Viareggio isn’t just sea, sun, sand and ice-cream. It’s also history with beautiful mansions ranging from classical to art nouveau. It’s a major luxury yacht building and service area. It’s a great fishing and sea food centre and it has a considerable artists’ colony. Together with its nearest English equivalent, Brighton, Viareggio has been the holiday haunt of the rich, the famous and the princely. Within its boundaries there are no less than two regal residences: the Villa Borbona on the Viale dei Tigli (‘Lime Tree Avenue’) and the Villa Paolina by the square which has a monument to Shelley, who unfortunately met his briny death in 1822, aged 29, off the Viareggio coast in a violent storm.

 

For last week’s fish Friday, I couldn’t miss my cod and chips. What better place to have it fresh from the sea of Viareggio with crispest batter but no soggy chips, and mayonnaise instead of vinegar…. mind you, I did miss my mushy peas… but not the rain!

P.S. The cat below is Ettore – a favourite of fishermen – sadly no longer with us on this planet since 2016 but in spirit with his statue. (Still miss my beloved cat Napoleone badly…..)

 

Other must-see places in Viareggio are the stunning art nouveau Villa Argentina (see my post on that at

Tiger-Hunting in Viareggio’s most Exquisite Art Nouveau Villa

and Puccini’s residences. (For more on them see my posts at

https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/10/where-turandot-grew-up/

and

https://longoio3.com/2018/06/30/the-house-of-the-princess-of-my-dreams/

Recently, as part of international women’s week, at Bagni di Lucca’s casinò, Renata Frediani gave a fascinating talk on Paolina Bonaparte Borghese and her times. (See my post on this at https://longoio3.com/2019/03/13/dont-miss-out-on-pontes-casino-this-week/).

Renata mentioned that she had helped to refurbish the princess’s rooms in the Villa Paolina. Last Friday I  visited the villa and was certainly not disappointed!

The exhibition is set up in the stately rooms of the ‘piano nobile’ of the emperor Napoleon’s sister, Paolina Borghese. It has been refurbished with furniture and artistic items of the Napoleonic age, all curated by Renata Frediani who is an antiques collector from Lucca and an expert on ‘style empire’. Most of the precious furnishings, including the entire collection of exquisite dresses on display, were supplied from Renata’s own collection.

 

The exhibition is further enriched with evening dresses, also from Renata’s collection. They are of special interest as they are by the famous fashion stylist from Lucca, Dina Bigongiari Santini who died in 2004 aged 89. If you’ve never heard of Bigongiari, you should know she was Giorgio Armani’s favourite designer as well as of the Royal House of Montecarlo. Dina was much appreciated for her novel dress designs which have a truly refined, aristocratic quality. She opened her atelier during the post-war period in the historic centre of Lucca and also created the silk museum, (upon which textile Lucca founded its fame and fortune).

Dina Bigongiari ’s styling was innovative and of the highest quality. For me a definition of beauty would be to meet a lady wearing one of her dresses…

 

Set in the exquisite ambience of Princess Borghese’s pleasure palace with its delightful frescoed rooms, the Villa Paolina’s collection is certainly something to seduce one away from the esplanade and the ozone-laden air of Viareggio’s seafront.

These are the villa’s current opening times.

1 September to 14 June: Wednesday to Saturday 3.30 PM to 7.30 PM, Sunday 9.30 to 1.30 PM, 3.30 PM to 7.30 PM.

There’s more information on the villa at https://www.visittuscany.com/en/attractions/villa-paolina-civic-museum-in-viareggio/

If your thing isn’t fashion then the villa Paolina houses no less than three other museums:

Museo Archeologico e dell’Uomo A.C. Blanc (local prehistoric and Etruscan finds.)

 

Museo degli Strumenti Musicali C. Ciuffreda (Musical instruments collection, including items from Tibet).

 

Atelier A. Catarsini: an artist’s studio and contemporary art exhibitions including paintings by one of my favourite local artists, the brilliant Fornaciari who lives round the corner from the villa.

 

To sum up do look at this leaflet about Viareggio’s civic museums: