Village guide Casentino, Arezzo, Italy
Ortignano Raggiolo
A village built by chestnuts
Raggiolo is a stone village on the Pratomagno side, small, steep, and almost absurdly intact. It is on the official list of the most beautiful villages in Italy and, unusually, deserves it. Everything here was once built out of the chestnut economy: the drying huts, the mill, the terraces, the roofs.
- Comune
- Ortignano Raggiolo
- Where
- Open in maps
What to see
- The village itself Stone lanes with grass in them, and no way through by car. Park below and walk.
- The seccatoi The chestnut drying huts, where a slow fire was kept under the nuts for weeks.
- The mill The watermill that ground the dried chestnuts into flour, the flour that fed the valley through winter.
- The chestnut woods Walk up into them. They are old, managed, and completely quiet.
What to eat
Castagnaccio, chestnut flour polenta, and everything else the chestnut can be turned into. In this village that is not a novelty, it is the archive.
When to come
October and early November, without question. The whole village turns to the chestnut and the smell of the seccatoi is in the air.
Chestnut flour was called farina dolce, sweet flour, and it kept mountain families alive through winters when wheat was for other people.