testimonies not only in the necropolis, but also in towns and in extraordinary works like Porsenna’s labyrinth. Then medieval castles and fortresses softened by the flourishing of the arts in the Renaissance period: squares, streets and buildings which are easy to imagine lively and busy, a scenario of erudite discussions among humanists, merchants’ exchange, street artists and poets. A countryside changed through time which is now famous for its excellent products, such as fine wines and meats from a native breed of cattle over 2,000 years old and still rigorously and lovingly bred for the preservation of a real symbol of this land, the “white giant”.
The other characterizing element of Val di Chiana, inextricably linked to the origin of man and his history, is the water. Clear waters, lakes, mirrors in the sky for the Etruscans, residues in the marsh that characterized the valley and today are precious nature reserves. It is in reclaiming the marsh that man’s ingenuity was expressed to the maximum level, by transforming an inhospitable and unhealthy place into a very fertile valley, changing the territorial economy, the life and history of its inhabitants. The engineering and hydraulic interventions, the architectural decisions in the buildings in the era of land reclamation have also changed the landscape, characterizing it, making it somewhat unique.
The Montepulciano Lake is a lacustrine basin in the Valdichiana Senese, located downstream from the eponymous town, a few kilometres north-west of Lake Chiusi.
The lake is formed by the Canale Maestro della Chiana, which is both its tributary and emissary. The south-eastern bank of Montepulciano Lake marks the border between Tuscany and Umbria; about 15 km east of the lake basin, in Umbria, where there is Lake Trasimeno.
The nature reserve of Montepulciano Lake is a Protected Natural Area established in 1996. It includes Montepulciano Lake and some neighbouring areas, stretching over 470 hectares of land in the province of Siena.