TOUR OF THE LUCCHESI VILLAS

Cycle excursion to discover the enchanting Tuscan hills and the historic Lucchesi villas. We start from the village of Collodi, famous all over the world for Pinocchio, to discover the hills overlooking the city of Lucca. We pass through secondary asphalted roads, small towns where the main characteristic is to integrate perfectly into the environment that nature offers: olive trees, meadows, grape cultivations on hill terraces that with its dry walls create an exciting landscape. Then we pass in front of the historic Lucchesi villas that were built from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century by wealthy Luccan merchants dedicated to commerce and banking. Over the centuries ('500,' 600, '700), in the passage from one family to another often these summer residences were enlarged and transformed according to the trends of the time; They were located in places of particular beauty, surrounded by thick woods on top of the peaks, facing halfway up the valley or surrounded by marvelous Italian gardens. After a short ascent we arrive at the small town of Matraia where from a terrace overlooking the valley we can admire Lucca with its towers in the distance. We skirt the hills in all their length and at the end we see the village of Collodi that seems to rest dormant on the back of the mountain in front of us. We descend and arrive at the starting point passing by the Pinocchio park where thousands of children come to experience Pinocchio's fairy tale.