The valleys to the west of Florence teem with small industry, not a particularly enticing lure for the tourist. But go beyond the crowded valley to find pleasant hills and old hill towns. Montelupo, where this trip begins, is the center of Tuscany's artisan ceramic industry. San Miniato, the next stop, has come to rival Piemonte in its rich truffle production. Montopoli's aristocratic past under Florentine rule endows its narrow streets with elegance. The trip is almost entirely through little-traveled countryside.

Montelupo Fiorentina is a short drive down the Arno along the Florence-Pisa-Livorno superstrada. It is my favorite place to buy wedding gifts. The town and its immediate surroundings are filled with small artisan workshops making highly decorative, oldfashioned platters, jars and bowls with traditional patterns in much the same way as it was done during the Renaissance. The high art of tinoxide glazed ceramics -- maiolica -- arrived in Pisa from Spain with Moorish traders during the 13th century.

As Montelupo and its river clay -- necessary to the production of maiolica -- lie along the old Roman road linking Florence and Pisa, you can surmise some connection. It was only later, during the Renaissance, that ceramic decoration became the high art form one sees in museums today. The new tableware had a civilizing influence, too. During the Renaissance the rich tossed away the old boards from which they ate and replaced them with the elegant new tableware.

The original designs, colorful and intricate, are meticulously hand copied all over town. My favorite workshop is Tuscia, along the road from the Florence highway to town, at Via Chiantigiana, 264 in Lastra a Singa. It is fascinating to watch the skilled artisans painstakingly dabbing and painting throughout the day.

The old patterns are rendered more or less faithfully. Check the originals in Montelupo's Museo Archaeologico e della Ceramica in the center of town (Via Sinibaldi, (39) 0571 51352, open Tuesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 6p.m.) and pick up something similar at a reasonable price at Tuscia and elsewhere. At the end of June there's a big international ceramics fair. (Usually the third week in June, open along the streets every evening from 6 p.m. to midnight and on Sunday from 10 a.m. to midnight. Check with the tourist office, 39-0571-518993.) In addition, many Sundays throughout the year -- from March through October -- are given over to an open-air ceramics market. Montelupo is the beginning of a pleasant tour to the west through olive- and vine-laden hills brightened in summer by radiant sunflowers. It's a bit tricky to maneuver the minor roads away from the industry- and traffic-infested Arno valley, but with a bit of attentive map reading, it should be no problem. It took me several tries, but I finally worked out a route that is indeed lovely and takes you first to the ancient town of San Miniato and its truffles.

From Montelupo take the road to Sammontana. Continue on through Villanuova, and when you reach the traffic light at Pozzale, take a left turn. You cannot go straight across the road, which is what you'd like to do, but it doesn't really matter. Go left and follow the road through Monterappoli to Granaiola, where you'll begin to see signs to San Miniato. Follow the signs over the hills. While struggling to find an asphalted route over the hills, I stopped a friendly looking man in Monterappoli and gathered a nice historical footnote. "How might I find the loveliest and most quiet road to San Miniato?" I asked.

An odd request, he obviously thought. It would be longer through too many curves, he protested. I assured him I wanted an unfettered landscape that would not take me through the roads surrounding Empoli. This prompted him to tell me the story of Empoli's tiny military force attacking San Miniato in the 13th century. (The various towns were continually fighting each other.) In order to look menacing and grand, the little band collected all the goats it could find, tied candles to their horns, lit them, and with the welllit animals marched on in grand style taking on the appearance of a huge military force. Needless to say, they won handily.

Following their footsteps, you reach San Miniato from the rear. You'll first catch sight of the town by its tall thin tower topped by three oddly ragged round brick columns. Travel around the circumferential road to the old center where there's limited parking on the main Piazza del Popolo.

San Miniato has a big history, albeit a tragic recent past -- another footnote. I first visited San Miniato some years ago, still under the shock of a film I'd just seen, La Notte di San Lorenzo (in English, The Night of Shooting Stars), made in the 1970s by the brothers Paolo and Vittorio Taviano, natives of San Miniato. Much of it was locally filmed. The film retells the disaster that befell San Miniato during the German occupation in 1944. During that fatal summer, the town was under siege, with sharp battles between the advancing American army and the retreating Germans. Local partisans were fighting alongside the Americans. Most townspeople had fled and the Germans locked the entire remaining population inside the duomo.

During the battle, an American shell hit the cathedral, bringing down a major column and causing the deaths of 50 people. In the immediate post-war years after the American liberation, it was easier to blame the Germans whose fault it had actually been. When the film was made, photos of the actual battle as well as from the film were posted prominently all over town. The people of San Miniato were reliving their shock. The film takes its Italian name from the battle between partisans and Germans, on August 10th, the feast day of San Lorenzo. It follows the correct sequence of events but to spare the local feelings, the brothers recreated the duomo scene inside the cathedral of nearby Empoli.

The many grand rulers who passed through these hills left an impressive number of beautiful buildings in San Miniato. Ottone the First passed in the 10th century, Frederick Redbeard in the 12th, and later in the same century, his son, Henry IV. Local lore tells us that Countess Matilde of Canossa, one of the legendary figures of the time, was born in San Miniato in the 11th century. Her father Bonificio, the Marquis of Tuscany, not a pleasant man, is said to have lived here at the time. Upon his death by assassination -- her two older siblings had already died -- the nine-year-old Matilde became heiress to the vast lands that spread from Emilia-Romagna through much of northern Tuscany.

She was one of the most powerful women of the Middle Ages, a veritable warrior who consolidated Bonificio's widespread holdings. She negotiated a famous peace between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII, who was said to have been her lover as well. The Medici later founded the city of Livorno on top of one of her fortresses. Her great citadels and castles can be seen all the way from Garfagnana and Mugello down to the Val d' Era southwest of San Miniato. Her main residence was in Canossa in Emilia-Romagna, the castle where she hosted Henry IV and the Pope. She's better known there than in Tuscany.

As each ruler passed through San Miniato, and occasionally stayed a while, castles, towers and churches were built in the city. What's left of them still gives the town an important and impressive look. The last emperor to drop in officially was Napoleon III, when he came to see a relative who was running it. San Miniato is a small place, but with a lovely elegant feel and some very grandly decorated churches. Today the town is most famous for its truffles, little brown marvels that rival the better known Piemonte variety.

From San Miniato, it's a short drive to Montopoli in Val d'Arno. Stay along the inner road, don't follow the road down to the heavily trafficked road to Pisa. Leave San Miniato on the road to Serra, and from there to Montopoli. Along the way is a detour to Corazzano and a little restaurant, Taverna dell'Ozio (see sidebar), where you'll find the best local food.

Montopoli lives its history. Written records carry the town's existence to long before Florentine rule, as far back as 746. The Florentine grandee Gino di Neri Capponi -- his namesake still lives in Florence -- captured the town from the Pisans in the 14th century, and erected an impressive tower that still overlooks the surrounding countryside. He also built one of the most elegant villas of the entire Tuscan countryside just outside Montopoli, Varramista, designed by the noted Florentine sculptor, Bartolommeo Ammannati, architect of the Pitti Palace. In recent years, Varramista has been owned by the Agnelli automobile family, and has become an important wine producer. (You can call to reserve a visit to Varramista at 39-0571-44711).

Around Montopoli's main Piazza Michele are still standing some fine old buildings, the Bishop's Palace, the Podesta's Palace, and the Antique Chancellery Palace with its newly restored portico. On the same square the inn/restaurant Quattro Gigli (see sidebar) is well worth a visit. It prides itself on an historical menu of recreated old Montopoli specialties.

The remains of the earlier 10th-century castle are a short walk off the square. The castle today is a simple tower; the rest was destroyed in 1944. Down the road is the fine church of Saints Stefano and Giovanni Battista. And there is a new archaeological museum along the main street, based on collections of another ancient Florentine family, the Baldinovinetti, whose country house in the nearby village of Marti is still lived in by the family. It's housed in the Palazzo Guicciardini, another wellknown name of Renaissance Florence (Museo Civico; summer, open Tuesday, Thursday and Friday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.; winter, Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.)

--Beth Elon

Beth Elon is the author of the just released book, A Culinary Traveler in Tuscany (The Little Book Room, $24.95), from which this article is excerpted. Elon, who has lived in Tuscany for more than 30 years, is also the author of A Mediterranean Farm Kitchen and The Big Book of Pasta.