What is Barga known for?

The poet lived in Barga from 1895 to 1912, wrote his last collections here, and is buried beside his Casa Museo on the Colle di Caprona. The Sagra del Pesce e Patate has run every August since the early 1980s, the legacy of late nineteenth-century emigration to Glasgow's chip shops. Eleventh-century collegiate church with Guido Bigarelli's red marble pulpit, the 3.5-meter wooden Saint Christopher, and Apuan Alps view from the terrace.

Barga is a comune in the province of Lucca, Tuscany region of Italy, about 59 kilometers from Pisa.

Tuscany · Lucca

Barga

A medieval hilltop townin the Serchio valley between the Apuan Alps and the Apennines, where Giovanni Pascoli wrote his last poems and the August festival serves fish and chips.

59 km / 37 mi

Nearest hub (Pisa)

9,415

Population

Apr–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Why come

Barga sitson the Colle Remeggio above the Serchio river, between the marble peaks of the Apuan Alps to the west and the Apennine ridge to the east. The Duomo di San Cristoforo, the Romanesque collegiate church begun in the eleventh century and worked into the sixteenth, holds a 3.5-meter wooden statue of Saint Christopher and a twelfth-century pulpit by Guido Bigarelli da Como, four red marble columns resting on stone lions. Giovanni Pascoli lived in the Casa Museo on the Colle di Caprona from 1895 to 1912 and is buried in the chapel beside it. The town has a parallel Scottish identity: a wave of late nineteenth-century emigration to Scotland produced generations of Barga families running fish and chip shops in Glasgow, and the Sagra del Pesce e Patate has filled the streets every August since the early 1980s. Few Tuscan borghi this small carry both a Romanesque cathedral and a Scottish festival.

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Barga | The Scottish Accent

We were trying to get to Garfagnana. It was July, the coast was unlivable, we pointed the car at the Serchio Valley with a vague idea of chestnut forests and cool air, and somewhere on the road up we took a turn we should not have taken and ended up at the gate of a town I had never heard of. Barga was today's accident.

Read the full feature on anywhereitaly.com

Known for

Duomo di San Cristoforo
Romanesque collegiate church begun in the eleventh century, with a 3.5-meter wooden Saint Christopher and a twelfth-century pulpit by Guido Bigarelli da Como.
Casa Museo Giovanni Pascoli
House on the Colle di Caprona where the poet lived from 1895 to 1912, preserved with original furnishings and library, the chapel next door holds his tomb.
Centro storico
Walled medieval town climbing the colle, narrow streets of stone houses leading from Porta Reale up to the Duomo on the highest terrace.
Alpi Apuane
Marble peaks rising sharply west of the Serchio valley, the Pania della Croce visible from the Duomo terrace, the source of Carrara stone.
Teatro dei Differenti
Eighteenth-century horseshoe theater inside the walls, restored in 1795, host to the Opera Barga summer festival of chamber and lyric performances.

When to visit

Best months · Apr–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

April through June and September into October are the working months in the middle Serchio valley: green pasture, mild days at 410 meters, walking weather to the Apuan ridges. The Opera Barga festival fills the Teatro dei Differenti in July with chamber concerts. The Sagra del Pesce e Patate runs for two weeks in August and brings Glasgow-Barga families home. July and August stay cooler than the coast but the town fills with visitors. November through March is quiet. Snow reaches the higher frazioni in cold winters. The Apuan peaks west of town with snow on them and the Garfagnana valley between is the view that defines the place.