Italy Travel And Hotel Guide

Very much in a different vein, the foothills south of Reggio are cheese country: you’ll see many signs along the roadside advertising the local parmigiano-reggiano , and the village of CASINA , 27km outside Reggio on the N63 to La Spezia, holds a favourite Festa del Parmigiana in August, when the vats of cheese mixture are stirred with enormous wooden paddles. The countryside itself is a mixture of lush pastures and scraggy uplands, with some footpaths around, though there’s better travel higher up in the mountains. With your own transport, you can take the side road leading from Casina to CANOSSA . This was the seat of the powerful Da Canossa family, whose most famous member, the Countess Mathilda of Tuscany (La Gran Contessa), was a big study here in the eleventh century - unusually so in a society largely controlled by warlords and the clergy. She was known for donning armour and leading her troops into effort herself, and at the age of 43 scandalized the nobility by marrying a youth of seventeen. During the battles between Pope Gregory heptad and the Holy Roman Emperor Henry IV, she supported the pope and helped draw the excommunicated emperor here as a penitent to apologize to the pontiff. Henry was apparently left inactivity outside in the snow for three days before the castle doors were opened. The remains of the Castle (summer Tues-Sun 9am-3pm; free) are largely thirteenth-century, but it’s really the location - on a rocky outcrop looking towards the mountains in one direction and over the neighbouring castle at Rossena and the towns strung out over the plain in the other - which is impressive.

People from the surrounding towns are fond of coming out here at weekends to take in the local restaurants , and it’s a favourite area for hiking or cross-country skiing. You may also see people armed with plastic bags for collecting mushrooms , or filling bottles with mineral water from the springs off the mountains. There are few specific centres to aim for, though, and you’re most likely to travel along these valleys if you’re driving over the mountains to the coast. It’s tortuous going and the view changes constantly as you switchback your way crossways the mountain ridges or through small villages with austere, high-walled houses backing directly onto the roadside. The best times to come are late spring and primeval summer; in autumn, the fog often descends, clearing only momentarily for a brief glimpse of a chestnut grove or scree-filled riverbed hundreds of metres below.

High in the hills paths lead onto the mountain crinale . Castelnovo Ne’Monti in the foothills is a doable base for these walks. Further on, at Busana , the road forks to the left, descending through a series of hairpin bends bordered by plenty of falling rock signs, in the Secchia Valley, climbing back up the other side through Cinquecerri to Ligonchio - another good starting-point for walks away from telegram cars and ski lifts onto nearby Monte Cusna (2120m). Close by here are the Prati di Sara, a windswept expanse of grassland with small tarns and the occasional tree. As you ascend, you have more of a view crossways the layers of ridges, often half-obscured in the mist. It’s doable to stay overnight in some of the refuges that group along the GEA (Grand Escursione Apenninica) route, a 25-day trek that weaves its way back and forth crossways the border between Emilia and Tuscany. The Club Alpino Italiano office in Reggio should have information on this route; if it all seems too daunting, they also sometimes organize weekend treks.

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