The spread of summer events in Bagni di Lucca has been somewhat curtailed this year because of the world health crisis. However, there are still some very pleasant activities including a series of walks in and around the town and the surrounding villages organized by the De Montaigne foundation. This is the programme for the events which must all be booked. The walks themselves are free with a voluntary donation towards the upkeep of Bagni’s protestant cemetery.

We joined one last week-end which took in some historic buildings by the Lucchese architect Giuseppe Pardini (1799-1884) who, in 1834, was appointed chief architect for the city of Lucca.

We started the walk from the gardens of villa Fiori, a formerly magnificent nineteenth century mansion, now virtually abandoned to the elements. Some work had recently been done on its roof. Unfortunately, during the recent storm, described in my previous post, a tall pine tree fell upon the building gravely damaging a part of the structure.

Although now having a classical appearance, villa Fiori was originally designed in the neo-gothic style. Only the garden turrets now reflect the original architecture of the villa which is desperately seeking a white knight to rescue it from further neglect.

At the price normally paid for a tiny bedsit in London’s Knightsbridge the villa’s fifty rooms are a real bargain!

We crossed the foot bridge, built in 2009, with our escort, Giulia, a very well informed twenty-three year old member of Bagni’s De Montaigne cultural association, and walked to the old hospital built by Russian count Demidoff as a thank you to the citizens of Bagni for having cured him of gout by drinking its waters.

The villa Demidoff has been leased for some years to the Global Village which hosts various alternative well-being therapies. The former family mausoleum is now used for yoga sessions.

Of course, we know these places well having first come to the area in 2005. However, the nice thing about visiting in a small group is that we can see familiar sights with fresh eyes. I get the same sensation when I show some of the beautiful locations this valley offers to friends from abroad.

A steep path led us up to one of the oldest of Bagni’s thermal establishments. The Terme di Bernabo’ date back to at least the fifteenth century although the present building is nineteenth century. Its foyer has exquisite ceiling decorations.

We viewed the elegant marble baths with their rather less elegant modern taps.

One bath particularly stood out for its elegance.

The unfortunate thing about the Bagni Bernabo’, however, is that after their restoration ten years ago there was no-one to maintain and encourage visitors to use them. Hence they are, once again, showing signs of dilapidation. Our escort, nevertheless, did state that there was a possibility that they would once again be open for use by the public.

The views from the Bagni Bernabo’ are especially charming, even more so in the golden late afternoon summer sun; our walk had begun at 5pm to avoid the hottest part of the day.

We stepped down to the valley floor and entered perhaps Bagni di Lucca’s most magnificent building and Europe’s first public casino, again designed by Pardini. The various rooms, including the sumptuous hall of the lilies (decorated by the same painter who did the ceiling frescoes for the Bagni Bernabo’), are familiar to us through the events they have hosted over the years. May these events return soon!

We crossed the river Lima via a bridge designed, again, by Pardini and reached one of the architect’s most ingenious buildings, the hotel de Russie.

On an awkward triangular site the architect managed to produce one of the most sumptuous of the forty-odd hotels Bagni di Lucca once had. Giulia informed us that an American architect was inspired by Pardini’s effort to design the flatiron building in New York. Judge for yourselves…

With this last building, which has both a famous (as writer Ouida’s favourite residence when she would come to Bagni) and an infamous (as a fascist interrogation and torture centre in the last war) association we concluded our Ponte a Serraglio walk. We shall certainly book more as they are such fun and very informative.