Exploring the Ancient Villages of the Garfagnana......

Today we drove up into the Tuscan Hills to see some of the many little villages and towns scattered around. Wow!! The scenery here is just amazing! Everywhere you look there are beautiful green hills with houses built quite literally on the side of them! Quaint little stone villages everywhere. Gorgeous clear rivers. Mountains in the distance. And then there are the unbelievable medieval villages perched right up on top of the hill, totally secluded and with unbelievable views from every angle!

And so we took the detour on our journey to Barga to visit a village called Lucignana, perched at the top of a hill and up a very challenging (for me anyway, in the passenger seat!) narrow winding road! Halfway up I was wondering what I was thinking by suggesting to go up to this place! I had the steep drop on my side of the car and in some places I think it would have been almost impossible to squeeze past a car coming in the other direction! And of course going around some of the bends you would not know if a car was coming until you almost met them. Luckily, of course none of this fazed Lauri, who has already gotten very comfortable driving on the right! And also luckily we hardly saw another car all the way up! Saved me from having a heart attack!!

But when we arrived at the top...oh my God... It was so worth it! The village was built entirely out of local stone many centuries ago! We wandered around the steep cobbled streets which were almost deserted! No tourists there so had the place to ourselves. A young boy of about 12 walked past with a SKATEBOARD in this hands! We were gobsmacked! Where on earth would he be able to ride that without coming to grief! We saw him later and our questions were answered, as on the other side of the village was a sealed car park with a sealed road leading down to it. I will put the photos on here!

Most of the houses, although so old, were so well kept, with flowers everywhere in pots and boxes. Just so pretty. And the views were just amazing!

Later we went on to the little town of Barga. Another walled town. A little bit like Lucca but much smaller! We went up to the cathedral at the top of the hill, and they were preparing for a wedding. We walked up the bell tower, which was very interesting as we saw the workings of the ancient clock (they were winding it at the time) and also the huge bells at the top of the tower. The views from the cathedral were just gorgeous!

About 20 minutes later, when we were back down the hill in the piazza, the bells rang out for the wedding...talk about deafening, you would have heard them from miles away! We looked up at the tower and there standing in the tower were two of the bell tower men! Can't imagine how loud it would have been for them!

We then continued on to Castelnuovo, another medieval town. A lot busier and bigger than the others. All along the drive, the views were just beautiful!

Arrived home about 8.30 and then went down the road to del Sonno for a lovely dinner.