Via Vecchia Fiesolana & the Hillside Olive Walk
Via Vecchia Fiesolana is the original medieval mule track connecting Florence to Fiesole, threading through terraced olive groves, Renaissance villa gates and shaded cypress alleys — a 4-kilometre walk that feels like stepping into a Benozzo Gozzoli fresco.
The walk itself
The path begins near San Domenico di Fiesole — where Fra Angelico once lived as a friar — and climbs gently through groves of silver-leafed olives that have been harvested continuously since the 15th century. The track is mostly unpaved compacted earth, manageable in trainers outside of wet winter months.
Along the way you pass the walled gardens of Villa I Tatti, now the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, and catch glimpses of the loggia and cypress-lined drive that Bernard Berenson designed with Geoffrey Scott in the early 1900s. The villa's gardens open to the public on selected dates — check itatti.ias.edu before you go.
Flora, fauna and best seasons
In spring the verges explode with wild iris, poppies and broom; in autumn the olive harvest fills the air with a grassy, peppery scent as nets are spread under the trees. Fireflies light up the lower sections of the path on warm June evenings — a spectacle that has almost vanished from most of Tuscany.
The walk takes about 1.5 hours at a relaxed pace one way. Combine it with bus No. 7 back from Piazza Mino to avoid retracing your steps.
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