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February 3, 2013

The Forgotten Village

Florence & Walk 042

Here in the Valleriana, it is late winter and it especially quiet during a season that has been wetter than normal.  Many people are away in other parts of the world, there are some happy visitors, but we are ready for the Spring and the new season.  This is the time of the year to climb up the hills and mountains (see previous post) and recently we visited the abandoned village of Lignana, high up the mountain of the same name.  Monte Lignana is visible from the west side of Vellano, a sharp wooded peak that from a distance does not show it’s secret past, it’s ruined mountain village hidden in the trees.  In the 14th century, during wars between Florence, Lucca and Pisa, so the fable goes, the women of the village fed-up with being left with all the work to do, poverty and being left alone by the men going to war, decided to leave the village and burnt it to the ground and moved down the hill to the village of Sorana.  The area of the village they moved to was named ‘Paradiso’ by the locals because of the beauty of the women of Lignana.

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