Cycling
I am not a cyclist so this is definitely from the perspective of someone who watches someone else cycle. But there are lots of good hill cycling around Valliano. My wife has found that a road bike is not brilliant as some of the roads are quite rough or not brilliant maintained. She uses a hybrid bike.
The paths that run up from the house into the hills would probably make good cycling for off road bikes and once up into the hills the white roads are perfectly suited to cycling.
We have found a cycle path along the Tiber river which is accessible from the road. If you go down to Promano but turn right (towards Citta – without going on to E45, you come to Cinquemiglia roundabout (just after the other Co op we sometimes use) Turn left at the roundabout and keep heading straight ahead (past Cornetto). When you come to the river bridge there is a track on the right that takes you down to a car park and miles of bike tracks.
You can hire bikes locally and/or get a bike repaired We use Bikeland snc – Via Morandi 16, 06012 Città di Castello Very helpful and speak enough English Other options are available….
Walking
Remember to take water!
Be careful about working up in the hills on Sunday mornings. Frequently the hunters will be out (they often go out the night before and sit up in the hides you will see in the hills behind us) and you could end up blundering through hides etc (like I did once).
There are miles and miles of walks from the house and we have not begun to try any other walks from other locations. Top tip Get the Viewranger App for your phone. Really useful showing maps of the area, paths etc. I tried to do it by sense of direction only which can result in some quite lengthy detours. And you can record your routes if you want.
If you go past the little pond near our garden gate (just beyond our house main gate, on the right hand side) that will take you down into the valley. You can walk along the valley and come back out onto the road which will bring you back to Valliano. It is about a two and a half hour walk. It is a bit of a scramble on the way down to the valley but once you are there it is lovely
We did a walk from Migiamo up Monte Tezio. Fantastic views from the top. It took about 90 minutes from where we parked but I do not think we went the most direct way. It is quite steep in places so it is definitely a good walk. It was very hot on the day we went up the hill but the views are definitely worth it. My best advice is to ignore the private road signs once you start walking. There is not a lot of parking space in the village however so you may need to choose your moment. There are undoubtedly other ways up Monte Tezio because I did the walk a few years back with someone else by a different walk, but if you are looking for an energetic walk this is a good one.
For those who want to walk on the level, there is a long walk which goes from at least Citta di castello to Umbertide alongside the Tevere/tiber. It is marked as Itinerario ciclabile (brown signs) and the easiest place to join it is by driving through Cornetto, (i.e turning of the Promano Citta di Castello back route) and about two minutes beyond Cornetto there is a bridge over the river. Before you get to it, there a car park on the left of the bridge, with 12k walks in both directions. It is very pleasant and partly shaded which can be a relief in the heat of the summer. We did a stretch of the walk from Umbertide away from Citta so it clearly goes some way further than Citta di Castello, though a portion of it was on road, diverging from the river. Mind you, I did see my first kingfisher, and there were herons, so plenty to see.