Stage 18

Cutigliano-Pontepetri

This stage is very beautiful and varied, on paths, roads with little traffic, a stretch that retains an ancient paving and cart tracks through which you reach one of the most important tourist destinations in the area: St. Marcello Pistoiese. After this village you take the old railway that today has been recovered for the pedestrian route and leads to the villages of Gavinana and Maresca. The first town is famous for the battle in which  F. Ferrucci died in 1530, to which  a beautiful equestrian statue is dedicated. Today in Gavinana, in the historic Palazzo Achilli, is located the Ecomuseum of the Pistoia Mountains, which was the first Ecomuseum in Italy. In Maresca, too, a famous episode that occurred during the time of Republican Rome is remembered: Lucio Sergio Catilina, promoter of the famous conspiracy, died here in 62 B.C. Rome. In the village there’s also a fun fact much more recent but not really as known: just on the way there, you can see a brass plaque that recalls the convention in which has been adopted the signage that is used in all the trails of Italy, the red-white one that the volunteers of the CAI untiringly place on trees and walls.