Recently I was asked by friends for suitable places and activities for their three year old grandchild’s forthcoming visit.

Of course, the big event in our area for children of all ages is the ‘paese dei balocchi’, running on the week-end from 22 to 23 of this month, in which Bagni di Lucca gets transformed into a giant toytown for children of all ages, with treasure hunts, the fairy’s parlour, face painting, street bands and theatre, the invisible man and so forth.

Unfortunately, the little one was unable to attend Toyland, and so I settled on the standard list of Collodi’s Pinocchio Park, Pistoia zoo, the playground at Villa and, generally, just enjoying the special natural ambience of our area.

One place was mentioned and the other day I checked out the suitability of taking a three year old across one of the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridges. (The longest, incidentally, is the 494 metre Charles Kuonen bridge opened in Switzerland in 2017).

The ‘ponte sospeso delle ferriere’ (suspension bridge of the iron foundries) is a pedestrian walkway that connects the two sides of the Lima torrent between Mammiano Basso and Popiglio in the municipality of San Marcello Piteglio.

It rests on four steel cables and measures 227 metres in length, 36 meters maximum height above the river bed and and is 80 cm wide. In 1990 it was included in the Guinness Book of Records as “the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in the world”. That is, until the Swiss got in on the act…

Inaugurated in June 1923, the bridge was built following the design of ​​Vincenzo Douglas Scotti, Count of San Giorgio della Scala, and director of the Mammiano Basso steel mill. It allowed worker from Popiglio, on the other side of the Lima valley, to get the factories without having to walk a further five miles to reach the workplace.

Count Vincenzo Douglas Scotti (of Scottish ancestry) commissioned Filiberto Ducceschi, who was responsible for the construction of the cables, while the masonry and support work were entrusted to Cesare Vannucci.

Work began in 1920 with the help of some thirty workers, who anchored the cables. At this point it was possible to create a pedestrian walkway, consisting of planks and metal nets hinged to the supporting structure, which connected the two opposite banks of the Lima river without any intermediate support.

However, after the mills closed down the bridge took on a new function as a thrilling tourist attraction. It has undergone important maintenance and consolidation over the years, the latest being in 2004, which have made the bridge more stable and resistant through the complete replacement of cables, side bolts, walkways and protections, with stronger and lighter material.

Spectacular LED Bridge lighting was inaugurated in 2014.

My approach to the bridge was enhanced by an elegantly laid garden path:

The bridge did sway a bit but I think this was due more to a group of excited young children than any climatological condition!

As for the bridge’s suitability for three year olds: no problem. The youngest traverser of the bridge we met was just two and a half years old!