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INTRODUCTION
Located at the border between Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna and
Liguria, Lunigiana is a small homogenous district for its landscape,
history and culture which offers the visitor a marvellous uncontaminated
nature plotted with buildings from the past. Castles, churches,
medieval villages, villas and towers are located among the plateaux
where the sheep breed freely and hills where olive-trees and vineyards
grow, the green Valle del Magra, the beech and chestnut forests.
The history has left many traces in Lunigiana, a border district
which has seen many people and cultures passing by. The invaders
from the north got to the Val di Magra, the Romans had to fight
for a long time to make the Apuan Ligurians surrender, merchant
armies and pilgrims crossed Lunigiana along the Via Francigena to
reach Santiago de Compostela in Spain and the south of France during
the Middle Ages.
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During
WWII the district had to cope with the repression of the Germans and
the resistance of the partisans. The strategic position and the difficult
history of Lunigiana have determined the settle of fortresses and
villages which are still preserved in the rural landscape.
Nature and history are the main attractions of this part of Tuscany
which today offers full comfort hotels, nice farms where you can stay,
camping facilities, restaurants and inns where you can have a full
meal with the local specialities.
Nature-lovers will certainly appreciate the beauty of the valleys
with the Tuscan-Emilian Apennine ridges, ploughed by the Magra river,
which is so clean that you can still bathe in it. Or why not follow
one of the many trekking trails by foot or by bike in the beech or
the chestnut forests, where you can collect berries or meet deers,
squirrels, eagles and hawks which here live undisturbed. |
HILLS