St Dominic Way - short version - 5 days

Arrive in Firenze and breath the Renaissance air all around you: take a stroll along the tiny alleys and end up in Santa Maria del Fiore or climb up to Piazzale Michelangelo to get a panoramic view, at sunset!

After a short journey by train to S. Piero a Sieve you start walking towards the Appennines. It's a long walk, running from the bottom of the valley to the top of the mountains at La Futa pass, with the biggest German cemetery in Italy, where more than 30.000 German soldiers were laid to rest, with great views over the Firenzuola valley and Mugello.

This section is especially beautiful as you walk through immense green fields and chestnut woods. At your feet are Roman paving stones of the “Flaminia Militare”, the Roman road that used to link Bologna to Arezzo; you will see traces of the Roman passage still visible on the stones to Pian di Balestra, where you find ourselves at the border between Emilia and Tuscany.

After a short transfer you start walking from Sasso Marconi, named after the Nobel Prize winning scientist Guglielmo Marconi who was born here. You walk across Parco Tolon where the Casalecchio lock-gate has been managing the flow of the Reno River into the city of Bologna for 800 years. To reach the Basilica of San Domenico you walk to the Portico di San Luca, built in 1674: this is the longest covered street in the world, 4 km dominated by 666 arches, which extends all the way to the Basilica of San Luca.