Fivizzano

A note before you start: Fivizzano sits on the site because of its frazioni, not because of the central town. Fivizzano-capoluogo is a quietly handsome but small Lunigiana centro of 7,000 residents on the SS63 between La Spezia and Reggio Emilia — the medieval Medici-era piazza with the Fontana Medicea (1576), the porticoes, the parish church. Fine, walkable, worth an hour.

The real reason this commune is here is that it covers 264 km² and 92 frazioni spread across the upper Lunigiana mountains, inside the Parco Nazionale dell'Appennino Tosco-Emiliano, and several of those hamlets are individually destination-grade. **Equi Terme** is the headline frazione — a cluster of 11 thermal springs (sulphurous, 24°C) in a deep narrow gorge under vertical limestone walls, with the Grotta di Equi karst cave system (3 km of tunnels open to guided visits, prehistoric cave-bear remains found inside), the Solco di Equi gorge walking trail, and the Terme di Equi spa using the spring water for sulphur therapy since the Etruscans. **Verrucola** is the second frazione you go for — an intact Malaspina-family fortified borgo with the 14th-century Fortezza dei Malaspina rebuilt by the painter Pietro Cascella (who lived there until his death in 2008) as his studio and now a museum-house.

**Gassano** is the panoramic perched hamlet on a ridge with the great Apuane view. The wider commune covers Bottignana, Ceserano, Pieve San Paolo, Pognana, Soliera Apuana, Tenerano — all small Lunigiana mountain hamlets with stone-house centri and the Apuane peaks at the back. The food is Lunigiana-Tuscan: testaroli (a flat semi-cooked pasta unique to this valley, dressed with pesto or oil + parmesan), panigacci (chestnut-flour discs baked between terracotta plates), torta d'erbi (a vegetable-and-cheese pie), pasta with porcini, lardo di Colonnata from the nearby Apuane quarries, and the Lunigiana DOP olive oil from the lower-valley olive groves.

The Sagra del Testarolo (mid-July, at the Fivizzano centre) is the year's main food event. Like most ultraperiferico Apennine communes, depopulation is heavy — Fivizzano had 13,000 residents in 1951 and 7,000 today; some of the smaller frazioni are down to 20-30 winter residents.