An immersion in nature and history.
Between the Piana di Lucca and the Serchio valley, the Brancoleria is a narrow, green valley dotted with villages with narrow alleys and tall houses with chiselled stone portals, small arched windows and many details. The village of Brancoli, to which the valley owes its name, is a strange village, made up of several different hamlets up to several kilometres apart, united by a dense network of paths through forests and plateaus and characterised by small parish churches with fascinating stories that conceal masterpieces.
The parish church of San Giorgio in Brancoli is the largest and most harmonious, immersed in unspoilt nature. It starts here and continues from village to village along this Romanesque route.
The church of San Giorgio in Brancoli is one of the most fascinating examples of late Romanesque architecture in Lucca. The Comacini masters worked on it, the same workers who laboured on the Cathedral of Lucca, who reserved simpler yet elegant and refined forms for this ‘country’ church. The interior of the church is a more traditional Romanesque, with large columns and inlaid capitals. On the portal of the side cheisa, a funny character greets visitors.
From here you can climb up to the Croce di Brancoli following the Stations of the Cross and crossing the trenches and trenches dug by the Germans during the last war, where the so-called ‘Gothic Line’ passed. Crossing the village and then the chestnut wood, from the Brancoli cross the panorama opens wide over the valley and the loops of the Serchio river, the peaks of the Apuan Alps and the Apennines.
From the cross you can walk to Piazza di Brancoli, the highest village in this area, a small hamlet with a splendid panorama, gathered around the Church of Santa Maria Assunta whose origins are very ancient as confirmed by the beautiful pre-Romanesque bas-reliefs on the façade and the portal decorated with plant motifs, an architrave with leaves and human figures, lions, saints and angels.
Descending towards the valley, the road reaches a fork in the road. Proceeding to the right, one reaches San Pietro di Ombreglio topped by the pink bell tower of the church, whose current appearance dates back to the 17th century. Already known in chronicles since the 8th century, rebuilt in 1199, as attested by the apigraph placed at the entrance, the church underwent radical modifications in 1700, to which the side chapels were added in 1870.
On the left, however, after a few kilometres between hairpin bends lined with olive groves, the road runs alongside the small church of San Lorenzo in Corte, which stands out white in the landscape. The bell tower, which rises above an arch, hints at the presence of an earlier road, the ancient path from Vinchiana that climbed towards the Romitorio di Brancoli. The interior is very simple with a single nave, but houses an important Della Robbia terracotta depicting the titular saint.
Continuing downhill, one comes to the church of Sant'Ilario in Brancoli. The exterior has been remodelled several times, but the interior retains almost all of its original and fascinating 7th century appearance.
The church of San Frediano di Deccio in Brancoli has a thousand-year history and does not go unnoticed. The last renovation was recent, in 1913, but it retains its original austere appearance. From the village, gathered on a hilltop around the ancient castle defending the plain, there is a beautiful panorama of the valley.