Garfagnana

The Garfagnana is the green trench between two mountain walls: the jagged marble Apuan Alps on one side, the rounded Apennines on the other, with the Serchio river and a slow railway threading the floor. Its main town, Castelnuovo di Garfagnana, keeps the Rocca Ariostesca — the fortress where the poet Ludovico Ariosto served as the Este family's reluctant governor in the 1520s. Up the valley's eastern rim sits Barga, a hill town so entangled with emigration to Scotland that it is routinely called the most Scottish town in Italy, fish-and-chips festival included.

It is walking and eating country before it is sightseeing country: chestnut woods, spelt fields, fortress villages, and a train line whose stations — Barga-Gallicano, Castelnuovo, Piazza al Serchio — double as trailheads. Tuscany's crowds are ninety minutes away and might as well be in another country.

May, June and September are the walking months — clear ridges, green valley, long days. April and October bracket them well, October adding the chestnut harvest and the year's best food calendar. July and August are warm but far calmer than coastal Tuscany; the high Orecchiella meadows stay pleasant. Winter is for the valley towns only: short days, closed refuges, occasional snow above.

The Lucca–Aulla railway is the valley's spine: regional trains climb from Lucca along the Serchio, stopping at Borgo a Mozzano (the Devil's Bridge), Barga-Gallicano, Castelnuovo di Garfagnana and on through the Apuan flank to Aulla — where the line meets the Parma–La Spezia railway and, with it, the Lunigiana. Lucca to Castelnuovo takes around an hour. Barga town sits uphill from its station; a local bus covers the last stretch. For the high villages and the Orecchiella park, service is thin — plan around the train plus your feet, or a taxi.

Castelnuovo is the practical base — a real market town with rooms and small hotels inside walking distance of the station. Barga is the atmospheric one: sleep inside the old town and you get its evenings, when the day visitors have rolled back down the hill. The wider valley runs on agriturismi and restored farmhouses, many on working spelt and chestnut farms; book directly and verify opening outside the main season.

The grain comes first: farro della Garfagnana, the spelt that carries a PGI and has been grown in these fields since antiquity, served in zuppa di farro in every kitchen worth its salt. After it, chestnuts — flour, bread, the neccio pancakes — plus river trout, pecorino from the Apennine side, and the biroldo blood sausage that Slow Food protects. In Barga, in a nod to the Scottish story, the summer sagra serves fish and chips with complete sincerity.

In Castelnuovo, start at the Rocca Ariostesca and the Duomo, then take the ridge roads: the Fortezza delle Verrucole above San Romano is the valley's great restored castle, and the Orecchiella park behind it holds the high meadows and the wildlife. In Barga, climb to the Romanesque Duomo on its terrace — the view runs the whole Apuan wall — and give the lanes an unhurried afternoon.

Ride the railway for its own sake: the Lucca–Aulla line is one of Italy's quietly great mountain runs, crossing from the Serchio to the Magra watershed through the Apuan tunnels, with Equi Terme — a spa hamlet under a marble gorge — as the classic stop on the far side. Walkers have the Apuan Alps park paths and the valley stages of the Via del Volto Santo pilgrim route toward Lucca.

• Language: Italian; a surprising amount of Scottish-accented English in Barga
• Currency: euro
• Plug: European type C/F/L
• Money: ATMs in Castelnuovo and Barga; cash for farm stands and village sagre
• Mobile: Good in the valley towns and along the railway; patchy in the Orecchiella and the high Apuan valleys
• Good to know: Barga's old town sits well uphill from the Barga-Gallicano station — allow for the bus or a stiff half-hour walk
• Nearest hospital: Castelnuovo di Garfagnana; larger facilities at Lucca