Duration: Maximum 3 hours.

A striking example of a Gothic Cistercian abbey church dating from the late thirteenth century, San Galgano remains an essential center of attraction for those who want to discover the wonders of Italian art. The church is located next to the impressive thirteenth-century hermitage of Montesiepi, where in the late 12th century the knight Galgano Guidotti, who later became a saint, decided to retire himself in solitude. Declaring that the renunciation of material things as difficult a task as thrusting a sword into stone, he attempted this feat and miraculously found that the rock easily yielded, and this became the only example in the world of the “sword in the stone.”