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INTERESTING SITES
Leaving Carrara , the first interesting village is Campo
Cecina, a vast clear along the karsic area at the foot of the
Monti Boria and Sagra.
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This
is one of the most visited places in the Apuane Alps, both for the
locals who exploit the particular morphology to make the kites fly,
and for tourists who start their excursions to the Monte Sagro here.
It is believed that the Roman used the be here, when the Luni harbour
flourished and was the departure point for the marble extracted in
the area.
Not far from Campo Cecina, another suggestive site is the so-called
Cave dei Fantiscritti, a vast excavation area which got its
name from a Roman edicola which you today find at the Museo di Belli
Arti at Carrara.
Many artists and visitors signed the marble statues of Jupiter, Hercules
and Bacchus. Another interesting site is the museum next to the quarry
which features the excavations in the past and today.
From Carrara, the gourmets can not miss Colonnata, an
Apuane village which is famous world-wide thanks to its lard. The
road to reach Colonnata allows you to see the breathtaking views and
the small quarry villages of the black marble. But you come to Colonnata
to taste the lard prepared in the traditional way, that means salted
and spiced in marble recipients and left there for 10 months. The
meal that used the be the poor dish of the quarry men is today, together
with the marble, a prestigious mark of the Apuane Alps. Just taste
a slice of the lard and you will understand why.
In the Park you find a natural reserve which comprehends the
Monte Roccandagia and the Monte Sumbra. At the ancient shepherd village
of Campocatino, which is made out of the stone ruins used by
the shepherds as a shelter, you find the centro visita (info point),
from where you take one of the trails to the oasis.
In the area of the park next to Campocatino, along the river Edron,
you find many historical and natural sites which are worth a visit.
Just next to the info point of Lipu you find the Oratorio di San Viviano,
a stone sanctuary built at the middle of a wall towards the Roccandagia.
At Vagli di Sotto ou can visit the Chiesa di San Lorenzo, of
Romanesque origins but modified completely during the second half
of the 19th century.
If you like pre-historic adventures you ought to visit Arnetola,
a small glacial valley where you find marble quarries. Here you find
some parts of the road Via Vandelli, designed in the 18th century
by the Dukes of the Este to enhance the connection between Modena
and Massa Carrara.
13 years were not enough to dominate the wild nature of the Apuane
Alps and the Apennines and, after various landslides, deaths and assaults,
the work stopped. Partly restructured, today the Vandelli features
a spectacular itinerary on foot in the heart of the Apuane Alps.
Also Caracraia, between the Monte Tambura and the Monte
Cavallo, is the perfect site if you are interesting in the glacial
era. Here you find signs of the the dolines and the karsic shapes
from that period in a bare landscape. In the same area, at the border
to the Privnce of Lucca, you might want to visit the old mine village
Arni, but the most romantic village is Isola Santa.
A small stone village, built around a Ospedale for pilgrims
next to an artificial lake, surrounded by the Apuane forests and dominated
by the peaks of the Monte Altissimo, the picturesque village of Isola
Santa features an unforgettable atmosphere. Do not miss it if you
want to take one of the trails to the top of the Monte Altissimo.
In spite of its name, the Monte Altissimo is not among
the highest mountains of the Apuane Alps, but the steep walls and
the white veins of the detritus of the quarries make the mountain
look more imposing than it really is. It is famous for its trails
and the extraordinary views, though it was already known in the past
for the marvellous marble, the marble that Michelangelo preferred.
Still in the surroundings of Lucca, go and visit the village of Levigliani,
at the foot of the Monte Corchia: next to a pre-roman necropolis
and surrounded by marvellous chestnut forests, Levigliani is the start
point for the excursions to Monte Corchia and the Pania della Croce,
and has become the Mecca for the spaeologists who from here start
the exploit the Antro del Corchia.
The Pania della croce is one of the most famous tops of the
Apuane Mountain, with a rounded profile and so imposing that it can
be seen from Florence when the sky is clear. The rocky walls and the
snow of the Massiccio del Pania (the Massif della Pania) make it an
interesting site for excursionists both in the summer and in the winter,
without mentioning the Abisso di Revel, a 300 metre deep vertical
well which can only be exploited by expert spaeologists. But there
are also many trails which can be accessed by anyone. The most spectacular
one is the one to the top of the Pania della Croce, from where you
have a great view over the Versilia, the Garfagnana, the islands of
the Tuscan Archipelago and Corsica.
On the part towards the Versilia and Levigliani, the Massiccio
delle Panie degrades towards the Garfagnana and features beautiful
chestnut, bench and oak forests plotted with small stone villages.
It is a mountain which offers an excellent alternative if you do not
want steep and bare walls and tricky trails, but prefer a more relaxing
walk in the forest.
An extraordinary humid and thick forest is the one of the Valle del
Serra, another "natural reserve" in the Park. Here there
are lots of water springs and chestnut forests which favour the presence
of ferns. In the Valle del Serra you find some real rare examples
of ferns which are protected, with funds by the European Union.
If you prefer to discover the history of this area you can
visit the places where Michelangelo Buonarroti went to choose the
purest and most precious marble. It was in the Valle del Serra where
the sculptor not only decided which marble to extract but also designed
a road to be able to transport the stone blocks. The road designed
by Michelangelo is the road that goes over Seravezza and Riomagno
to the coast.
Today the visitors can walk this road to reach Botro di Rimone,
from where the trail departs towards the Serra. Here you find the
remains of a bridge which according to some historians is to be attributed
to Michelangelo, who wanted to create a connection with the other
side of the Monte Cerchio.
Going up towards the Apuane Alps from Massa you immediately find the
pleasant village of San Carlo terme, small village famous for
the properties of the water of its springs. From the square of the
village you have a nice view over the valleys below and, when the
sky is clear, over the islands of the Tuscan archipelago.
Leaving San Carlo Terme, the main road continues to Pian
della Fioba, one of the most famous villages of the Apuane Alps,
right under the Monte Altissimo. The botanical trail of the Apuane
Alps leads to the pass of Pian di Fioba which is one of the most suggestive
panoramic sites of the whole park in the centre of the mountain chain.
The rifugio-workshop in the pass of Pian della Fioba offers a complete
collection of typical and endemic plants of the Apuane Alps. From
here you can take one of the trails to the top of the Monte Sagro.
Continuing towards the heart of the Park, you reach the main
centre of the Valle del Frigido, Forno, located between the
river and the slopes of the mountain. The small village was founded
around the iron industry which flourished already in the 13th century.
When the wood necessary for the foundries was exhausted, the village
became famous for the skilled artisans who made hats. There were lots
of hat manufactures in Forno, and in the 19th century, the village
also featured a spinning mill. In this period it became necessary
to build houses for the workers and as there was not much space the
houses had to be built vertically. Today the village still preserves
some of these houses. The spinning-mill was destroyed by the Germans
during the last world war. The part which was saved is restructured
and now houses the Centro visita (info point) of the Park.
Not far from Forno, you ought to visit the villages Vergheto
and Resceto. The first is a village with a group of houses
in the middle of a chestnut forest at the ridge which descend towards
the Monte Sagro, and is today abandoned. From here you have a vast
an marvellous view. Resceto is located towards the vorder to the Province
of Lucca, close to Arni, at the foot of the mountains Monte Tambura
and Cavallo. Probably the small quarry village when the road Via Vandelli
was under construction and today it is famous for the historical event
of the "lizzatura" in August. The marble of the quarries
descends to the valley without any modern technology, which represents
a fascinating but at the same time dangerous event.
The southern slopes of the Apuane Alps are nice to visit. The
peaks reaches 1200 metres and touches the valley of the river Pedogna,
an affluent to the river Serchio. The Val Pedogna s among the
areas with most forests and springs of the Apuane Alps. Here you find
chestnut and beech forests. The most significant characteristic of
this part of the Park is the underground springs. The openings allows
the water to reach the underground and then flow up again. This unique
phenomenon has attracted scientists since the beginning of the 20th
century and it seems that the underground basin of the Pedogna is
connected with the water system of the Versilia.
The Valle del Pedogna has been known since ancient times thanks
to the skilled artisans who worked the iron. Today this old trade
has survived at San Giuseppe di Convalle, a small village which
is worth a visit in order to discover the old trades of the Apuane
Alps. Already in the 13th century the working of the iron flourished
along the river Serchio and its main streams, thanks to the energy
produced by the streams and the wood of the forests which was used
to fuel the fire for the forging of the iron.
At San Giuseppe di Convalle the iron is still worked in the old way,
without new technologies and the outcome are real masterpieces of
the artistic manufacturing.
Close to Borgo a Mozzano, you have to visit the small village
of Diecimo, a feudal village which since the 18th century belonged
tot he Bishop of Lucca. The Pieve of Diecimo is marvellous example
of Tuscan Romanesque architecture and was built in the 12th century.
Pescaglia is an ancient village built by Lucca and still preserves
the remains of the fortifications from the 16th century. In the surroundings
you have to stop at the small village of Colognora, where you find
a museum dedicated to the chestnut, which is the basic food of the
inland of Lucca, and the village of Vetriano where you find an imposing
medieval tower, a delicious Romanesque tower and a small theatre from
the end of the 19th century, perhaps the smallest in the world.
Music-lovers can not miss the Celle dei Puccini, a small village
of Pescaglia where Giacomo Puccini was born. In the house where Puccini
was born you find the relics and the belongings of the great composer.
A suggestive itinerary of the recent past, is the one that
connects the Monte Folgorito to Monte Carchio, called
the "Linea Gotica", by the military name of the border
between the provinces of Lucca and Massa Carrara. The trails winds
along the trenches, the artificial caves where the nazi invaders took
shelter, and the holes for the artilleries. During WWII the Apuane
Alps and the Apennines were the theatre of many bloody battles. Here
the partisan resistance was strong and so the German repercussions.
Sant'Anna di Stazzema, in the Versilia but practically at the
foot of the Apuane Alps, experienced one of the most barbaric events
during the nazi-fascist occupation. The 12th of August in 1944 the
SS killed 560 people. To remember this cruel event the municipality
received a gold medal for military reasons and a white marble monument
over the victims of this terrible massacre.
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