The Lunigiana Area
"One, Ten, a Hundred Tuscany’s" ... the title of a painting by the 15th century artist Domenico Ghirlandaio and one which well describes the diverse piece of ‘terra firma’ that is Tuscany. This is a land of great natural beauty, renaissance splendour, exaggerated colours and smells and a culture to embrace with admiration that has not faded with the passing of time. Tuscany is one of Italy’s largest regions stretching southwards to within 140 kilometres of Rome and north towards Liguria some 100 kilometres from the ancient seaport of Genoa.
The region's famous cities and sons are well documented: Florence, Siena, Arezzo, Cortona, Lucca, Dante, Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giotto, Calileo, the list is never-ending.
Then there is the Lunigiana. ‘Lunigiana’ you may ask. Where is that? Pronounced Lun-e-shian-a this is a small hill region close to the Tuscan and Ligurian coast located in northern Tuscany. The area is bereft of mass tourism and is relatively unexplored and not exploited by foreign property owners or investors. The area abounds in medieval stone hill villages still seemingly locked in a time warp. The hills give way to splendid views of the Apennine mountains and the dramatic marble peaks of the Apuane Alps.
Dante’s 14th century jaunts into Lunigiana are well documented. The Medici dynasty came and went leaving castles on just about every promontary. The great Victorians came and stayed awhile, Shelley prolificated to his wife: ‘Listen, listen Mary mine, to the wondrous sound of the Apennine’. Today’s traveller can expect little change with the exception of a modern transport infrastructure which affords the traveller swift access to airports, cultural centres and the Tuscan or Ligurian coastline. The famous Cinque Terre is less than an hour's drive from most of the Lunigiana valley’s. Budget airlines offer low cost flights from the UK, which often less than a single rail ticket from Milton Keynes to London! Pisa and Genoa airports are within an hour's drive.
So this is the Lunigiana! Not the cultivated rolling hills topped with cypress trees of the Chianti but a wonderfully diverse land of hills, plateaus, mountains, rivers and streams. This is a land of real Tuscan culture and cuisine. A land where traditional village restaurants, who can’t produce a menu in three languages or often indeed any menu at all, will serve you a veritable feast of a meal washed down with good local wine and all for less than the price of a fast-food burger in your average 'local' high street burger chain.
The area enjoys a Mediterranean climate. Summers are long and hot. The sun begins to put his hat on from late April and you can expect Italian summer sunshine until early October. The area maintains its greenery throughout this thanks to the occasional rain that is a feature of the Italian climate. November can often be a wet month before the winter sunshine appears in December. February and March can also experience heavy rain but this is generally a period when many foreign property owners are not resident. The bonus of a climate where quite often in winter one can sit on the terrace in shirtsleeves and eat during the day will always seem special to‘Brits’ and northern Europeans.
Temperatures throughout the summer months are normally between 24 and 34 degrees centigrade and this can continue well into October. Winter weather is more variable. The villages of the Lunigiana are dotted around the hills at heights of between 200 and 450 metres above sea level making it very pleasant when the temperatures rise above 30 degrees centigrade. During November and December 15 degrees centigrade is the daytime average and it can drop to below freezing at night. However, summer sunshine often arrives and this is a bonus. Winter really starts in January with the surrounding mountains clad in snow. Crisp long distance views are dramatic but you can still often enjoy a shirt-sleeved walk through the hills in February. The seasons are quite predictable and it is best to observe the local people in the hills who busy themselves with preparation for the weather ahead.
Lunigiana and Wider Italy
Listed below are a number of major destinations with distances measured from the town of Aulla (marked on the map as a red box), the principal point of entry into the Lunigiana in Northern Tuscany.
| Florence | 180 kilometres |  |
| Genoa | 110 kilometres | |
| Lucca | 80 kilometres | |
| Milan | 215 kilometres | |
| Parco dei Cento Laghi | 25 kilometres | |
| Parma | 100 kilometres | |
| Pisa | 80 kilometres | |
| Portofino | 80 kilometres | |
| Prato Spilla | 30 kilometres | |
| Rome | 450 kilometres | |
| Sarzana | 20 kilometres | |
| Siena | 230 kilometres | |
| The Cinque Terre | 25 kilometres | |
| Turin | 220 kilometres |
Parco dei Cento Laghi, or ‘The park of one hundred lakes’ as it is known in English, offers seasonal walking & hiking, cycling and skiing. Prato spilla is the local ski centre. The Cinque Terre is an 18 kilometre stretch of Mediterranean coastline and because of its unique local features the area has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.
As a point of reference the French port of Calais is 1500 kilometres North/Northwest of Aulla by road.