Track details

Distance

34.3km

Duration

10h 00min

Ascent

1500m

Descent

1499m

Starting altitude

Arrival altitude

Lowest point

Highest point

865m

Aghinolfi Castle of Montignoso

An 8th-century document attests to the existence, even in the Lombard era, of Aghinulfo, an unknown character who seems to have been a functionary at the Lombard court in Lucca. The castle was built, albeit fitfully, in the late Middle Ages by the Lucchese government, which considered Montignoso a valuable place for control of the sea. The most recent military occupation of the castle was in 1945, when it was held by a Nazi garrison, who made a few architectural changes and turned it into one of the main strongholds along the Gothic Line.

There are many elements to the complex: a wide ring of walls, flanked by towers, encloses two spaces, both large but of different dimensions. The higher area contains the weapons-training ground and a patrol route, supported by numerous arches; a keep built on a large octagonal building (probably the oldest in the whole complex), which, via a walled courtyard, is joined to a circular tower, the bastion of San Paolino. The octagonal building, which is thought to date from the 1100s, seems to have had both military and residential functions over the centuries.

Lake and cliffs of Porta

Lake Porta, in the district of Montignoso, is a wet coastal area, the most northerly in Tuscany. It has survived the reclamations that have progressively reduced the marshes, which, historically, were strung along the Tuscan coast. Once upon a time the lake was connected to Lake Massaciuccoli by marshland, now disappeared. In this landscape you might see the great bittern, a member of the heron family that is rare throughout Europe. The lake, squeezed between the Apuan Alps and the coastal strip of Versilia, has for centuries been a strategic location for control of the coast and the roads between Massa and Pietrasanta.

The lake was called Porta Beltrame after a gate on the fringes of Pietrasanta, and is fed by the streams that begin at the foot of the Porta cliffs. At the source, which is found near the Torretta Medicea, the water maintains a temperature of around 17 degrees centigrade. The wet areas, contained by embankments, is mostly covered by reeds, with little open water.

A wood, similar to the damp surroundings of historical Versilia, has recently developed among the reeds and the wetlands, made up of trees typical of marshy areas: black alder, different kinds of willows and poplars. In certain areas there are some wet meadows, characterised by the presence of larch and rushes. A highly rare butterfly, the Large Copper, lives in this environment, in danger of extinction.