Village guide Casentino, Arezzo, Italy
Bibbiena
The valley’s working town
Bibbiena is the largest town in the Casentino and the one that actually gets on with things: shops that are open, a piazza people cross on their way somewhere, buses that go. Tourists tend to drive through it towards the castles. That is their loss, and it is also why the coffee is still normal money.
- Comune
- Bibbiena
- Where
- Open in maps
What to see
- Piazza Tarlati The high piazza of the old town, with the valley falling away behind it.
- Palazzo Dovizi The 16th century house of Cardinal Bernardo Dovizi, known as il Bibbiena, who wrote one of the first comedies in the Italian language.
- The Propositura dei Santi Ippolito e Donato Panel paintings and glazed terracotta, in a church most guidebooks never mention.
- Badia Prataglia A forest village high above the town, deep in the Foreste Casentinesi park. Woodcarvers, walking paths, and cold clean air in August.
What to eat
This is the valley’s market town, so it is where the cured meat, the pecorino and the bread come from. Eat where the shop signs are in Italian only.
When to come
Any time. It is the one place in the valley that does not shut when the season ends. In winter it is the warm room of the Casentino.
Bibbiena keeps a carnival older than most of the buildings in it, danced in the piazza and argued about all year.