Celebrating Beauty in Tuscany.
Timeless creations from a craftsman-jeweler, on Forte dei Marmi’s most exclusive shopping outings, Carlo’s Marchi‘s jewerly gallery is a mandatory stop.
Marchi is a jeweler who has defended and “fashion-proofed” his classical style. His selections and proposals withstand the test of time; his creation have a inner light all their own and value that goes far beyond purely material worth: rare quality made of unicity exclusivity and personality.
Carlo Marchi Gioiellere
Via Mazzini 7, Forte dei Marmi – Phone +39 0584 83844
Via S. Lucia 28, Lucca – Phone +39 0583 491346
Via Fillungo 69 Lucca – Phone +39 0583 494885
Allow yourself the luxury.
Beautiful dream yachts: renting Versilia’s best
A life of luxury and the chance to chenge looks at will. This is the dream that inspired Noleggio Versilia Rent Luxury, specialized in rentals of high-end vehicles and vessels.
For an “escape” to Sardinia on a splendid yacht or vacation in Versilia behind the wheel of a gleaming Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley or Lamborghini.
The agency takes care of every detail, including theft, fire damage, comprehensive, and UM/UIM coverage, a broad spectrum of short-and long-term rental formulas, and contracts of up to one year’s duration.
Noleggio Versilia Rent Luxury
Via Verdi 17 Ronchi – Phone: +39 338 9042127
Info@noleggioversilia.com
Web-site: www.noleggioversilia.com
Certaldo
Like many other Tuscan towns. Certaldo is divided between its medieval walled town on a hill and the modern residential and industrial suburb spread out below. Etruscan and Roman in origin. Certaldo was also situated on the Via Francigena.
In the lower town is the main square Piazza Boccaccio (car park), with a marble statue by Augusto Passaglia (1879) which was commissioned to mark the fifth centenary of the death of Giovanni Boccaccio.
Certaldo Alto
The charming medieval upper town, reached on foot in 10 min or by cablecar from the station in the main piazza (2min). built almost entirely of brick, is well preserved despite some damage during the Second World War. All the principal buildings, as well as some attractive houses, face onto Via Boccaccio.
Half-way up on the left is the Casa del Boccaccio (rebuilt in 1947). with a tower and loggia, which was bought and restored in the early 19C by Marchesa Carlotta dei Medici Lenzoni.
Facing onto the little piazza is the church of Santi Michele e Jacopo. The simple brick facade dates from the 1 3C and the interior has been restored to original Romanesque appearance. In a niche is an urn containing the body of Beata Giulia.
Next to the church is a small cloister which gives access to the Museo d’arte Sacra inaugurated in 2001 (open daily 10.00-19.00). The museum has some fine and rare works which include: a monumental 13 C Crucifix; paintings by Meliore, the Bigallo master Puccio di Simone and Ugolino di Nerio most of them removed from churches in the countryside around Certaldo.
At the top of the street is Palazzo Pretorio, originally the castle of the Conti Alberti with its facade decorated with picturesque coats of arms in stone and glazed terracotta which record the Governors (Vicari) sent from Florence. Around the courtyard are the rooms where justice was administered, dungeons, and a chapel with a fresco of Doubting Thomas attributed to Benozzo Gozzoli. Several rooms have Fine doorways, fireplaces and some fresco decoration.
A terraced garden and a walkway overlooking the town walls provide a splendid view stretching from the hills of the Val d’Elsa to San Gimignano.
Spring all year round.
Tuscany’s largest garden center is just outside of Pietrasanta, Giardini della Versilia, a gigantic greenhouse just outside the gates of Pietrasanta, is one of Italy’s top garden centers in terms of size, selection, and quality.
Inaugurated on March 20th to bloom with the spring season, Giardini della Versilia’s 6500 square meters of covered space, filled with plants of all kinds, gardening tools and materials, patio furniture, and much more, are bounded by the nursery: one enormous “flowerbed” bursting with essences and colors.
The garden center proposes a unique assortment, from “prefab” solutions ready for installation to consulting and delivery services but above all, ideas for new forms and atmospheres for the garden, parks, and any other open space.
The Giovanneli family’s new center expresses their love for nature, with an eye to wellbeing. Nature, because after parking in the center’s ample lot, visitors leave “human time” behind and embark on a path that follows natural rhythms, pervaded by stimulating natural fragrances, illuminated by Nature’s colors.
Wellbeing, because Giardini della Versilia is a wonderful spot for just passing time with family and friends and strolling in a green garden world, breathing in the scents of spring all year round. And for a restful pause in the relaxation/refreshment area that welcomes visitors on the upper floor.
Surf’s up
At the Pontile, biting salt spray and crashing waves, walls of water, barrels and riptides: riding the giants, dreamin’ California… Forte dei Marmi’s sea like you never seen it: the best place in the world to be. In the tube.
It’s said that caution is a natural human mechanism. Caution, not cluck. And maybe this dualistic thought caution vs fear is what runs through the mind of the surfer riding the Versilia waves.
On that same sea, so safe and welcoming so perfect for kids and families, that canturn into an amazing arena of impetuous sewlls, barreling and mean; waves to catch, attack, caress and follow into whitewater. Pur collective California dream plays out in a bit of versilia’s sea near Forte dei marmi’s Pontile. An expanse of water that has become the Tyrrhenian playground for stoked foam-breathers on bords.
Everything turns on the waves, whenever, wherever: little snappers, crumbly waves, or big, glassy giants, perfect, pitching, peeling. An eternal pilgrimage in search of ideal spot, even if the best spots are right there, around the Forte Pontile and a tad downscaled at Marina di Pietrasanta. The surfer suffering from perennial abstinence thus sets off looking for a nice wave to share with some good friends. Bundled in a wetsuit in winter or reveling in skin-sea contact in a summer.
The rest, all the rest, is an explosion of utter freedom and pure passion. The kind that drives you to frenetically click all the surflines to see where the surf’s up and then “dive” down from the remotest inland sites in Versilia by scooter, Ape, car, bike, VW bus…. any means of locomotion is the right one for getting to the beach or the Pontile, board under arm, and paddling out. This is what it’s all about. Someone defined it “the innermost limits of pure fun”.
A step into liquid time. Momentum. Passion. Passion that takes you, with your board buddies to hangouts like the Nimbus Club. Or to explore the specialized shops – on the increase throughout Versilia. The same passion that, in a business key, has spawned a host of boardshops that build to order (Ola Surfboards of pietrasant, for example).
The sea is an open-air stage on wich the curtain never falls: in winter as in summer, at dawn as at the dusk of a long, long day the blue crush is a never-ending attraction.
A “fatal” attraction, while all around unpredictable and unsettling, the unceasing wind and the whipping sea foam vehemently caress the senses of the surfer on a living curl at the morning of the earth.
