Terre di Siena, between mystical itineraries and unpublished stories

SIENA - Orphaned this year of the Palio due to the Coronavirus which imposed measures incompatible with the people's festival in Piazza del Campo, but always very rich together with the territory that surrounds it with beauties to see and emotions to experience. To such an extent that the Municipality and Terre di Siena - the tourist area which also includes the municipalities of Asciano, Buonconvento, Chiusdino, Monteroni d'Arbia, Monticiano, Murlo, Rapolano Terme and Sovicille - have identified 81 new itineraries, grouped in nine different thematic itineraries, a sort of mini-guide, to be developed by 2021, to offer the traveler lesser-known stories and treasures of places that have a lot to tell. Among these, the 'religious' one and the one linked to the most hidden Siena.
    'Terre di Siena, mystical lands. Traveling through the paths of faith ', the necklace intended not only for pilgrim visitors, to discover for example in Asciano' art and history along the via Lauretana ', the ancient Etruscan-Roman road that connects Cortona to Montepulciano and Siena for the which was also created an app, or 'Buonconvento, the village of the heretic Socini' which houses the Museum of Sacred Art of Val d'Arbia with works by Duccio di Buoninsegna and Pietro Lorenzetti. In Monticiano, on the other hand, one gets to know the patron saint of the town, the blessed Antonio Patrizi, among the hermit fathers of St. Augustine in whose homonymous church his uncorrupted body is kept, among the wonders attributed to him. Then you go to churches and abbeys in the villages of Sovicille, Murlo and Monteroni d'Arbia, which also boasts the Grancia di Cuna, a majestic medieval fortified farm. Instead, you arrive in Chiusdino following the traces of San Galgano, the knight who lived as a hermit after sticking his sword into the stone, now enclosed in the hermitage of Montesiepi. Then there is Rapolano Terme, a land of "clay, water and stone", that is the Tuscan travertine used for the facade of the Cathedral of Pienza, the ideal city of Pope Pius II. Finally 'Siena, the Marian city devoted to Mary': an ancient bond, consecrated with the victorious battle of Montaperti in 1260, also sanctioned by the Palio: that of July 2 is dedicated to the Virgin of Provenzano, August 16 to the Madonna Assunta.
    'Siena, every road a secret' is instead the necklace of nine themed itineraries to experience the capital city in an unprecedented way, to discover lesser-known stories, characters, literary pages that have contributed to making it great. You are led to the former San Niccolò psychiatric hospital which also influenced Sigmund Freud, it is said about Diana, the river that the legend wanted to flow under the city, so much sought after and never found, you can walk in the Lizza as did Henry James and Leonardo Sciascia among others. Or you reach Palazzo delle Papesse where Galileo Gali she lived in confinement for six months because of her heliocentric theories or you visit the places of Santa Caterina da Siena, including the house where she was born, with its Portico dei Comuni d'Italia: each municipality contributed to its construction by paying the cost of a brick when the mystic was proclaimed patroness of the beautiful country.
    All this without forgetting the itineraries of taste, to lead tourists or gourmet enthusiasts in search of the products that have made the lands of Siena among the main places of food and wine culture: from wine to pecorino cheese, from saffron to Cinta Senese. Or those discovering 'The historic shops and the Sienese artisans', who hand down crafts that are disappearing. A tourist offer that has been completed with the recent opening of two new info points in the historic center of the city - in Piazza Gramsci and del Campo - to suggest other visits outside the usual routes, and the Immersive Siena app, designed to admire , in virtual reality, the enormous cultural heritage of the area and use the tourist services.
    For information: https://www.terredisiena.it/ and https://www.sienacomunica.it/ (ANSA).