Discover Tuscany’s Blog: exploring Tuscany and all its hidden corners…

Today we got up early to head off into the Apuan Alps and do some hiking up to Monte Forato, an extraordinary natural arch formed at the top of a mountain that makes it seem like a hole was made at its peak. On clear days, the hole in the mountain can be seen from the Serchio valley, especially when the sun is setting behind the mountain range .

We started off from Fornovolasco, a small medieval village at the foot of the mountain. The day was sunny and a bit warm, it was a good climb up to the peak… and then all of a sudden, as we were starting off from Monte Forato along the crest, a summer thunderstorm rolled out of the north! With lightning and thunder over our heads, we headed back down very carefully but could not avoid getting a good soak - it was quite an adventure! We’ll write more about our hike as soon as we can, letting you know what paths we took and posting some pictures in case you’re interested in trying it yourself.

That’s all for now, we are quite tired and are sure to rest well tonight :).

Hi! Today we took some more time to visit Gallicano, which this morning was almost a Ghost city. The party after the Palio di San Jacopo went on till late in the night and most of the citizens of Gallicano were sleeping : )

We were pretty sleepy ourselves, but walked around Gallicano to take some pictures, especially of the great duomo that towers over the town. I think Gallicano is a great place to stay if you want to visit Garfagnana: it’s a nice small town in a perfect position to visit most of the point of interest in Garfagnana. Eliseo is definititely a great place to stay and to eat, but for the weekend all the rooms were taken, so we moved to Il Ciocco (www.ilciocco.eu), a beautiful (and huge) resort near Barga. From here we have a great view of the Garfagnana region !

We visited Barga this evening and it is truly one of the most beautiful “borghi” (village, town) in Italy. It was a pleasure to walk up and down its narrow medieval streets and find the many views and hidden corners that deserved a stop and a picture,  sip a coffee while listening to a small concerto,  visiting the duomo.

Now, off to bed, tomorrow we are planning to leave early and  do some trekking, we plan to go up to the Monte Forato!

Greetings! Today we are in Garfagnana, a wonderful green area in northern Tuscany near Lucca that we were planning to visit for some time now. Our plan is to stay three-four days and do some hiking (Garfagnana is one of the best places in Tuscany if you like to walk up mountains!) and visit some of its small towns. We are staying in Gallicano, at the Bed and Breakfast Eliseo which is a very nice family-run small hotel right in the center of the town. We didn’t have a chance yet to visit Gallicano properly, today is the town’s yearly festival celebrating the patron saint of San Jacopo and everyone was busy with bringing together last minute details and preparing the parade floats, and the streets were closed to cars. We spent the afternoon visiting the Grotta del Vento (Wind Cave) a really interesting carsic cave not far from Gallicano, about 11 km. The cave is covered by extraordinary formations like stalactites and stalagmites, and you can admire underground streams and huge caverns. The calcaric formations are elaborate and grand, standing in the first part of the cave you have the impression of being in a natural cathedral. The managers of the cave were very kind in giving us a lot of printed informational guides, so will certainly write about it as we learn more as well as returning to visit again soon!

Read more about our first day in Garfagnana »

The pop visionary David La Chapelle opened his photographic exhibit last week at the Forte Belvedere and the evening was unfortunately marked by a tragic event: Veronica Locatelli, 37 years old, suffered a fatal 8 meter fall from one of the bastions of the fortress. A tragic incident for which we wish to express condolences to the Locatelli family. The fortress was closed for a few days after the accident.

If you will be in Florence between now and October 16, you can visit the extraordinary exhibit of over 100 photographs that present and critique a consumerist, individualist America. A student of Andy Warhol, La Chapelle worked for magazines such as Vogue, Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine. He has also been sought after for provocative portraits by celebrities, including Madonna, Naomi Campbell, David Bowie and Paris Hilton.

The exhibit illustrates La Chapelle’s decision to turn his work into art. You can read more at www.davidlachapelle.it. The entrance fee to the exhibit is 8 euros.

For anyone now in Tuscany interested in living for a day back in the Middle Ages, the small mountain village of Cutigliano in the province of Pistoia will be staging a Medieval festival this weekend, July 19 and 20. The festival will offer daily scenes of Medieval life in the small narrow streets with shops set up showcasing ancient trades and taverns, a historical march in costume, minstrels and jugglers, soldiers and flag bearers.
The day starts off at 10 a.m. on both days and continues until well past 10 p.m.

Cutigliano sits above Pistoia at over 700 meters above sea level, on the skirts of the Apennines and is about an hour and a half drive from Florence.

If you want to know more about Cutigliano, the tourism board for the village has a small site with information but it is only in Italian. This other page has a longer list of events happening throughout the year in Cutigliano, in Italian as well.

We just got back from the Medieval Festival in Monteriggioni!

It was once again fun and interesting to step back in time into the Middle Ages, dance to the tunes of the minstrels and drink a fine cup of wine

With a spectacular setting such as Monteriggioni is it easy to fall back into a Medieval atmosphere. The many characters in costume do the rest: from the “nobility” dressed in elaborate, rich costumes to the soldiers and knights challenging each other to duels in the streets to the stalls selling traditional crafts and showcasing old trades. Again this year one could find traditional local products on sale, from cheeses, candies and wines to valuable artisan products including knives, leather items and hand-crafted books. Everything can be purchased in “grossi“, the coin that was in use at that time in the castle of Monteriggioni (of course all also accept euros ).

Read more on the Monteriggioni medieval festival »

Welcome to our Discover Tuscany blog! We’ve decided to use this blog to post our outings and share interesting news about Tuscany and Florence with our readers and anyone particularly interested in Tuscany because of an upcoming visit.

We hope you’ll find what we post here useful. Please feel free to contribute with your comments and make our site a better resource for everyone!

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