The province of Pistoia is formed for the most part by a mountainous and hilly territory. There are a lot of paths that often join villages and small country hamlets where you can walk or cycle with the mountain bike. The complex “residence Il Castagno” offers its guests a series of suggestions and useful services to get on their bike and cycle over one of the innumerable paths through great woods, discovering villages, villas and castles. We also offer: cycling lessons, rental bicycles, tourist tours to cities and mountains accompanied by experienced guides, holiday in nature afoot and by bike. Our complex is also provided with a garage (for small repairs and changes) and skilled personnel, satellite GPS with selected and memorized itineraries. There are different itineraries depending on the length, the difficulty and the type of bicycle (mountain bike or racing cycle): Some of them are between 30 and 50 kms, without difficulty and suitable also for untrained people (difficulty Á.), others over 100 kms, very hard also for trained cyclists (difficulty D). During the year, we also offer our guests some theme weekends: they have the possibility to discover many places by bike and at the same time to enjoy the products of the season. We obviously take care over all the details. In autumn there is the “weekend of the chestnuts-boiled and roasted chestnuts ”; at New Year’ s Eve we offer the possibility to spend an original day, cycling; we give a hearty welcome to the spring with the “cycle ride of the spelt”; we wait for the summer with “pods and pecorino”, obviously with the bike!........... The typical cuisine of Pistoia is in part similar to the cuisine of Florence. It offers many tasty dishes, above all meat dishes, like the “biroldo” ( black pudding) cooked with blood of pig or calf ; the “cioncia”, a specialty of Pescia region, a stew of snout, ears and other fleshy parts of calf’s head with chilli, spices and black olives. You can enjoy all these specialities, drinking DOC white wine from the vineyards of the northern Apennines and Doc and Docg red wine from Montalbano (Chianti). Do not forget to visit the town Pistoia. You will find one of the most beautiful Italian square, the Cathedral square, with the wonderful baptistery by Pisano and the marvellous Town Hall, one of the most imposing and ancient public buildings of the Tuscan Middle Ages. The Church of Sant'Andrea is also worth to be visited, an ancient early Christian cathedral that hosts one of the greatest sculptural masterpieces of every time: the famous pulpit by Giovanni Pisano. Almost all the churches of Pistoia have a common feature: They host an organ built by the famous Agati and Tronci workshops. These famous organs are considered the best in the world thanks to their unmistakable timbre.