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VACATION IN TUSCANY
Lanciole and its surroundings
The medieval village Lanciole is one of 13 small villages in the area which all lay as a string of pearls across the area’s forested hilltops. Every village is fascinating and worth a visit, but if you have to choose a few; Castelveccio, Sorana and Vellano are especially lovely to visit.
Because Lanciole is situated about 600 Meter above sea level the air in the summer time is usually cooler than down in Lucca and Florence, and it can be totally liberating to be cooled down a few degrees after a long day of trips. The thigh wall of the house from the old fortress village makes for a nice indoor climate.
On the way towards Lanciole the path winds through a valley where you can find many paper mills since the paper industry for centuries has been a very important source of employment in this part of Tuscany. Midways on the route between Pescia and Lanciole you can drive through the beautiful Sorana valley where the delicacy of the area is grown – the white Sorana beans. On the way in the valley across from restaurant Da Sandrino there is a big picnic spot by a large babbling creek where the water gathers in small pools enabling you to swim in fresh water. If you walk left down the creek for awhile, you’ll find a bigger pool. At the restaurant Da Sandrino they serve a very good Café Latte for just about 1€.
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SKIING IN TUSCANY
A little less than an hour drive from the house is the skiing area Abetone, where there is alpine skiing during the winter months. The Abetone area is situated in the Apennines between Modena and Pistoia at the altitude of 1400 to 1950 meters and consists of four valleys which are interconnected by pistes.
The area has more than 50 km of slalom pistes in the valleys Val di Luce, Sestaione, Della Lima, and Dello Scoltenno. More than 20 km of these are equipped with snow canons. The area is situated in a state forest and during the summer is a very popular hiking area. The Abetone ski area has 37 different pistes, 3 gondolas, 9 chairlifts, 15 T-lifts, 5 ski schools and 2 cross-country-skiing routes.
We visited Tuscany and Abetone last year in late February and had a wonderful winter vacation with loads of powdery snow in the mountains on the days we chose to ski. There was a spring-like atmosphere of 18 degrees Celsius in Lucca the days we spent our vacation exploring the Tuscan culture and city-life. Even though, the temperature last year in February was above freezing, we found the snow to be better and more powder-like in comparison to our experiences from the Alps under similar temperature conditions.
SHOPPING
Laciole has a bar/pizza place run by some local volunteers, which is open most of the year, but only serves food on Saturdays. You know that it is open for coffee, drinks and ice cream when you can hear the local men gathering for a game of cards. The restaurant is a huge attraction throughout the summer for people from Lanciole and the nearby villages every Saturday, where they eat anti-pasta, fresh baked pizzas and end the evenings with dancing. We recommend that you reserve a table the same day or the day before. Here you really get the opportunity to experience a typical Italian village. Lanciole is often visited by bread venders, shop venders, fruit venders and other kinds of venders, who ring with bells or honk their horns, which makes the citizens of the village hurry out to do their shopping.
Lanciole doesn’t really have a grocery store. The closest grocery store is in the village of Pontito a few kilometers away. The grocer has local farm eggs, bread, cheese, fresh sausages and other necessities. You can find the grocery store by driving through the village Pontito and stopping at the village’s car park, because the streets are too narrow to drive through without scratching the car. There is a small restaurant and a bar above the grocery store.
The village Calamecca towards Abetone is a few kilometers further away and it also has a grocery store, a bar and a restaurant. Besides that, the village is worth a visit due to its small narrow streets.
When you want to buy a lot of groceries we recommend that you drive to one of the big supermarkets in Pescia on the way up to the house. We personally like the supermarket Esselunga a lot, which is the one on the right hand when you are coming into the village from the highway by the roundabout with an old olive tree on it. Esselunga has a big delicacy section with pre-cooked chickens and warm dishes, a fish section and an impressive fresh greens section, and then everything else you need from wine to perfume and a hardware section.