Selava di Malano and San Nicolao

Following the indications previously mentioned for arriving at Monte Casoli, this time you follow the ridge going right.
The nice path crosses fields, bushes, and margins of woods that rise from the depths of the valley, while various explanatory panels talk about the nature of the location.
The entire area, like Selva del Melano, is extremely fascinating and offers, something that is rare nowadays, panoramas free of disturbing elements: splendid views that make you not understand what area you're in. 

Having passed the grassy plateau, the path buries itself among the trees and goes down to a small passage where you run into a crossroads; we are going to visit the attractive ruins of San Nicolao.
Take the unpaved road downhill to the left (even the central one going uphill leads to S. Nicolao but we'll take it coming back).
The route now crosses a hazelnut grove and quickly goes back to plains and then goes back uphill before quickly ending on a small opening among the trees, where you'll find "Sasso del Predicatore" (Preacher's Rock).
Preacher's Rock is a mass in the shape of the trunk of a pyramid sculpted with a stairway so that you can go up to the top; it is surely from the Etruscan era; they think it is an altar or, in any case, a place linked to religion. Hidden among the trees of Selva del Maiano, there is also another example, while nothing else similar has been found in the rest of Etruria.
From the top of Sasso del Predicatore (Preacher's Rock) you'll see another burial building in the shape of a cube, from the Roman Era, which is only few meters away but isn't visible from the ground because it is hidden by vegetation.
We continue the gentle slope along the path, which after several tens of meters, returns to being a cartroad for use by pastors; it continues to go up and joins a larger cartroad that continues on the same level; we'll take it to the left. Having passed the ruins of a country house, you reach the remains of San Nicolao in a few minutes.
San Nicolao was a very small monastic settlement beyond this hidden valley, constructed above a rocky rising.
The rising was completely sculpted in the form of a cube to make it more inaccessible, and at its base beautiful sepulchre were excavated above the remains of the sacred building, constructed with a lot of mastery with square blocks. To visit the higher part of the few ruins, today we can (and have to: its the only way) climb on the stone base in the part in which the dirt, accumulated over the centuries, makes it only a meter and a half high. Long ago, you reached it by means of a passageway sculpted into the live rock, still perfectly visible, which emerges on the side of the valley. Still, for safety, the door was created at several meters high (there was probably a retractable wooden stairway), and therefore it cannot be used.

Long ago, this area had to have some spiritual significance today forgotten: on route from the sacred Etruscan altar to the ancient Christian building; it isn't difficult to run into a tomb from the Roman Era, and those that are visible are only a very small percentage of those that are still hidden by vegetation!