Category: Journal

Montioni Nature Park near Suvereto begins almost on the edge of Orizzonte Verde.

Montioni does something else. It draws you in slowly. A path, a strip of shade, the scent of warm wood and dry earth, a bend with another pocket of silence behind it. From Orizzonte Verde, you are not “some distance from a nature park.” You are right on its edge. You can feel it. It does not begin only once you have parked the car. It begins in the air, in the light, in the way everything seems to be in slightly less of a hurry.

Not long ago, I suddenly found myself face to face with a deer.
We both froze. It looked at me, I looked back, and before I could do anything sensible or romantic, it had already disappeared. As if to say: lovely that you are here, but do not flatter yourself.

That, in a way, is Montioni too.

Not a backdrop, but a landscape with memory

Whoever walks here does not only walk through woodland. You walk through a landscape that remembers.

Montioni is a large natural area between the Val di Cornia and the Val di Pecora, covering around 7,000 hectares. Official sources describe it as a place where nature and human history are constantly intertwined. Here you see not only Mediterranean vegetation and holm oaks, but also traces of alum mining, charcoal production, woodland management and old settlements.

As a writer, I find that irresistible.
A beautiful forest is pleasant enough. A beautiful forest with scars, stories, vanished labour, old routes and a hint of power politics? That is more interesting.

Elisa Bonaparte, alum and a village in the woods

And then Elisa Bonaparte suddenly appears around the corner. Not literally, although somehow that would not even feel entirely strange here. Anyone walking through the Montioni nature park near Suvereto is not only walking through woodland, but through history as well.

During the Napoleonic period, Montioni became important again because of alum mining, a mineral once used, among other things, in leather processing and in fixing dyes in textiles. Official park and regional sources refer both to the remains of that industrial past and to the Napoleonic mining village that was developed under Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi. The park’s route information also mentions still-visible buildings, open-air mines, furnaces and entrances to underground tunnels.

That is exactly what makes Montioni so good.
It is not only beautiful. It has plot.

What you feel here

Montioni is not a neatly groomed postcard. Thankfully not.

You walk here among cork oaks, holm oaks, dry grass, strips of shade and paths that seem in no hurry to get anywhere. Sometimes the landscape opens up for a moment. Sometimes it becomes denser and quieter instead. And somewhere between the trees, those older layers are still there: mining, labour, ruins, routes, power, decline. Not like a museum set, but as remains simply left where time put them down. Official park information also refers, alongside the mining traces, to medieval and older archaeological remains, including places such as Pievaccia, Montioni Vecchio and the old baths of Montioni.

You do not have to keep “doing” things here.
Looking is already enough work.

Why we keep sending our guests here

Because Montioni shows a different kind of Tuscany.

Not only wine, villages and terraces. Also forest. Silence. Shade. A rougher rhythm. A place where you can walk without someone waving an aperol into your line of sight every three minutes. Also pleasant. Not that we are fundamentally against aperol. We simply believe in timing.

For guests of Orizzonte Verde, Montioni is not a day trip that needs to be planned with military precision. It is far more natural than that. You are already staying on the edge of this landscape. That makes a morning walk or a quiet late afternoon here feel almost obvious. And precisely for that reason, it stays with you.

Our tip

Do not go with the idea that you need to “tick off a highlight.”
Go with water, good shoes and a little time.

Let the path do something to you. Look up. Look down. Notice the scent of the forest after warmth. Stone. Bark. That one moment when you cannot hear another soul. And if, like me, you suddenly find yourself face to face with a deer, try above all to remain dignified. The animal itself will almost certainly have no interest in that, but you can always try.

Staying on the edge of Montioni

Orizzonte Verde lies on the edge of Montioni. For those who love staying in nature, but also appreciate history, depth and quiet, that is not a small detail. It is one of the reasons this place feels so special.

When you sleep here, you are not only in Tuscany.
You are on the edge of a story.