Underground fun
Grottos, mines, caves, museums:an outing to land of marble.
Never been caving? In Levignani, just up from the coast, you can and a dive into the Corchia Underground cave system is a spineshivering thrill.
The key attraction is the Antro del Corchia, a spectacular karst complex made up of 70 km of galleries, wells, and conduits: since 2001, expert guides accompany visitors on a 2 km walk through this mysterious secret world.
Some other suggestions: the Miniere dell’Argento Vivo mines, the Arabescato marble quarry, the museum of quarrying tools and equipment.
Tickets Grottos
Via IV Novembre 70, Levignani di Stazzema.
Tel. +39 0584 778405
Italian boutique: wearable sensations and secrets.
Women’s fashion celebrates Tuscan creative excellence and workmanship. SaveTheQueen! has docked in Forte dei Marmi to strains of a stirring fanfare celebrating the style, the inventiveness, and the lush quality of the Tuscan artisan tradition. The SaveTheQueen! ateliers in Florence, Rome and Paris (and coming soon in Cannes) are conceived as stages for the collections, theaters where inspirations are intensified by sound and color in fantastic settings.
The watchworld at SaveThe Queen! is made in Italy. For everything: styling, fabrics, leathers and accessories.The print patterns, developed strictly from hand-drawn original studies, are unique and special brand features, as are the embroideries, stellar examples of skilled hand work and symbols of Tuscan culture and tradition.
The Forte dei Marmi boutique has all the Summer novelties, including beachwear and lounge and nightime wear. But the horizon is already crowded with the heralds of the Fall-Winter collection, inspired by enigmatic Eastern European auras. Fashion items like pages of a diary scraps of poetry and secretes worn in plain sight.
SaveTheQueen!
Piazza Tonini 1, Forte dei Marmi Lucca Tel. +39 0584 786078
Via De’ Tornabuoni 49, Firenze
Via del Babuino 49, Roma
189 Boulevard Saint Germain, Parigi
Arno River
The Arno is a river in the Tuscany region of Italy. It is the most important river of central Italy after the Tiber. The river originates on Mount Falterona in the Casentino area of the Apennines, and takes initially a southward curve. The river turns to the west near Arezzo passing through Florence, Empoli and Pisa, flowing into the Tyrrhenian Sea at Marina di Pisa. With a length of 241 kilometers, it is the largest river in the region.
It crosses Florence, where it passes below the Ponte Vecchio and the Santa Trìnita bridge (built by Bartolomeo Ammanati, but inspired by Michelangelo). The river flooded this city regularly in historical times, the last occasion being the famous flood of 1966, with 4,500 m³/s after a rain of 437.2 mm in Badia Agnano and 190 millimetres in Florence, in only 24 hours.
The flow rate of the Arno is irregular. It is sometimes described as having a torrent-like behaviour, because it can easily go from almost dry to near-flood in a few days. At the point where the Arno leaves the Apennines, flow measurements can vary between 0.56 m³/s and 3,540 m³/s. New dams built upstream of Florence have greatly alleviated the problem in recent years.
Pieve Santo Stefano Church
This church was built on the site of a small, early Christian church betwen 1000 and 1200. Its Romanesque layout can still be seen on left side and in the apse with its the three windows with one light.
In the 16th century the church was enlarged and a portico was added to the faced, but the inside was completely redesigned at the end of the 18th century.
The church has a nave and two isles, and a vaulted ceiling with decorations dating back to 1910. Inside there is a very fine, late 16th century organ, the work of Onofrio Zecchini; an altar price by Zacchia with La Madonna tra i Santi Rocco e Sebastiano, which is now in the Villa Guinigi museum and has been replaced by an 19th century copy by Michele Ridolfi.
Bulding dreams in Tuscany
Many people have herad about italian bureaucracy. And there is a natural fear of purchasing property in a country where you don’t know the language or the costums.
There is “Anderò srl”, a company dedicated to finding unique locations in the lucchese hills and building luxury holiday homes for foreign and Italian buyers. What makes Anderò special is that Lou and Jim (the owners) take a personal interest in everyone they meet, becoming their personal guide through the process of home ownership.
They hope that everyone who buys a holiday home from them will become a friend, in the same way that Lou and Jim have become close friends with the people who helped make their transition to Lucca easy. it is more than just knowing the local lawyer, architect or builder. It is that personal relationships. You can see it in the enthusiasm they bring to their everyday activities, all aimed at fulfilling their company motto: building dreams in Tuscany.
They also know that foreign buyers of holiday homes want to be assured of the safety of their home want to be assured of the safety of their home when they are not resident, and many wiuld like a rental income to help offset their investment. That is why Anderò offers a wide range of property management and concierge services to owners and their guests, and a three year rental guarantee program to help buyers manage the cash flow from their holiday home.
Lou and Jim have a knack for finding special properties with exceptional features. Wheter it is the spectacular view from Villa Arsina or the tranquil valley below the church in San Gennaro, each Anderò development offers peace and beauty, along with hundreds of olive trees for the owners to share. The high quality of these for the owners to share. The high quality of these developments has attracted foreign and lucchese investors to Anderò many interested in buying their own holiday home upon the return from their investment. New investors are now being sought for future Anderò projects.
So, if you want to pursue your dream of a home in Tuscany and you find yourself in contact with Lou and Jim, don’t be surprised if you end up at Jim’s home just four miles from the walls of Lucca, learning to make pizza in his wood burning oven, overlooking the beautiful Apuan mountains. The Tuscan style pizza, the local Lucca and Montecarlo wines, and his homemade lemon ricotta torta at the end of the evening just might convince you to make Lucca Your home.
