After the Ecomaratona del Chianti Classico: Crete Senesi

The Route: Castelnuovo Berardenga → Asciano → Monte Oliveto Maggiore → Castelnuovo Berardenga Logistics: A taxi with a fixed fare for the day or a hire car. Public buses run to Asciano, but connections to the countryside beyond are thin and a Monday timetable is often the sparsest of the week. Check the current service before relying on it. Marathon Month: October Duration: Day trip

Castelnuovo Berardenga ──(taxi or car, 30 to 45 min)──> Asciano ──(short drive)──> Monte Oliveto Maggiore ──> back

Twenty minutes south of the last vineyard on the course, the Chianti stops. The hills go pale and round, scraped almost bare of trees, and the soil turns the colour of wet putty. This is the Crete Senesi, a belt of blue-grey marine clay laid down when the area was seabed, then eroded into long smooth swells and sharp little ravines called calanchi. A single cypress or a farmhouse with a ring of them stands on a ridge, and the eye has nothing else to hold on to.

After a hilly 42 km on white roads, this is the right sort of scenery for a Monday. It is wide, quiet and mostly seen from a seat.

October in the Crete Senesi: the wheat has long been cut, so the fields are ploughed brown or turning green with autumn sowing. Daytime temperatures are usually 12 to 20 °C, with cool mornings and fog in the valleys. Rain can turn the clay slick and sticky, and unmade roads may be poor after wet weather. It is also the start of the white truffle season around San Giovanni d'Asso, so the local restaurants lean on truffle from about this time. Prices vary and the good tables fill on weekends.

Without a car the day takes planning. A driver for half a day is the easiest option and costs a fixed sum agreed in advance. Ask your accommodation in Castelnuovo Berardenga to book one, and agree the return time before setting off.

The day

Start in Asciano, a small walled town with a Romanesque church and a museum of Sienese art. It is compact and mostly flat once you are inside the walls, and the coffee is good. Check the museum's opening days, since many Italian museums close on Mondays.

Drive on to Monte Oliveto Maggiore, a brick abbey founded in the early fourteenth century among cypresses and oaks. The great cloister carries a fresco cycle of the life of Saint Benedict, painted in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, and the monks still run a shop selling honey, liqueurs and herbal products. The approach is a long tree-lined avenue and the site involves some gentle walking on gravel. Opening hours change with the season and the monastic day, so check them before you go.

If time and legs allow, stop at a viewpoint on the road and get out. The calanchi are best in low afternoon light, when the shadows pick out every fold.

For lunch, book a table. Small trattorie in the area serve pici, the thick hand-rolled Sienese pasta, with garlic and tomato, and in autumn with shaved truffle. Many close on Mondays, so ask your host to phone ahead.

Getting back

Aim to be back in Castelnuovo Berardenga by late afternoon. The roads are rural and unlit, and the drive is easier in daylight.