Tuscany - Province of Pistoia

Since my province borders that of Pistoia I have had occasion to come here many times and not only for tourism. Rather than an itinerary, below I give a series of impressions of the places visited. The provincial capital, Pistoia, has the fine Piazza del Duomo, onto which face the buildings that have made and continue to make the city's history: the Cathedral, the Baptistery, the Palazzo Pretorio and the Palazzo Comunale. A few metres away, civil and religious power stand facing one another with their most representative buildings. The Cathedral has a luminous façade with a loggia and is flanked by an elegant bell tower. Inside it houses, among other things, the silver altar of San Jacopo. The octagonal Baptistery echoes in its architecture the theme of the Cathedral façade, and inside is a very ancient baptismal font.

Besides this square, the old town has many other churches, including that of Sant'Andrea with a fine pulpit by Giovanni Pisano and that of San Giovanni fuori Civitas with an ancient polyptych. Outside the old town, the Pistoia Zoo is the most important in Tuscany and offers the chance to spend a day discovering numerous animal species. In the province, on the road to Lucca, one comes across two spa towns, Monsummano and Montecatini. In particular the latter is endowed with splendid neoclassical spa buildings such as the Leopoldine, Regina or Tettuccio. The last of these in particular presents a splendid hemicycle of very white columns. The spa centre is dominated by Montecatini Alto, where the Grotta Maona is found, visitable but very small.

Continuing towards Lucca one reaches Pescia, where the Cathedral and the Church of San Francesco are worth noting and, still in this municipality, the hamlet of Collodi, the village of Carlo Lorenzini, the author of Pinocchio. Collodi is very particular; the dwellings seem piled one on top of another forming a waterfall that tumbles down a hill. The village hosts the Pinocchio Park, where some scenes from the puppet's life are reproduced through artistic interpretations, and Villa Garzoni with a splendid park of greenery, mazes and artificial waterfalls. South of Pistoia the village of Lamporecchio is famous for brigidini, very sweet crunchy wafers of flour and egg, well known throughout Tuscany and beyond.

On the road that from the Val di Lima in the Province of Lucca leads to Abetone one comes across the mountain village of Popiglio (Municipality of Piteglio) with a fine medieval parish church, Cutigliano with a small Palazzo Pretorio whose façade is enriched by numerous coats of arms, and Pianosinatico. Worth noting is that just after Popiglio there is a long, narrow pedestrian suspension bridge linking the road with the village of Mammiano Basso in the Municipality of San Marcello Pistoiese; it is one of the largest of its kind in the world. The winter-sports resort of Abetone is preceded by Le Regine, a small ski centre from which a chairlift leaves for the Selletta slope. Abetone is the main destination for Tuscan skiers and attracts winter-sports enthusiasts from much of central Italy. There are many accommodation facilities and ski lifts.

Cable cars, chairlifts and gondola lifts lead to high-mountain refuges from which one then descends into the valley along famous snow-covered slopes such as the Zeno Colò, dedicated to the famous champion born here. The ski lifts serve several very active ski schools. The village lies on the pass of the same name that separates Tuscany from Emilia and which we must cross to reach the resort of Val di Luce, a hamlet of Abetone reachable only through Emilia, equipped with a long slope and ski lifts.