Last Saturday afternoon in the elegant rose room of Bagni di Lucca’s ‘Circolo dei Forestieri’ Marco Nicoli presented a new book dealing with our beautiful part of the world.
The book is called ‘Le Dolomiti di Val di Lima’ and it’s by Enzo Maestripieri .
‘Le Dolomiti di Val di Lima’ is a superb guidebook to our local mountains written by someone who, although not of this area, (Maestripieri is from Pistoia) has known these mountains since he was a young lad.
The book is divided into three parts.
The first is an introduction to the area dealing with its geological, historical and cultural aspects. The author also mentions the problems affecting the area today: depopulation, abandonment of traditional agricultural practices and changing climate conditions. All these mean that paths are neglected and, at lower altitudes, are covered by rapidly enroaching vegetation making the going in many areas as tough as cutting one’s way through a Mayan jungle.
The second part covers, in a rigorously organized form I’d never encountered before, the main mountain groups of our Val di Lima area. Apart from pioneering new routes through many of the areas the author has also made several discoveries including former mines dating back to the eighteenth century.
The massifs, so familiar to many of us, covered are:
Right of Lima river:
- Crinale di Campolino and Valle di Scesta
- Balzo Nero
- Monte di Limano and Monte Cimo
- Monte Mosca, Coronato and Prato Fiorito
Left of Lima river:
- Penna di Lucchio and Memoriante
This part of the book makes mind travel almost as exciting as travelling for real. The photographs by Paolo Mazzoni are superb and there are over five hundred of them in the book!
The third part is a ‘quick guide’ to the twenty-five best walks in our area. This is the part that will most appeal to all those in love with our unique landscape. Here is a page from walks nos 3 and 4, dealing with ways of getting to the top of the Balzo Nero, the majestic peak overshadowing the village of Vice Pancellorum.
Even if I think I know some of these places well the author’s skill in finding alternative routes is quite astonishing. All in all I would rate Maestripieri’s book as probably the best to have been published on the Val di Lima mountains .
A book like this can only bring more people from all over the world who are willing to discover our area’s natural delights and learn more about the special cultural features of this remoter part of Tuscany. The fact that it’s titled ‘The Dolomites of Val di Lima’ isn’t an advertising sweetener. Maestripieri truly proves that one doesn’t have to climb up the Marmolada in the North Italian dolomites to experience the thrill of scampering over excitingly-shaped and rewarding rocky mountain slopes. And also in the Val di Lima one is not invaded by hoardes of similar-minded people like one is in the Italian Dolomites. It’s all waiting for you here to discover!
IT was ripped pants as I saved my life on Marmolada one winter. The story goes as follows my Nonno Alessandro had given me a gift of 15 thousand lire and I wanted a pair of ski boots so a friend Franco brought me to the Dolomite outlet factory to purchase direct my beautiful lace up leather ski boots. I had just sufficient money and also for a spare set of laces. It was so exciting mission accomplished and now to try them out on snow. We went as a group of friends to Marmolada decent snow covered the ghiacciaio and I was happily delighted with my skiing in my very own boots. Suddenly looming large and not so far ahead was a scary crevasse never before seen but quite common there . I had to get my snow plough skills into motion to stop myself from toppling into the looming abyss. I did so with such force of adrenalin that I split my rather tight ski pants. So the moral to this story is to wear more flexible ski pants and try to avoid skiing in super dangerous territory. We have done a fair few walks but I get scared when I hear that expert mountaineers have lost their lives which have sadly been claimed by these mountains this is when I hang up my boots and take up another interest instead. The alternative is to fly over these area s or get a drone to do it for you. Admittedly I hear you say that suggestion takes the fun out of the adventure and exercise but as we get older we get slower and walking gets tougher breath and energy both diminish and we become more prone to dangers. So I prefer to recall our mountain adventures to mind and to cherish those thoughts.
Thanks very much for your reflections on your adventures.