The Balze: let there be light!

The Balze, Track 51 in Piantravigne, Valdarno

Water, wind and time have formed the dreamlike landscape of the Balze: the exposed bed of a dried up Pleiocene lake and erosion through millennia have given us the stratified sand, clay and gravel sculptures we see today.  They are quite unlike any Tuscan landscape I have ever seen, and have fascinated not only the local people, who have most enchantingly called them “fairies’ pyramids” among many other names, but no less a personage than Leonardo da Vinci: scholarly debate continues as to whether the Balze inspired the landscapes in the Mona Lisa and the Virgin of the Rocks among others.

Track 51 CAI signpost, the Balze

Track 51 map, the Balze

We are on the Borro dell’Acqua Zolfina, a picturesque part of track 51, a four-hour circuit track which we picked up at Piantravigne, and this day was now bright, now moodily suffused with the light of a stormy mid-May sky.  Other than a butterfly which fluttered alongside for a couple of metres, we had all of it to ourselves.