Thanks to the chance to stay at the magnificent Residenza Palazzo Visdomini, in Tuscany, in Versilia area (District of Lucca) it is possible to visit the amazing cities of Pietrasanta and Carrara.
Pietrasanta and its underground tunnels
Pietrasanta, in the District of Lucca, is a hamlet located not far from the Residenza Palazzo Visdomini, situated in the same District. It is a small town of Tuscany, that has been a crossroad for sculptors from all over the globe, a world-renowned centre for bronze and marble manufacturing. In Pietrasanta came polished Etruscan traders, pugnacious and fierce Ligurian-Apuan, Roman builders, and later, the Lombards. Thanks to its old town, well preserved and rich of monuments, Petrasanta is exactly what an Art City looks like. Here, visitors can admire the Duomo of St. Martino, in Romanesque-Gothic style, and the formerly Church dedicated to St. Agostino, from the XIV Century.
Pietrasanta Cathedral
Moreover, in Pietrasanta, an ideal destination of a tour from the Residenza Palazzo Visdomini, the Town Library, the City Tower (Gothic style), and the Town Theatre, are buildings of particular value. Other remarkable monuments are the Rocchetta Arrighina, the arch of Porta a Pisa, the Column of Marzocco and the homonymous fountain, as well as the Monument to Leopoldo II, and the Panichi Carli Palace. Its well-structured undergrounds, its ramparts, its Rocca di Sala, as well as its Oratory of St. Giacinto and its Church of St. Francesco, are definitely a must-see.
Thanks to these marvels, the city of the marble is an active centre of the recent district of Massa e Carrara.
Carrara, renowned worldwide for its marble
Carrara, in Tuscany (in the District of Massa e Carrara) is famous all over the world, and a sojourn at the Residenza Palazzo Visdomini (in the District of Lucca) is a great chance to visit it.
Carrara Cathedral
Carrara was already famous for its Marble during the II Century B.C., when Romans built the hamlet from which the city would have born later. Carrara is a surprising place of Tuscany, with a little known, incredible artistic and cultural heritage, and today it is one of the two county seats of the homonymous province, that is Massa e Carrara. Reaching the Residenza Palazzo Visdomini, visitors must stop and admire Piazza del Duomo, the centre of the old town, the Duomo of St. Andrea is a magnificent example of beauty, an amazing model of Romanesque-Gothic architecture. Church of the Suffrage, the Church of St. Francesco, the Church of the Carmine, as well as the Church of the Madonna of the Tears, and the Church of St. Michele, are some more shining examples of religious architecture. Among the number of valuable jewels guarded in the beautiful Carrara, located in the hearth of Tuscany and reachable from the Residenza Palazzo Visdomini, there are also the Emanuele Repetti’s House (XIII Century), the Pisan Counts’ Palace, an austere seventeenth-century building, the Medico Palace, an elegant baroque building, the Diana Palace, harmonious building built on a Giorgio Vasari’s plan, but also the Cybo-Malaspina Palace, an incredible complex made of a Castle and a Stately Palace, added during the Renaissance. Thanks to these marvels, the city of the marble is an active centre of the recent district of Massa e Carrara.
