Valdinievole
For centuries a crossroads of cultures, exchanges and encounters, the Valdinievole extends between Lucca and Pistoia and vaunts famous thermal baths, wild nature and gems of art and culture known throughout the world.
The lush hills are home to villages and castles, while the territory as a whole, nicknamed “Svizzera Pesciatina,” extends all the way to Montalbano. The first human settlements developed right in these hills, which reached their maximum splendour during the Middle Ages. Today, visitors can see traces of the process of fortification thanks the strongholds still visible in their positions defending the entire territory.
Starting in the chestnut forests and passing through a landscape dotted with olive trees on the way down into the valley, visitors will come across the springs of precious waters in Montecatini Terme, which can still today be enjoyed in one of the Liberty-style resorts. This is where the vapours rise from the earth in Monsummano Terme and where the Fucecchio Marsh is located. Thousands of years ago, part of this territory was covered by the sea, which ran right up to the foot of Montalbano, and the Fucecchio Marsh is what remains of that distant geological era.
The Valdinievole is also the home of Pinocchio, the most famous puppet in the world. This is where the mother of Carlo Lorenzini, the author of the timeless story, was born. Carlo was the son of a modest family, which worked for the aristocratic Garzoni family in Collodi, where Carlo got his pseudonym from.
The Valdinievole is also a land of inspiration. Its waters, the amenity of its landscape and its rolling hills have always been a relaxing environment for musicians, including the illustrious Giuseppe Verdi and Giacomo Puccini, painters and artists of all kinds: from literature to theatre, opera to cinema. Nature in this region is the muse of all the arts, but it’s also closely tied to the locals, who’ve transformed it into a resource. The area is known for its plant nurseries, especially in Pescia; the unique Bonsai Museum and the fragrant Citrus Garden are evidence of this.
Lastly, the territory boasts excellent typical products, like the IGP Toscano olive oil, top-quality white and red wines, Vin Santo and the delicate but tasty Sorana bean. The sweets produced here are delicious, including the exquisite wafers from Montecatini and the famous brigidini made in Lamporecchio, a star at every town fair and a favourite of every child in Tuscany.
For more info visit:
Buggiano
Buggiano is one of the oldest municipalities in the Valdinievole. The territory, inhabited first by the Ligurians, then by the Etruscans, and finally by the Romans, always had great strategic importance because its hills dominated the vital road that connected Florence with Lucca. After the Roman age, traces, detectable in some toponyms, left the Lombards. Buggiano also had his family of dynasts who continued the feudal system, the Lombardi di Maona, whose progenitor Sigifredo appears in a parchment of 991. But already in a document of 1191 the podestà and the consuls are mentioned who testify to the rise of the first forms of municipal autonomy. – https://www.toscana.info/pistoia/provincia/buggiano/
What to see in Buggiano
Borgo a Buggiano
Its historic center is rich in historical and artistic monuments. The most important is the church of S. Pietro Apostolo, which for some years has been proclaimed Sanctuary of the SS. Crucifix. Oratory of the adjacent hospital, in 1260 we find it as the “Church of St. Peter” in 1592 it is elevated to Pievania. Numerous transformations, of which the most radical in 1771, when it assumed its current appearance and size. The facade is in the lower part in Romanesque style. Inside you can admire the Simulacrum of the SS. Crucifix. sculpted by an unknown author in the century. XIII, on 18 August 1399 “threw blood”: a miracle that is still solemnly celebrated as established by the City Council just eight months after the event.
The church is embellished with tables by artists from the 1500s, among which the following stand out: the martino of S. Agata by Bronzino; the four canvases that the bizarre Capuchin layperson Fra Felice da Sambuca painted in 1772 and which recall episodes from the life of St. Peter, patron saint of the Church; sixteenth and eighteenth-century paintings and a remarkable organ, renovated by the famous Tronci brothers of Pistoia. Attached to the church is a rich museum of sacred furnishings.
Buggiano Castle
Until 1775 it was the seat of the Municipality and of the Podesteria, it is a real open-air treasure that has remained intact in its medieval aspect. In its enchanting little square, at the top of the hill, is the Palazzo Pretorio dating back to the 13th century, with the façade studded with the coats of arms of the Podestà over the centuries; inside there are fifteenth-century frescoes. Some rooms house the historical archive of the Municipality. Representatives of the people gathered in the main hall and there was a period in which absent people were given a fine to be paid with peppercorns, the black gold of the Middle Ages. Next to it, the Church of S.Niccolao, dating back to 1038, in Romanesque style; it has three naves and has a rich artistic heritage (a very precious baptismal font and a beautiful 13th century ambo, 16th century paintings by G. Brina, from the school of A. Del Castagno and Bicci di Lorenzo). The sacred furnishings preserved in the Parish Museum are rich. Adjacent to the Church is the ancient Abbey with a beautiful cloister. Also in the upper part of the castle there are notable remains of the Rocca. Two doors, the remains of tower houses, the former Convent of S. Scolastica, the Oratory of S. Martino and the eighteenth-century Villa Sermolli, complete the monumental heritage.
Villa Bellavista
A few kilometers from Montecatini Terme and near Borgo a Buggiano is the splendid Villa Bellavista. In 1673, the Marquis Francesco Feroni bought from the Grand Duke Cosimo III de ‘Medici a farm with 45 farms located on a hill possibly originating from a fill in an area of the Fucecchio marshes. Here he built a building of great harmony accompanied by a garden and a noble chapel. A majestic avenue enriched by statues and various ornamental vases and embellished with a large central basin runs in front of the villa. Villa Bellavista has experienced alternating historical events: during the Second World War it was also a hospital. Today it is the property of the Ministry of the Interior which assigned it to the National Fire Brigade Assistance Work. An original Regional Historical Museum of the Fire Brigade has been set up on the ground floor.
Padule di Fucecchio
The Fucecchio Marshes is an area of considerable historical and environmental value both for the emergencies present and for the opportunity it offers as a model for interpreting the territory. Its formation is due to the gradual lifting of the Arno bed, caused by the deposit of alluvial material, which, not allowing the natural outflow of all the waters of the Valdinievole basin, generated the area’s swamping.
Although largely reduced compared to the ancient lake-marshes, which once occupied a large part of the southern Valdinievole, the Marsh is still a wetland of great naturalistic interest, and remains, with its 1800 hectares between the provinces of Florence and Pistoia, the largest Italian inland swamp.
The Padule is a humid area rich in both animal and plant life: mammals, fish, molluscs, arthropods, bacteria, protozoa, algae, fungi and various microorganisms. It houses botanical entities of the boreal, alpine and high mountain and even Eurosiberian types, which came from the north with the ice that invaded part of southern Europe in the Quaternary era and found here the possibility of adaptation and survival. The microclimate created over time in the Marshes has made possible the survival of varieties that are not exactly typical of our area, and has brought into contact floral elements of a warm or oceanic climate with botanical species of Nordic and glacial origin. The marsh, which is considered one of the most important inland wetlands of the peninsula, preserves many examples of marsh plants: the sedges with the characteristic tufts of “sarello”, the reeds, the laminates, the wet meadows, the wet woods, the fern Florida.
The spring passage of rare species such as cranes and black storks or the constant presence of animals such as skunk and porcupine is still fascinating. More and more frequently it is possible to meet the nutria, a large rodent of South American origin similar to the beaver, which is increasingly colonizing our humid environment. Furthermore, recently, with the establishment of the naturalistic oasis, the presence of numerous species of herons has multiplied, which increasingly choose this humid area as a basis for their nesting.
https://www.toscana.info/firenze/provincia/padule-di-fucecchio/