Hiking arund Massaciuccoli Lake
- Hiking in Tuscany discovering its biggest lake -
Description.
Technical details
Hiking in Tuscany and exploring Massaciuccoli lake means much more than exploring a natural feature of our landscape. It is a natural historic relic of a not so long past of our territory. It is place that can give completely different feeling and emotions depending on our point of observation . From the vastness of its reaches to quietness and intimacy of its canals
As well as the physical characteristic of the lake the area surrounding is also reach in ancient history marvels. Overlooking the lake sits the amazingly preserved “Villa Venulea” a Roman Villa that will take your breath away, connect to a thermal system enriched with an amazing mosaic.
Our walk takes a long approach to explore this area, and to do so we will start from the inland side of the hills that overlook the lake. The hike, always enjoyable changes its environment and scenarios every step of the way, and will make us feel like we’ve walk through many different places at ones. We will climb two small hills and cross deserted valley until we finally step over to the sea looking side of the hills from where we will be able to admire the lake in all he’s beauty.
From the top of the hill we will descend gently until we reach the ruins of the ancient villa Venulea, which is literally the best spot to have a picnic lunch at.
After lunch we will reach the side of the lake and walk along it until the scenario changes once again turning into huge fields that were once part of the lake itself. The views in this leg are amazing at 360 degrees. After we will climb once again a very small hill which will take us back to the side where we started walking.
This is one of many wonders discovered while hiking in Tuscany.
Distance : 18km
Type: Ring walk
Duration: 6.5hr
Elevation Gain: + 400
Difficutly: Easy
Footwear needed: trekking shoes or boots
For kids: yes
Links: Agnano on Wikipedia
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Feedback
My fiancee and I were vacationing in Pisa/Florence for a week and we came across Azimut's flyer at our hotel. Giulio couldn't be nicer.
Giulio gave us a quick 5 minutes talk about our fitness level to make sure we would be comfortable with our trek, check with our walking gears, and agreed on how much we wanted to walk. He also suggested we stopped at a local panini spot where he advised us what to order for our packed lunch, which we were so happy with. Best panini of the entire trip!
The walk started in Castelmaggiore, a lovely little village on the Pisan Mountains, were we started walking through a marvelous olive's grove. The path was very pleasant because it was well undulated so that we had stretches of more intense hike and parts of more relaxing downhill roads. The view was stunning and Giulio kept us busy with very informative chats about the mountain and all the different settlements we encountered
Giulio spoke in perfect English, in fact we discovered that he is an English teacher, and he kept checking on us to see whether we were tired or wanted a more active hike so that we felt completely taken care of and well attended. The hike was totally worthy, we had a complete immersion in the Italian culture and lifestyle, discovering things that you would not without a local.
Who would have thought that Pisa had mountains worth discovering!! A must try experience! The only drawback was that we could not stay longer to discover more.
Check Geraldine's review on trip advisor: www.tripadvisor.com/azimutdaytreks
“The undiscovered marvels of the Pisan Mountain” by Geraldine