Montefioralle

Because it is a complete medieval plan you can walk in twenty minutes, and because one of the houses is said to have been Amerigo Vespucci's.

Montefioralle is a walled borgo of elliptical plan 1.2 km from Greve, listed among the borghi più belli d'Italia. A single radial street runs round it with alleys branching off, all leading back to the cassero — the feudal keep — at the high point.

The friction is that it is lived in. The lanes are narrow and fully paved, the old towers are now houses, and there is no visitor infrastructure of any kind.

The smart way is to walk up from Greve rather than drive, and to go round the outside of the walls before going in. The circuit is the thing you came to see, and from inside you cannot see it.

This is a village of houses, not an open-air museum. The towers are dwellings, the cassero is a dwelling, and the house associated with Amerigo Vespucci is somebody's address. There is no part of Montefioralle that is not someone's street.

Leave the car in Greve. The lanes are narrow and fully paved and the borgo has no capacity for traffic. Walking the 1.2 km is the single most useful thing a visitor can do here.

Keep your voice down in the alleys. An elliptical borgo of stone carries sound, and every alley leads back to the same few houses.

Photograph the walls, not through the windows. The wall circuit, the gates and the Bigallo portal are the public fabric; what is behind the doors is not.

Spend in Greve. Montefioralle has nothing to sell you and charges nothing, so the money that sustains this landscape is spent 1.2 km downhill.

Where. 1.2 km from the centre of Greve in Chianti, uphill. Montefioralle is a frazione of that comune.

Admission and hours. None and none. It is an inhabited village, not a site: no ticket, no gate, no opening time, and no visitor facilities.

Walk up from Greve. The streets inside are narrow and completely paved, and there is nowhere sensible to leave a car. The walk is short and is the better arrival.

Walk the outside first. The wall circuit, the three gates and the towers converted into houses are only visible from outside. From within the ellipse you see lanes.

How long. An hour, including the circuit of the walls and the church of Santo Stefano.

Nearby. The pieve di San Cresci is just outside the borgo. For anything else, the comune of Greve in Chianti is at Piazza Giacomo Matteotti 7/8, switchboard 055 85451; it publishes no hours or access terms for Montefioralle.

Early morning or the last hour of light. This is a stone village on a hill with no interiors to retreat into, and the walls photograph from outside — which means raking light rather than noon.

Any season works, because nothing closes. That makes Montefioralle the reliable half of a Chianti winter day, when the cellars and the museums may not be open.

Autumn brings the Chianti's crowds, but they concentrate on the Chiantigiana and in Greve's square. A borgo reached on foot filters most of them out.

Avoid arriving by car at midday in high season, which is when the few spaces outside the gates are taken and the lanes are least pleasant.

26 December is Santo Stefano, the borgo's own dedication — the one day its church is certain to be in use.