The Lunigiana is beautiful. Rural beautiful. There are tiny castles, tiny hamlets. Everything laid out before you is on a human scale. The hills are alive—with wild boar, but still…
Some of you might like to spend some time in such a place, I’m sure. Like Verrucola, the picture at the top. This little village outside Fivizzano was voted the prettiest hill town by Europe Travel readers. You can stay within view of this castle and borgo in a villa with apartments. You don’t know how rare this is.
You see, one of the problems in Tuscany happens to be “villas.” Search the web and you’ll find that many of the places you can rent are really set up—and priced—for something like 14-26 people. Unless all but two of these people are servants trained in the art of making you feel really, really good, it’s not such a romantic notion to stay in a villa.
See that glaring white furniture sitting there in the back? That’s your private patio, situated right next to the burbling brook.
What’s there to do when you’re not love-nesting? Well, you can walk across the street to the restaurant Al Costello and eat a hearty and inexpensive worker’s lunch with the boys of the hood for a mere 10 euros, including wine. That’s in the only plastered building in town you see on the right, just behind the Pietro Cascella’s Verrucola Fountain. On Fridays you can visit the castle on top, where the artist Cascella lived before his death in 2008 at the age of 87. Just down the road is Fivizzano which holds a market on Tuesday and has a Museum of Printing inside an old villa that’s quite compelling.
Anyway, if you want to participate in the rural lifestyle along the ancient Via Francigena, and you don’t want to stay at a hotel, this is an option for you. Other of my favorite self-catering places are found here: Recommended Self Catering Apartments and Houses.
Find out more about renting via EasyReserve: