I first discovered the Orrido di Botri in the most ordinary way imaginable.
I was sitting in a café at the entrance to Bagni di Lucca when I noticed a poster advertising this extraordinary-looking canyon. The photograph was dramatic, dark and mysterious. I looked at it and thought: I want to go there.
Eventually, I did.
And only then did I realise that no photograph could really prepare you for the experience.
The Orrido di Botri is one of the most remarkable natural features of our area: a deep limestone gorge carved out over thousands of years by the waters of the Rio Pelago. Its towering walls rise above the stream, and as you walk further into the gorge, everything becomes narrower, darker and more enclosed.
I remember the extraordinary sensation of feeling embraced by the mountain.
It was an odd sort of embrace—comforting and frightening at the same time. The walls seemed to close around me. At some points the canyon became so narrow that I felt I could almost touch both sides.
The outside world disappeared.
There were no roads, no houses, no ordinary sounds of civilisation. Just rock above me, water beneath me and this immense mountain enclosure.
And then there was the darkness.
Compared with the brilliant Tuscan sunshine outside, the interior of the gorge seemed almost subterranean.
Perhaps that is why the name is so appropriate.
In Italian, orrido means something horrid, frightening or terrifying.
This isn’t simply a pretty Tuscan valley. It is wild, mysterious and, at times, genuinely intimidating.

There is also the enduring tradition that the Orrido inspired Dante’s vision of the entrance to Hell. I can certainly understand the legend.
Dante’s Inferno is full of darkness, narrow passages, terrifying landscapes and the feeling of being trapped somewhere beyond the ordinary world.
The Orrido certainly has that atmosphere.
Yet for many years, remarkably, it seemed to receive far less attention than it deserved.
People quite rightly wax lyrical about the Plateau Fiorito, the Lima Valley and the other beautiful landscapes around Bagni di Lucca. Shelley himself celebrated the surrounding landscape in Epipsychidion.
But the Orrido?
It seemed almost forgotten.
Thankfully, that is changing.
The Orrido is increasingly recognised as one of the great natural treasures of the area. But increased interest also brings responsibility. This is not a place for careless tourism. Visitors have to register, wear protective helmets because of the danger of falling stones, and take great care negotiating the wet and slippery rocks along the stream.
It needs to be visited.
But it also needs to be understood and protected.
And that is where culture can play an important part.
A guide can explain the geology, the wildlife and the history.

But an artist or poet can perhaps communicate something else entirely:
what the Orrido feels like.
That was the idea behind the wonderful event we attended this Sunday.

At the heart of the initiative is Mariavittoria Castrucci, one of the Orrido’s guardians and passionate advocates. With her background in trekking and walking—and as a marathon champion—she knows the landscape intimately. But what is particularly impressive is her determination to make people appreciate the Orrido at a deeper level and to encourage responsible tourism.
Her message was simple: we need people not merely to visit the Orrido, but to care about it.
And so, following months of planning involving members of our local poetry groups—Mara, Maria, Rossana, Alexandra and others—we gathered together to celebrate the Orrido through poetry and art.
The poets brought their poems and haiku.

And there were artists too. I decided to have a go. I managed to scratch something out that I had never attempted before—and, rather surprisingly, enjoyed myself.
The Orrido was making artists of us all!

Roberto, Rossana, Mara, Maria, Sandra, Alessandra and others each contributed their own poeticsl evocation of the gorge.
And what was fascinating was how stylistically different yet paradoxically in such a similar way we asaw the same place.
For all of us it was the darkness, the limpid freezing waters, the towering rocks.and above all the mystery and the extraordinary sensation of standing inside a mountain.
A geologist can tell you how the canyon was formed. A guide can tell you how to walk through it safely. But a poem can tell you what it feels like to be there.
And this, I think, is how the Orrido can become more than simply another tourist attraction.
It can become part of the cultural life of Bagni di Lucca.
Indeed, the poems and artistic contributions from this project are to be brought together in a little book, which will be published next year. Its purpose is not simply to advertise the Orrido, but to explore its cultural dimension and encourage people to appreciate this extraordinary place on a deeper level.
We shall certainly be telling you more about the book when it appears..
We sat together, talked, laughed, listened to the poems and admired the artistic efforts. We concluded, quite properly, with a glass of Prosecco.
A late-summer afternoon, mountains, poetry, painting, friendship, good food and Prosecco—all beside one of the most extraordinary natural wonders of our own backyard.

I came away convinced that the Orrido di Botri is entering a new chapter.
For too long it was the overlooked treasure of the area.
Now it is being rediscovered.
But I hope we don’t simply bring more people to it.
I hope we bring more understanding.
Because the Orrido doesn’t merely show you a landscape.
It does something to you.
It makes you feel small.
It makes you feel slightly afraid.
It makes you feel wonderfully alive.
And, if you’re lucky, it makes you feel that the mountain itself has reached out and embraced you.

My thanks to everyone who helped make this memorable day possible, and especially to the remarkable Mariavittoria Castrucci—a brilliant organiser, a passionate guardian of the Orrido and a real beacon of what can be achieved when nature and culture are brought together.

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