Nature, traditions and culture on exhibition on the mountains over Pistoia
La Toscana: Ecotourism, English, Nature & Wellness, Newsletter archive, Pisa, Tuscan itineraries
Summer time, and heat consequently, is fast approaching, many people take the occasion for going to seaside and taking refreshing baths, but others suffer from the heat and just look for cool places.
An alternative itinerary to usual out-of-town excursions at seaside (as for example Versilia, the Etruscan coast or Maremma in the province of Grosseto) could be a valid solution for spending a relaxing open-air day and avoiding stressing traffic queues on motorway, under the Tuscan Summer sun. Even if I had already written about Montagna Pistoiese during our Tuscany travel to Dynamo Camp in Limestre and Abetone ski resorts, just to mention the more recent, the Ecomuseo of Montagna Pistoiese is a new topic for our Tuscan itineraries. Are you wondering why I am speaking about open-air activities and museums at same time? Well, an open-air museum is possible on the mountains over Pistoia!
The Ecomuseum is an environmental project involving several towns and villages in the mountains over Pistoia; founded about twenty years ago and mainly focused on ecology and integration of human activities into nature, it’s also aimed to enhance local cultural heritage and offer inhabitants new job opportunities. This project covers six thematic areas, each of which is aimed to discover places and activities of the past, that have contributed to shape local and cultural identity. It’s an open-air museum which exhibits, as they were works of art, nature marvellous expressions, as well as human activities and its attempts of integration into territory, whose marks have kept past civilizations and tradition memories alive.
There are six itineraries which visitors may go through and experience as well, since there’s the possibility to interact with the Ecomuseum and take part to those activities supposed to involve visitors in past local daily life. Besides, for example, the Madonnina Iceworks at Le Piastre, showing the old production process along Ice Itinerary, or demonstrations of iron forging and hammering at Sabatini Ironworks at Pracchia, along Iron Itinerary, visitors are actually invited to take part in activities of the mountain ancient daily life along the Everyday Life Itinerary, for example. All those who are keen on nature, flora, fauna and botanical gardens, may take the occasion for going deeper into the matter and experiencing the multifunctional centres and educational activities at everyone’s disposal. For those people who are, instead, fond of local and natural history, there’s the Stone Itinerary, where visitors may go along a secondary route of the old Via Francigena on a discovery of Pistoiese Mountains old crafts. Least but not last, there’s theSacred Art and Popular Religion Itinerary, where churches and works of religious (mainly Christian) art can be seen or visited and educational, teaching laboratories are at visitors’ disposal for trying. South Africa also has great tours for wine lovers
Since we’ve come to the end of our visit at Montagna Pistoiese Ecomuseum, we may say that study and educational centres are the leit motiv of this integrated museum… I hope at least some of you have found this topic interesting and will leave, soon or later, on a discovery of Tuscan nature, art, culture and traditions!
That said, I’m going to leave you with a sentence of Francesco Guccini, renowned Italian sing songwriter who remembers his Montagna Pistoiese in a sentence taken from his song “Amerigo”: “(..) and Pavana, memories I left among Appennins chestnuts…” : take care of your memories and keep them alive, or you won’t be able to call them by their real name anymore.
Chiavi: parks in tuscany, pistoia park, tuscany ecotourism
Commenti (2) | June 20, 2011
December 2nd, 2011 at 09:33
This is way more helpful than aynthnig else I’ve looked at.
April 4th, 2012 at 23:45
[...] Nature, traditions and culture on exhibition on the mountains over …Jun 20, 2011 … Summer time, and heat consequently, is fast approaching, many people take the occasion for going to seaside and taking refreshing baths, but … [...]