Village guide Casentino, Arezzo, Italy
Pratovecchio Stia
Wool, water and the top of the Arno
Two towns that became one comune in 2014 and still argue about it pleasantly. Stia is the wool town: it made cloth for centuries and has not entirely stopped. Pratovecchio is quieter and older-feeling. Above them both, the Arno comes out of the ground on Monte Falterona as a stream you could step over.
- Comune
- Pratovecchio Stia
- Where
- Open in maps
What to see
- Piazza Tanucci Stia’s long arcaded piazza, with the Romanesque Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta at the end of it and Della Robbia terracotta inside.
- The wool mill The old Lanificio, now a museum of the art of wool. Panno casentino, the thick napped cloth in burnt orange and green, was made here and is still cut into coats.
- Castello di Romena A ruined Guidi tower on a spur, and below it the Pieve di Romena, one of the finest Romanesque churches in Tuscany. Dante put Romena’s coin forger in Hell by name.
- Castello di Porciano A tower above Stia, restored, with a view straight down the young valley.
What to eat
Tortelli, porcini in autumn, and the slow meat dishes that come out of a valley where it gets properly cold.
When to come
Late September and October, when the woods turn and the air up at the Arno springs is worth the drive on its own.
Panno casentino is a genuine local invention: the little curls on its surface were a defect that someone decided to keep. It has been fashionable, unfashionable and fashionable again.