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Constant variations of colours and smells live throughout the year in
Monticiano and its surroundings; Spring is exuberant with greens and
wildflowers, glades of light and warm shadows that awaken the fauna in the
woods. Summer allows refreshing baths in the streams or at the healthy
sulphuric thermal pools, canoe rides along the rivers or just calm
fishing.
Autumn is rich and generous in its colours and wild fruits like
mushrooms and chestnuts. The silent Winter, with its frost and low fog,
welcomes the hunting season: the wild boar hunt is a traditional pastime.
The woods have always been the center of life in Monticiano; you can still
meet those who make charcoal slack, who chop wood in the old fashioned way
or who collect tree heath.
The village lives moments of festivity during Easter, with the sacred
Thursday and Good Friday procession through the narrow streets of the
village lit by the torches and candles of the faithful. In the torchlight,
the faithful pray and sing an ancient "Stabat mater"and are carried along
the procession the statues of the dead Body of Christ and Our Lady of
Sorrow.
People go on in pilgrimages to Camerata
Hermitage the first Tuesday after Easter.
In May there is the village
festival which honours Tagliatelle -
Early in June, in Monticiano, takes place the
Palio dei Rioni horse race; often throughout summer there are also
concerts and other cultural feasts.
The welcome for visitors is guaranted
by family run hotels, farmhouses, holiday farms and other vacation
rentals. The appetite is satiated by genuine dishes based on typical local
cuisine.
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