The following text is copyright Heather Jarman.
Starting from Lucca an adventurous food and wine traveller in Tuscany will make his way north along the Via Brennero (SS12) up the Serchio river valley. The Lucca plain soon gives way to the steep hills of the middle Serchio valley and then quite quickly to the full-grown mountains of the Garfagnana, the Alpi Apuane to the west and the Apennines to the east. Chestnut woods cover the slopes creating a cool, lush green landscape even in the middle of summer.
The woodland is broken here and there by terraced fields and vineyards and a surprising number of villages. Most are mediaeval in origin and retain their narrow cobbled streets and traditional houses built of stone with terracotta roofs. Every one is a gem, and a curious explorer could spend many happy months unearthing what is special in each. If you only have a few days, head straight to Barga.
Barga is the perfect balance between the old and the new. The picturesque cobbled streets linked by steep narrow staircases and the tranquil 9th-century cathedral with spectacular panoramic views are enlivened by jazz and opera festivals, art galleries, topical exhibitions and buzzy cafés, pizza and ice cream parlours and cosy family restaurants. If Barga is the one place to visit for architecture, art and culture, then Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, 20 minutes farther up the Serchio valley, is the place to go for lunch.
The off-beat charm of the Osteria ‘Il Vecchio Mulino’ can only be fully appreciated by being there. Think back 40 years and imagine a cross between a corner grocery and a neighbourhood pub; then hybridise that with a fine wine shop and a farmhouse cellar full of hams and cheeses, and you might be getting close.
You’ll be served an array of the best produce the Garfagnana has to offer, chosen from small local producers by the owner Andrea Bertucci. The wine is excellent, but you might want to try the local farro beer, which would easily get top awards in any good beer guide.
Since Roman times the Garfagnana has been important as a trade and pilgrimage route. Festivals still celebrate the Via Francigena, the route which took the faithful to Rome from northern Europe. The Este family, the Dukes of Modena, fortified the territory to protect their trade routes to the sea and Fortezza Verrucole, just above San Romano in Garfagnana, is a fine example. Castiglione di Garfagnana is a tiny picture-book fortified town with turrets at the four corners of the walls. The mountains were also the site of fierce battles between the Allies and the Germans at the end of WWII, and traces of the Gothic Line are still visible lower down the valley.
Also known since Roman times are the hot springs at Bagni di Lucca, where poets, artists and personalities such as Michel de Montaigne, Ippolito d'Este, Vittorio Alfieri, Ferdinand Ill Grand Duke of Tuscany, Paolina Borghese, the sister of Napoleon, Metternich, Field Marshall Radestsky, Shelley, Byron, Montesquieu, Puccini, Montale and Toscanini all took the waters. Today they have a sad, faded charm, but are undergoing restoration and there are signs that they are about to come back into fashion.
In the Garfagnana you’ll find everywhere authentic peasant food, most of it grown organically (and even biodynamically) on smallholdings and prepared by hand with minimal assistance from machines. The area is famous for its wild mushrooms, especially the porcini and an occasional truffle. If you’re used to sweet sticky stuff in a jar labelled ‘Honey’, you’ll be startled by the pure delicate flavour of the pale acacia honey and the strong bitter dark chestnut honey, both often served on the local pecorino cheese at various stages of maturity.
The potato bread, prosciutto ‘Bazzone’ and biroldo (the translation ‘black pudding’ doesn’t do it justice) have been given Presidium status by Slow Food; the farro (a Neolithic species of wheat) is designated IGP and the chestnut flour DOP by the European Union. In this land of good things, even the polenta overturns its popular image as stodgy tasteless pap. The 8-row maize arrived from Mexico, probably in the 16th century; it’s planted by hand, weeded by hand, harvested by hand and is stoneground into a beautiful coarse golden flour that makes polenta that tastes like, well, like corn.
It’s easy to burn off the excess calories of so much delicious food. There are many marked walking and cycling paths both in the Alpi Apuane and the Apennines, and ‘Il Ruscello’ near Bagni di Lucca offers guided horse trekking in the mountains. La Selva di Buffardello (The Gnome’s Woodland) is a novel woodland adventure park for children of all ages. Running from tree to tree is a huge variety of ropes, ladders and swinging bridges all graded according to age and daredevil spirit.
For your admission fee, you get a hardhat, a security belt and an introductory briefing on safety procedures and then you’re off to experience life suspended above the ground. For the less intrepid, there are shady picnic tables below where you can continue enjoying the Garfagnana food.
Sapori & Saperi information here
