All gallery images are original photographs taken on location by me.
A day on quiet ground
The Balze del Valdarno are towers, walls and gullies of pale sand and clay, standing up to about a hundred metres above the olive groves between Florence and Arezzo. For more than a million years this stretch of the Arno valley was a lake, and people have been digging elephant and rhinoceros bones out of its old bed since at least 1596. When the lake drained, the river and every stream coming off the Pratomagno ridge began cutting into what it had left behind, and the Balze are what’s left of that cutting. On this private guided walk we go in among them from Castelfranco di Sopra, a grid-plan new town the Florentines laid out in 1299, and come back through the olives.
What the day is like
This isn’t a mountain day. You walk easy ground and stop a lot, because the pinnacles change colour as the light moves, and late in the afternoon they turn gold, which is when I took the photos on this page. I first walked these paths with a guide who has known them for years, and I’m now working out my own version of the day.
Leonardo’s valley
Leonardo knew this valley. In the Codex Leicester he wrote that the upper Valdarno had once been a lake, and some scholars see these pinnacles, and a bridge on the Arno upstream at Arezzo, in the landscape behind the Mona Lisa. Others disagree, and nobody has settled it. I tell the story on the walk, with the arguments on both sides, and you make up your own mind standing in front of the real thing.
Coming soon, and already open to requests
Distance, hours and price aren’t on this page yet. You can already ask me for a date with the button, and I’ll reply with the details as soon as they’re ready.
Easy
An easy walk on paths and farm tracks, with short ups and downs and nothing exposed. The exact length and hours go on this page once I’ve fixed them.
Sand and clay get slippery after rain, so on a wet day we take it slowly and I may shorten the route.
If you’re bringing children, tell me their ages when you write and I’ll tell you whether the day suits them.
Where we meet
The walk starts in Castelfranco di Sopra, in the province of Arezzo, on the Valdarno side of the Pratomagno and roughly halfway between Florence and Arezzo. I’ll send you the exact meeting point and where to park when we confirm the date.
A car is the simplest way to get here. If you don’t have one, tell me when you write and I’ll help you find a solution.
Approximate Driving Distances
- Arezzo: 41 km
- Firenze (Florence): 42 km
- Prato: 63 km
The precise meeting location and coordinates are shared with all participants 24 hours before the hike.
Just your group
- Fully privateJust your group, never mixed with other guests.
- Fully customizableRoute, pace and focus shaped around you.
- Photography add-onEdited images of your day, delivered after.
What to bring
- Hiking bootsBroken-in, with ankle support.
- WaterAt least 1 L per person.
Stefano Gabryel
I lead small private groups at an unhurried, mindful pace, and as a nature photographer I won't just walk you across this landscape; I'll help you see it: the light, the detail, the species others pass by. GAE-certified guide and AGAE member.
| Nationality | Italian |
|---|---|
| Languages | English · Italian |
| Certification | GAE |
| Member of | AGAE |
| @stefano.gabryel |
Price: coming soon
Frequently asked
- Professional guiding services
- Route planning and safety management
- Nature interpretation (landscape, flora, fauna, fungi identification)
- Basic photography guidance
No VAT or other tax is added on top.
- Transportation to/from the trailhead
- Food and drinks
- Personal equipment
- Optional photography session (available as add-on)
- Accommodation
If you cancel
- more than 7 days before: full refund, minus a €25 processing fee
- within 7 days: 50% of the total is retained
- within 3 days: the full amount is retained
- no-show, meaning you’re more than 30 minutes past the agreed start with no word from you: treated as a cancellation, no refund
I’ll wait that half hour and I’ll try to call you. If you’re running late and you tell me, we just work with what’s left of the day.
If you’d rather not walk in the rain
Tell me at least 48 hours before. If I have another day open while you’re still in the area, I’ll move you to it at no extra cost. That depends on what’s left in my diary, so it’s something I do when I can rather than a promise, and it’s one move. If I have nothing free, or you tell me inside 48 hours, the cancellation terms apply as normal: by then I’ve held the date and turned other work down.
If I cancel
I call a day off for safety, when weather or ground conditions make the route dangerous, or when something beyond my control gets in the way. Then we look for another date that works for both of us. If there isn’t one, I refund the full amount you paid, with no processing fee taken off, within 10 working days. If we haven’t agreed a new date within two weeks of the day I called off, the refund goes out on its own and neither of us has to chase it.
That refund is the limit of what I can cover. It doesn’t extend to travel, hotels or anything else you booked around the day, which is one more reason to have travel insurance.
If we turn back early
If we turn back part-way, for any reason, the day counts as delivered and no refund is due. Getting you safely off a mountain is the job as much as getting you up it. If we’ve barely started when I call it, I’ll do what I can to find you another date while you’re still here.
We walk in light rain
Rain on its own never cancels a walk. We go in drizzle, in passing showers, in fog and on grey damp days, so bring the jacket and come anyway. Wet weather gives you cloud drifting through the woods, colour in the rock and paths with nobody else on them.
I may change the route or the start time
If storms are forecast over the ridges in the afternoon, we start early and are off the high ground before they arrive. When a washed-out morning clears by midday, we go later. Wind on an exposed ridge, a hot day or short winter daylight can also send us onto a different route. So on a full-day hike, keep the whole day free. A half day, the mushroom walk included, needs less: just leave some room before and after. If you’ve already got something else that day, tell me when you book and I’ll work around it, weather permitting.
I cancel only for a real danger
That means one of these:
- thunderstorms I can’t plan around or outrun
- strong wind on an exposed ridge
- ice or hard snow on a route that would need an axe and crampons
- a red-level heat warning in the national heatwave bulletin
- an orange or red alert from the Regione Toscana covering the ground we’d actually be walking on
The Region issues those alerts for broad zones, so I read the bulletin against our route. An alert over a wide area doesn’t make every valley in it unsafe, and some days the answer is a lower route rather than no walk at all.
When I do call a day off, we look for another date, and if none works for both of us you get a full refund.
No message means we’re on
I watch the forecast from about three days out. The regional bulletin for the next day comes out in the early afternoon, so by the evening I know what I’m dealing with. If anything has to change (a new start time, a different route, or calling the day off), I message you by 20:00 the evening before. No message means we walk exactly as booked, same time, same meeting point. If conditions turn overnight, you’ll hear from me first thing.