A map of our day’s route in several chapters:
The next morning broke to glorious views over the valley, mist rising over the green and golden hills, the sun casting its warmth on the side of our 500-year-old apartment. The cats came to say an early good morning as we got ourselves ready for our busy day ahead.
Gingerly, I made my way down the well-worn steps with no recollection of any breakfast or coffee.
Shocking, I know.
We wound our way down the mountainside as the fog below cleared setting out first to find a new phone charging cable. Somewhere during the last 24 hours I’d lost mine never to be found again. With my battery dying by the minute and the stress factor rising, we limped into the grocery “super” store, or as much as “super” gets in Italy. There are no mega-markets like our Walmart here, so you get what you get. I just prayed we’d find a Lightning Cable before I was completely out of luck!!
One more view of the hillside village of Collodi in the morning light as we passed by:
Fortune smiled upon us and we found not only the cable I needed but also a nice lunch for take away. If memory serves, we had a little potato salad, a couple of croquettes that they heated up for us, and some focaccia with toppings. Sorry, no photo but I do remember it was tasty. Here are some of the options we saw- note the massive hanging hams and meats all wrapped for gift-giving!
Back on the road, we made our way first to Il Quericione, in English The Oak of the Witches. It’s also nicknamed the Oak of Pinocchio. I found this informational that you might be interested in; if not, scroll on by, but when I was researching the area for off-the-beaten-path things to do, I thought it’d be fun. If you’re at all interested in where Uncle Walt may have gotten inspiration for his re-telling of this beloved story, this is for you!
“The monumental tree is located in Gragnano and it is has incredible proportions. Its trunk measures over 4 m and reaches the height of 25 m. It is recognized as a monumental tree of Italy, and it also appears on NATO maps as a military point of reference.
Two legends originated from its peculiar shape. The first one tells that the oak was the meeting point of witches, who danced and celebrated their rites on its top. The presence of the witches on the top of the oak had not allowed for the full growth of the branches, giving the tree its particular flat shape, with horizontal branches. For this reason, the tree is usually called ‘oak of the witches’.
The second one is linked to the famous novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. The oak would then be the place where Pinocchio is hanged by the assassins who wanted to steal his gold coins. It is also the place where Pinocchio meets the Cat and the Fox, who later convince him to plant his coins in the Field of Miracles to grow a tree with gold coins. For this reason, the tree is also called Oak of Pinocchio.
It is said that the author of the novel, writing about the ‘Land of Toys’, was thinking about the Settembre Lucchese, a fair held in Lucca every September: the oak is in fact the middle point of the road from Collodi to Lucca.”
Sadly, my panorama photo is blurry, but the tree is so massive that there was no way it’d all fit into one photo. But here are the photos I did get, and I hope it gives you an idea of just how enormous this tree is!
From there, we headed back up the dirt road that the tree is on and made our way to the Ponte San Quirico, an arched beauty just north of the city of Lucca. Our walk along the banks of the Serchio River- small and shallow but picturesque- was very refreshing. There were plenty of water birds, the sky was crisp with Autumn air, and it was nice to be taking a break from art and museums and out seeing some of Mother Nature.
Continued in the next post…