October in Tuscany: Olive Harvest, Golden Hills, and the First Truffles

October is the month Tuscany trades one harvest for another. As the last grapes come in, attention shifts to the olive groves, the hillsides turn from gold to russet and copper, and in the woods around the region's low hills, the first white truffles of the season begin appearing on serious restaurant menus — a preview of November's main event.

Where to go

The olive harvest begins in earnest across the hills between Florence, Pistoia, and Lucca this month — smaller family-run frantoi (olive mills) often welcome visitors to watch the pressing and taste oil literally hours old, a genuinely different experience from tasting a bottle that's been sitting on a shelf.

Lucca and Pistoia are at their most comfortable this month for walking — mild days, thinner crowds, and the kind of soft autumn light that photographs well without the summer haze. Lucca's ramparts, largely a summer cycling circuit, become a proper autumn walk instead.

Toward the coast, the Etruscan Riviera empties out almost entirely, leaving long stretches of pine-backed beach at Castiglioncello and Marina di Bibbona to locals and the occasional walker — not a swimming month for most visitors, but a striking one for a coastal drive with Bolgheri's cypress avenue as the centrepiece.

What to eat

October is prime porcini season in the woods above Pistoia and in the Apennine foothills, alongside chestnuts, which start appearing in castagnaccio (a dense, rosemary-scented chestnut-flour cake) at village sagre (harvest food festivals) throughout the month — small, local, and rarely advertised beyond the town itself. The first pressed olive oil of the season, olio novello, cloudy green and sharply peppery, is worth seeking out specifically this month before it mellows.

Worth timing your trip around

Village chestnut and new-oil sagre run throughout October across the hill towns north of Florence and around Pistoia, but they're organised locally and rarely have a fixed regional calendar — asking at a local tourist office or checking a town's own noticeboard closer to your dates is more reliable than searching for a single authoritative list.

Why stay at Redolina

October's best experiences — fresh-pressed oil, quiet hill-town walks, an empty golden coastline — are all things best done slowly and locally rather than rushed between. Redolina's position among the olive groves themselves makes this arguably its strongest month, with Florence, Lucca, and Pistoia all comfortably reachable and the crowds of summer entirely gone.