The best cycling routes around Monteverdi Marittimo

Sassetta is a village in the Val di Cornia; a town of houses clinging to a hill in the hinterland of the Etruscan Coast, made of narrow streets, small squares, and beautiful infinities. The locality is famous for its marble, unique in the world, a red marble that stonemasons and creative sculptors have always magically shaped.

The Pieve di San Giusto in Suvereto is one of the most important and fascinating Romanesque buildings in the province of Livorno. Located at the entrance to the medieval village in Piazza Vittorio Veneto, its existence has been documented since 923. The current building, however, dates back to 1189, the year it was rebuilt by the masters Barone Amico and Bono da Calci. It features elements of light limestone alternating with dark bands of a typically Pisan style. The main entrance is flanked by two columns supporting two apotropaic lions. The structure has a single nave with a visible wooden truss ceiling. Inside, an ancient, finely decorated marble baptismal font is preserved. In an internal niche, there are remains of medieval frescoes; on the transept, the epigraph attesting to the completion date (1189) is still legible.

The Romanesque portal of the Pieve di San Giusto in Suvereto. The facade is decorated with an elegant portal surmounted by a round arch, famous for its carved capitals. Although it existed before the year 1000, the current structure was rebuilt in the 12th century.

Delicious, nice to sit, but expensive in relation.

Good asphalt, pleasant incline, quite shady. Rides great!

The Archaeological Museum is housed in the ancient Palazzo del Podestà (1225), which overlooks the Piazza del Duomo of Massa Marittima. The collection is organized into sections, ordered chronologically from the lower paleolithic to the etruscan age; the main piece of the prehistoric collection is the eneolithic statue-stele of Vado all’Arancio, the only find of its type in Maremma; the etruscan finds come mainly from excavations carried out at the village of Lago dell’Accesa, they are mainly kitchenware, loom weights, fishing weights and bricks; also present are the funerary trousseaux found in the necropolises, especially pottery (figulina clay and bucchero), bronze fibulae, iron pot stands, iron and bronze weapons. On the ground floor, an educational section is set up with a life-size reconstruction of typical caves: a paleolithic and an eneolithic one. Guided tours and educational activities, organization of cultural events and film screenings are available.

Massa Marittima stands proudly enclosed within a well-preserved city wall. It is a town that has received the Orange Flag from the Touring Club and is rich in medieval artistic testimonies, even though its origins are probably Etruscan. The small streets that cross the hill lead to a magical place where the harmony of the lines amazes, surprises, and invites contemplation. The history of Massa Marittima is closely linked to the silver, copper, and pyrite mines of the Colline Metallifere, exploited since the early metal ages and then especially in the Etruscan and medieval periods.

The Church of San Giusto is the guardian of millennia-old stories and a timeless charm. A majestic church, whose origins date back to between the 9th and 12th centuries, located next to the Church of San Michele Arcangelo, it is not only a sacred building, but a piece of history can be found in every corner. Named after San Giusto, bishop of Volterra, its origins are linked to the legend of the African exiled bishops, San Giusto, San Cerbone, San Fiorenzo, and San Regolo, who landed in the Val di Cornia in the 6th century, leaving an indelible mark throughout the valley. It is no coincidence, in fact, that San Fiorenzo is the patron saint of Campiglia Marittima and the Cathedral of Massa Marittima is dedicated to San Cerbone. The gabled façade, the evocative portal, and the quatrefoil rose window, with its black and white band decoration, are hallmarks of the Tuscan Romanesque style.