Thursday 2nd – Pistoia & Around

Campiglio & Pupigliano

Back to book research today with a trip northeast of Lucca to the two tiny hamlets of Campiglio and Pupigliana, and the city of Pistoia. I knew that some of the early Italian immigrants to NZ came from a number of the hamlets in the hills behind Pistoia and we sought out these two in particular (contacts in Wellington had confirmed these two for me). It was no mean feat to find our way to Campiglio. We are now very used to proceeding along narrow windy roads, but when you are not sure where you are going to end up, and the road is narrowing through a heavily treed valley, with minimal signage, it does get very interesting. Flagged down a passing pedestrian and managed to confirm that the village just below us was indeed Campiglio so kept winding down and parked up in the central piazza to explore the area on foot.

The village was gorgeous, very tidy, houses in good condition and a large community building complete with bar, large outdoor terrace, and even a wheelchair hoist beside the steps to the courtyard. We figure that the village has become gentrified and possibly turned into a small dormitory suburb for Pistoia. It certainly doesn’t have the feel of rural subsistence living, which no doubt was the case when the immigrants left. We chatted/sign languaged with a guy telling him we were from NZ. He called out to a nearby household, whose relatives had apparently gone to NZ, but unfortunately no-one seemed to be home. Everyone we have met is these villages has been extremely friendly and helpful.

We wound our way down to the valley floor and up the other side of the valley to Pupigliana. It was very similar to Campiglio, and also was a lovely neat little enclave set amongst olive groves, chestnut trees and a few grape vines.

Piazza del Duomo, Pistoia

Mediaeval alley, Pistoia

Back to Pistoia by 1.30pm. This was a huge bonus. We didn’t really have anything in particular to look at here, but found a carpark and wandered into the Piazza dell’Duomo. What a spectacular place. It is a huge square, surrounded on all sides by massive and ancient buildings – the Court of Justice, municipal buildings, cathedral, bishop’s residence and baptistry. All dating from around the 13^th century onwards, they were quite overwhelming in their size and scale, as well as their age. Tucked around the corner was the odd tower (12^th century) early church (11^th century), and in fact anywhere you walked were grand buildings, many showing the hallmarks of being reconstructed, added to, or otherwise altered over the centuries. 

Today was a bank holiday so there were no shops open, but a number of the bars were still trading in the city centre and we echoed the locals by pulling up a chair and having a glass of wine under a massive sun umbrella. We are enjoying this aspect of Italian life.

Panels on the 1277-1501 hospital, still a med school

Inside the Town Hall

It was raining this morning, but this had cleared by 10am. It is still very hot – high 20s. We gave away driving back to Lucca over the incredibly bumpy local roads we had driven out on and cut the 1hr trip down by 20min by taking a toll road part of the way back for under 2€. Home in time to put our feet up a bit before cooking dinner. Raining quite hard by 6pm, and apparently the weather forecast is pretty iffy for the next 3-4 days. We are more than happy for it to rain. I hate to say it but we are pretty sick of hot sunny days and would love it to rain steadily for a little while.

Bishop's palace on Piazza del Duomo

We have now finished the book research stuff that I had to do while based here in Lucca, so we have the next 1½ weeks to explore in and around Lucca. It has made such a difference that we bought a property while we were in France – it has given us a lot more freedom for this end of the trip.