From Pistoia the landscape and the hiking effort change completely: we leave the Apennines with their arduous differences in altitude and predominantly naturalistic emergencies, and from now on we will have easy hills up to Arezzo, dotted with historical monuments, a mirror of the centuries in which Tuscany exercised its cultural and economic influence throughout the world. Starting from the Church dedicated to San Bartolomeo, Patron of the Via Romea Imperiale, we leave the historic center in an east-south/east direction, and cross a vast suburb for a few kilometers, until we take small roads between the fields and nurseries that characterize the economy of Pistoia. On the nearby hills you can see Renaissance villas, up to the first center of a certain importance: Montale.
The next stretch is a comfortable cycle-pedestrian path alongside the right bank of the Bisenzio River, which takes us to the center of Prato. The city is very ancient, and just outside the walls are the Etruscan excavations in the Confienti area. The historic center is absolutely worth visiting carefully. Alongside medieval monuments (especially the castle of Emperor Frederick II, the “Stupor Mundi”) and Renaissance monuments (the Cathedral, with Donatello’s pulpit), you can admire examples of expertly repurposed modern archaeology: many former textile industry factories recovered for new uses, especially cultural ones.