Routes in the Coltano Estate – San Rossore Park

The Tenuta di Coltano, within the Migliarino, San Rossore and Massaciuccoli Park, occupies a vast area of flat land, originally a vast swamp that extended almost to the town of Pisa. Significant remains of human settlements from the prehistoric period and noteworthy from the Roman period.

In the medieval period the further “swamping” significantly reduced the human presence in Coltano. Only since the fifteenth century, thanks to the Medici family, a process of unified management of the territory started, until then split into private and ecclesial properties. With the Medici, and subsequently with the Lorena family, important hydraulic interventions were started to resolve the land swamping.
The Tenuta di Coltano then became one of the hunting estates of the King and his family with the Unity of Italy. In 1911, Guglielmo Marconi installed the famous Radiotelegraphic Station not far from the Medici Palace, in order to connect Rome to the Italian colonies and European countries.
Still today, the Villa Medicea is the center of the estate, the starting point for an overall knowledge of the Park territory from a naturalistic, historical and environmental point of view with an important Environmental Education Center.

For more information contact the Visitor Center at the following numbers: 050/530101 – 050/533755.

Below are the most important trails on the estate.

Sights

Mediceo Pathway

Departure: Mortellini
Arrival: Montacchiello
Journey time: about 3 hours
Length: about 10 km
The environment of the route consists mainly of agricultural areas, with the exception of the Nature Reserve, called “Bosco degli Allori”.
The Bosco degli Allori is a precious remnant of these ancient woods, witnesses of a flora that has been preserved over the past centuries. Among the botanical species of great interest we find the Laurel, a lover of heat and humidity which, in this reserve, has an arboreal bearing. Other species of remarkable interest are the Cerro and the Carpino bianco, which in nature we would find at higher altitudes, but here, thanks to the outcropping aquifer, they find ideal conditions for their survival. Along with these rare presences we find the English oak and the ash and also some shrubs typical of the Mediterranean Macchia.

Link to the map

Path of Sementina

Departure: Villa Medicea
Arrival: Lavoria di Coltano
Journey time: about 2 hours
Length: about 2.5 km
The environment of the route consists of cultivated land and a wooded area represented by the Bosco della Sementina. It is a forest of limited dimensions, in which there are monumental trees, including oaks, holm oaks and cork oaks. Arboreal laurel is also very common. There is also some downy oaks, hilly species in Tuscany. Starting from the villa of Coltano you walk along a tree-lined avenue with cypresses and pines. Then turn off into the field and enter the Sementina wood. Once out of here, you are still walking in open areas along two farms, up to a pine forest, after which the land is lowered and merges into a lowland where a hygrophilous wood begins and where part of the path 024 (Sentiero della Bonifica) starts.
Pedestrian path, with cycle parts outside the wooded areas.

Link to the map

Path of Reclamation

Departure: Via della Sofina
Arrival: Biscottino area
Journey time: about 2 hours
Length: approximately 6 km
The environment of the route consists of wooded areas, with large trees. The small lake of the Tamerici is a mirror of water of artificial original that is found inside a receptive structure. It starts from Via Sofina near the Ragnaione dewatering pump and enters a mesophilic wood that runs along the dewatering area, then turns left, with flora composed of oak, laurel and holm oak, and comes out in the fields near lake Tamerici. Then you go out into the fields every now and then and enter a pine forest near Via delle Tamerici; return to the fields again until you reach another pine forest (near the Lavoria di Coltano) and then enter a more humid forest in seasonal flooding. Finally we reach the Biscottino bridge.

Link to the map

Path of Poggio al Toro

Departure: Villa di Coltano
Arrival: Woodlands in the southern part of Coltano
Journey time: about 1 hour
Length: about 2 km
The environment of the route consists of wooded areas and agricultural fields, with a prevalence of spontaneous laurel. At the beginning of the path we pass into a mesophilic wood with laurel, holm oak, oak, butcher’s broom and some cork oak. Turn into an open area with hawthorn, laurotino, prugnolo, elm hedge. You return briefly to the woods and then you go out again along cultivated fields; you return to the woods with a lot of laurel and at the end of the path you descend joining the path 024 (Sentiero della Bonifica).

Link to the map