I'm Stefano, and I guide people through the Tuscany most tourists never see. Want to hike in Tuscany with me?
Last updated 19 October 2026
Say “autumn in Tuscany” and most people picture golden vineyards and a glass of red. That is the postcard. The real colour is in the mountains.
The best autumn foliage in Tuscany is not in the vineyards at all, but in the beech-and-fir forests of the Apennines, where whole slopes turn gold and fog fills the valleys below.
Timing an autumn trip for the colour and the mushrooms? A local’s Expert Brief knows the week and the woods.
When the forest turns
Autumn colour climbs down the mountain, the reverse of spring.
The high beech woods turn first, usually from mid-October, running gold and copper as the nights cool. Over the following weeks the colour drops down the slope toward the valleys. By mid-November the higher forests are bare while the lower woods are still burning.
Aim for late October into November, and choose your elevation to match where the colour is that week. A warm autumn holds the leaves late; an early frost strips them fast.
Fog, light, and the beech-and-fir contrast
This is the season the forest photographs itself.
On still mornings, fog settles into the valleys and the low sun burns through the beech canopy from the side. Backlit, the gold leaves glow. Against them, the dark evergreen firs give the frame depth that a vineyard row never will. The reserve’s stands of Douglas fir, among the tallest trees in the area, hold their green right through the turn. I wrote about the Douglas firs of Acquerino and why they are here.
For the best light, be in the trees early, while the fog is still lifting.
Tuscany in October
October gives you the ridges. The heat’s gone, the ground is firm, and after the first front of rain the view from the crest reaches the sea. Down in the plain around Lucca and Pistoia the first half of the month often still runs above 20°C by day; by the end it’s more like 16 to 18, with nights around ten. On the crest at 1,500 to 1,900 metres take off six to ten degrees and add wind, so it’s a T-shirt in the sun and the jacket the moment you step into shade. You carry what looks like summer kit and walk in autumn conditions, which suits me fine.
Two dates to put in the calendar. The clocks go back on the last Sunday of October, and from then on the afternoon is short. From the middle of the month the chestnuts fall, and in the mountain villages the locals are out collecting them. Almost every chestnut wood belongs to somebody, fence or no fence, sign or no sign, so as a visitor you don’t pick any up without asking. What you can do is look out for the metati, the small stone huts in the woods where the nuts were dried for weeks over a smouldering fire, and for the posters that go up in every village for a sagra della castagna, the chestnut festival. If you’re here on one of those Saturdays, go.
My rule of thumb for the second half of October is to walk from about 1,200 metres up, which is where the beech colour is. Monte Gennaio is my standard. The summit stands at 1,814 metres, the walk runs 9.5 kilometres with 500 metres of climb, because the path already starts at a good 1,300, and at guiding pace with photo stops it comes to a day of around six hours. Only the last stretch is steep, and none of it is technical. The Apuan Alps work in October too, shadeless and hot in summer and just right now. The old marble road on the Corchia is 7 kilometres and 420 metres of climb, almost all of it in the first part, and it runs on weekends only, because on weekdays the marble lorries use that road. More in the post on the Apuan Alps.
Florence and Lucca stay busy through October. Above a thousand metres it’s another country, and from the end of the month a weekday on the crest usually means meeting nobody. The mushroom season runs through both months as well, and if the forest floor interests you as much as the canopy, that’s a separate morning, covered further down this page.
Monte Gennaio
From the summit you look down into the Orsigna valley, where the writer Tiziano Terzani spent the last months of his life.
- About 6 hours
- €255 per group
Medium-Hard · 9.5 km (5.9 mi) · 500 m (1,640 ft) ascent
View this hikeTuscany in November
November is a gamble, and I say so to anyone who books it. Some years the first half carries on like late October. In others the first week brings so much rain that the forest tracks lower down turn to mud, and wet leaves on smooth rock become the real hazard. I’ve cut more walks short here for a twisted ankle than for weather. In exchange you get the forest to yourself on a Wednesday. For November I plan two routes for every day, one high and one low, and choose on the evening before.
The numbers, as far as they help. In the plain it’s mostly around 15°C, with morning fog that often sits until about eleven. On the crest night frost is normal and the first snow can fall, now and then below 1,500 metres, though it rarely stays long. October and November are among the wettest months of the year here, which sounds worse than it feels. The rain tends to come in bursts of one to three days with clear spells between, and the days around 11 November, the estate di San Martino, come out mild more often than the calendar suggests.
Light is what ruins a November day. On 1 November the sun sets at 17:11, by the end of the month at 16:44, and under the trees it’s dim a good half hour before that. Six hours of walking means an eight o’clock start. In the first half of the month I stay between 700 and 1,100 metres, where the chestnut slopes still hold their colour after the high beech has gone bare, and after that I stay low. The Nottolini aqueduct runs dead straight out of Lucca into the hills, 9.1 kilometres with barely 50 metres of climb, three hours with stops, and the railway station sits at the start. From Montecatini Terme or Pisa it’s under half an hour on the train.
Late autumn and winter is boar season in the Apennines, the caccia al cinghiale, a drive hunt. The region sets the dates afresh every year, so I won’t print any. One rule is fixed, though. Hunting is banned across Italy on Tuesdays and Fridays, the silenzio venatorio of law 157/1992, which makes them the quietest days in the woods, and in late autumn I put walks on them when I can. On the other days there are signs on the forest roads and at the trailheads. Wear something bright, a red jacket does it, stay on the marked paths, and turn back if dogs start barking on the slope. The rest is in the wild boar post. Ticks haven’t finished either. While it stays mild they’re active into November, and the ticks post covers that.
What’s open shrinks. In Versilia the beach clubs pack up from September, and along the Viareggio promenade one place after another is shut by October, which for walking makes the coast at Viareggio better than it ever is in August. On the crest the mountain huts open at weekends only, some not at all, so carry your own food and water and count on nobody up there. The villages nearly always have a public drinking fountain. Ordinary rain never cancels a walk; that’s what the rain jacket is for. An orange or red alert from the Regione Toscana covering the ground we’d be walking means we move the day, and that costs you nothing.
How the two months sit against the rest of the year is a question for the month-by-month guide, and the averages for each month are in Tuscany weather by month. This post stays with the forests.
Nottolini Aqueduct
The aqueduct doubles as a sundial. Once a day the light runs straight down its corridor of arches, at a time that shifts through the year.
- About 3 hours
- €165 per group
- Reachable by train
- Longer route to a view over Lucca, on request
Easy · 9.1 km (5.7 mi) · 50 m (164 ft) ascent
View this hikeThe overlap nobody plans for: colour and porcini
Peak foliage lands on the same weeks as peak mushrooms.
The forests that turn gold in autumn are the same forests where porcini and other fungi fruit from September into November. One walk can deliver both: the colour overhead and the mushrooms below. If the fungi interest you as much as the light, my Acquerino foraging guide covers what fruits and when.
Come mushroom hunting in the Tuscan Apennines
A private day in the woods between Pistoia and Florence: identification in the field, the habitats each species needs, and time to photograph what you find. September to November, when the ground is actually producing.
Where to see it: the Acquerino forests
For fog, foliage, and quiet, the Riserva Acquerino is hard to beat.
It is a vast reserve of ancient beech and mixed forest in the Pistoia Apennines, empty on a weekday, and close enough to reach from Pistoia, Prato, or Florence for the day. There are no crowds hunting the same shot. Just the trees, the fog, and the light.
Riserva Acquerino
The reserve is famous across Italy for its red deer, and in autumn you may hear the stags calling through the valleys.
- About 6 hours
- €240 per group
- Shorter or longer day on request
Medium-Easy · 10.9 km (6.8 mi) · 375 m (1,230 ft) ascent
View this hikeThe Tuscany most visitors miss
Everyone photographs the vineyards. Almost no one walks the mountain forests in November.
That is exactly why they are worth it. The colour is bigger, the light is better, and you have it to yourself. It is the same lesson as the rest of my work: the best of Tuscany is usually one contour line above where the crowds stop.
Acquerino-Cantagallo
The path climbs into ancient beech forest with the canopy closed overhead, and on most days we meet almost nobody.
- About 6 hours
- €240 per group
- Shorter or longer day on request
Medium · 9.5 km (5.9 mi) · 350 m (1,148 ft) ascent
View this hikeWalk the Acquerino Forests in Autumn
Want to catch the fog, the gold, and maybe the porcini, all in one quiet day? I run private autumn walks in the Acquerino reserve, timed to that week’s colour. Get in touch to plan yours.