The best cycling routes around Licciana Nardi

A fantastic parish church that's worth a visit. The interior, especially, is truly beautiful.

A very easy and pleasant ride. Much of the route follows secondary roads with very little traffic. Splendid views of Fosdinovo Castle, the mouth of the Magra River, and the Bay of La Spezia.

Perhaps the best preserved in Lunigiana, high on the hill overlooking the Magra plain. Still belonging to the Malaspina descendants, it has dominated the town since the 12th century and is at the center of numerous legends. With a quadrangular plan, it has four round towers, a semicircular bastion, two internal courtyards, patrol walkways from which you can see the sea and an outpost in the direction of the village. It was originally protected by a drawbridge. The fortress appears as a medieval structure, in fact expanded in the 14th century by Spinetta and Galeotto Malaspina and renovated several times over the centuries. The main entrance welcomes us with a marble shield depicting a dog with a flowering thorn in its mouth, symbol of the friendship between the Malaspina and the Scaligeri of Verona. From the top of the castle you can see the elongated structure of the village, arranged along the hill. There are many legendary stories about the castle of Fosdinovo: from Bianca Malaspina to the Marquise Cristina Pallavicini The Marquise Cristina Pallavicini, who governed the fiefdom for a long time after the death of her husband Ippolito, seems to have been an evil and lustful woman and had the habit of throwing her lovers from the trapdoor at the foot of the bed in her trap room with the torture chamber below. Another legend linked to the castle of Fosdinovo and much older than that of the Marquise Bianca Maria Aloisia, daughter of the Marquis Malaspina, who fell in love with the stableman of the castle and, because of this feeling, was walled up alive together with a wild boar, a symbol of rebellion against the family, and a dog, a symbol of loyalty towards the beloved. Legend has it that, walking through the castle, you can still perceive the presence of the unfortunate princess! Another reason to visit the Malaspina castle is the fact that tradition has it that the “great poet” Dante Alighieri stayed in its rooms, called to Lunigiana in 1306 by the Marquis Franceschino Malaspina.

Fosdinovo is located in the Lower Magra Valley, north of the Luni plain, on the border between Tuscany and Liguria. It probably owes its name to "Faucenova", new mouth, a probable reference to a new road that opened from the sea towards the interior. The village is a small treasure chest of art, always a gateway to the historic region of Lunigiana, among its streets you can perceive the air of the border: you can smell the sea, you can breathe the mountains. Since 2014 Fosdinovo, with its perfectly preserved castle-fortress, has been one of the Orange Flag villages of the Italian Touring Club. The undisputed symbol of Fosdinovo is the beautiful Malaspina Castle, which stands on top of the mountain and the town, establishing itself as one of the most beautiful and best preserved fortresses in Lunigiana

It is one of the most fantastic panoramic points. The place has been equipped as a Picnic Area and from there it extends over the historic village of Fosdinovo, the Gulf of La Spezia, Portovenere and Palmaria, the Cinque Terre, the Piana di Luni and the Bocca di Magra, with a view of the islands of the Tuscan Archipelago and Corsica.

The parish church of Codiponte of Saints Cornelio and Cipriano is among the most fascinating and artistically rich in the territory of the ancient Diocese of Luni. With its figurative capitals and its artistic masterpieces, it is a true paradigm of the Lunigiana Romanesque. The parish church stands on the right bank of the Aulella, near a bridge beyond which, in the distance, you can see the ruins of the 11th-century Bianchi d'Erberia castle. The church has a basilica plan with three naves with columns and round arches and perfectly preserved notched cubic capitals, which bear figures typical of the medieval image system: the tree of life, lily, six-petalled daisy, serpent with feet, two-tailed mermaid and many others. The late medieval triptych with the Virgin on the throne, the SS. Cornelius and Cyprian, the church's patron saints, and the image of the Holy Face, a famous and venerated Lucchese relic, which recalls the passage of the Via del Volto Santo in these very places.

The upper part of the town is fortified and preserves the ruins of a castle: hidden by the vegetation are the beautiful forms of a medieval palace, with a loggia at the base and a certain development in height, perhaps dating back to the 14th-15th century, which indicate a more residential than military function. Other ruins scattered in this upper part of the hill suggest the presence of a previous defensive fortification and control of the road system and which must have also included a small church. Beyond a natural valley, on the plateau that extends over the hill to the north, the remains of the ancient convent of the Franciscan nuns, already existing in the 15th century and which was suppressed in the second half of the 18th century. The ruins of the castle can be accessed from the lower village by crossing the Romanesque bridge

The village of Terenzano, which develops on a hill in the valley of the Aulella stream, is entirely made up of sandstone houses, and preserves suggestive sculpted portals, vaulted arches, an access door to the village and marble majesties.