It rises suddenly, like a jolt of the earth’s crust, on a hilltop overlooking southwest Valdelsa. Casole is laden with artworks and imbued with a vital rural culture. It is a bastion of humanity where the artisan workshops have a 19th-century feel and the locals measure time according to the work in the fields. Here the organge flag of the Italian Touring Club waves to indicate a pristine environment, good-quality products, culture and hospitality.But Casole offers more: the authentic emotion of symbiosis between man and nature. Make a point of chancing in Casole, as its age-old walls conserve precious treasures and partecipate with the entire Val d’Elsa in expressing an amalgam of the ancient and the contemporary.