This morning during my usual trip in the woods nearby, I found some very funny-shaped trees… they form a sort of letter “n” or if you prefer an arch. I think they were put there on purpose so isn’t exactly a “natural” thing, but nonetheless I found it so curious that I had to take a picture.

What is really an amazing nature-work instead is the weird shaped tree below that I called the “fork tree”

The nearest airports are in Parma, Pisa and Geneva, so it is really possible to get there easily and quickly in less than 4-5h of travel with airplane+train from almost anywhere in europe.

If you’re looking to buy a holiday home, it is a very good place: it has less pollution, less traffic, and more quality in the services than all other areas of Italy. There’s a big hospital in Borgo val di Taro, which is the biggest town of the valley, in which you also can find a train station.
From this train station you can reach comfortably the Cinque Terre, or travel to Pontremoli in Tuscany, or get to Parma in just 1h. So, a ideal holiday place for everyone that’s looking to stay in a quiet zone, yet with great restaurants serving excellent local dishes (like the famous mushroom “porcino”). Recently I saw a TV show in which they were talking about this zone as one of the best italian real-estate zones for at least the next 3 years.

Prices are very low compared to other zones of Italy. For example you can get a house with 600m of garden nearby Borgo val di Taro in good conditions for only 159k euros! such a house in other regions of Italy would cost at least twice. Prices are starting to rise quickly though, so I suggest you don’t delay too much!

The last day, before taking the ferry back home, we did the last trip to the lighthouse, with a bit of nostalgy (to be honest, a lot of nostalgy!). Then when we got back to the port we realized that we had still 2h of time before departure. So we started a tour of the various shops, we got an ice cream, but only 30 minutes had passed. In such moments the time seems to pass so slowly…and then we used the car and we drove back a bit, to a path we saw some days before, to do a quick exploration.

Knowing that we hadn’t much time available we ran through the path quickly, and we were astonished to see a very beautiful spot, completely hidden from the main road!

In a race against the time, pushed from the curiosity to take a closer look, we almost broke a leg and were about to be bitten by a snake that was sleeping in the stones nearby (I didn’t notice if it was a viper or anything else). But in the end we made it! but we were disappointed to see that the shore wasn’t “secret” at all, but a private shore, indeed a huge villa was built just on the seaside…!

In the picture above you can’t see the villa, but you can see the shore. I have to admit that I’m a bit envy anyway, that was our last excursion in our holiday to the “Isola del Giglio”, a really wonderful place that I suggest to visit, but only in low season! I can’t imagine all those small roads and little shores by summer, full of people…!

So, this is the first sight of the path that leads down to the lighthouse… naturally you can’t get there by car, so if you’re a bit lazy… better give up!

you can notice once again the wonderful flowers all around the sides of the path. Really amazing!

this old stone bridge is something unique. Old-looking but still robust, with small grass bushes growing here and there, it was giving to this place an almost “fantasy” atmosphere! maybe also because that day the sky was cloudy, with a grey typical of the scottish/celtic movie settings!

Once past the lighthouse, you could reach the southern extremity of the island, climbing down to the sea with this funny ladder carved into the stone that you can see in the picture above.

Another funny but really wonderful spot to do a pic-nic, or even just a moment of relax, a break from the mundane frenetic life, that seems to be so distant from the chaos you can see in the modern towns… I love that picture pastel colors!

from the wooden table you can see the lighthouse on the distance. As you can see you have to walk for some more meters to get into the “pic-nic” spot, but it is really worth it!

At last, here is a picture of the ladder that climbs down directly into the sea. That day it was really rough (even if doesn’t seem so from the picture above) and it was a bit scary honestly!

A word of warning: don’t try that if you aren’t well trained. We did it in Aprile, so it wasn’t too hot for sure, but still was really tiring! also the road does interrupts in some points so it is easy to get lost. It did happen to use and we had to walk the last 1-2km using a main road with cars, not exactly what we were expecting…!

In the picture above a sort of mirage of Giglio Castello. I’m still laughing thinking about it because we were saying “a few steps and we are there” and instead…

…instead as I said we got lost and above you can see that we had to take a walk in the main asphalt road to get there. In the end we arrived there anyway, just in time to buy some food! we started in the afternoon at 2pm and we thought to get there quickly, buy some food (like the exquisite “focaccia”, typical tuscan bread) and then get back.

But instead we had to run to get there in time before the bakeries were closing! anyway, it is a wonderful walk, and when we got back down again to the shore we found out what we did wrong… even if the indication could have been better!