The sea, the beach, the verdant Pinewoods and hills, the dazzling white of the “Apuane”, the marble mountains. Versilia is the land of natural beauty, postcard scenery, landscapes designed by nature but adorned by man. This land is also the joy of life, fun loving and the delight in being together, at the table for meals too. For the tourist who chooses Versilia nothing is better than mixing with the locals to discover its thousands of gourmet secrets, behind each product and dish there is a story that goes back centuries and everyday cooking.

GREAT EXAMPLES OF “GOURMET” VERSILIA

Viareggio was “The Land of Milk and Honey”, and that's that, wrote Gino Paoli in “Sapore di Note”, his last biography, which refers to the sixties. «Along the seafront at 4 o' clock in the morning was like being on a ring road during peak rush hour».

That Viareggio and the Versilia were “The Land of Milk and Honey” was something Giacomo Puccini, the Maestro, the creator of Mimi and Tosca had discovered nearly a century ago. «People in a bad mood, pedantic, fussy, dull with weak stomachs and any other wretches are not admitted and are thrown out with fury by members» this is clause 2 from the regulations at the Club della Bohème, founded by the Maestro at Torre del Lago to glorify gluttony. Susanna Agnelli, in Vestivamo alla Marinara, the saga of the family that founded Fiat, refers to the seafood she savoured every week at the Bonamico restaurant, when they all came to Viareggio from their villa in Forte dei Marmi just to eat in a famous trattoria at the harbour. This is the thirties era another golden decade for the coast between Viareggio and Forte dei Marmi.

The long-standing fame of the Versilia as one of the capitals of gastronomy in Italy has never diminished if anything it has grown over time first because of the coast being discovered then Lake Massaciuccoli and now the hills and the peaks of the Apuane. Every district within these few kilometres in Tuscany offers: gourmet surprises, authentic gastronomic minefields, unheard of but delicious products and places where you can eat and drink whatever you want at any hour. Luigi Veronelli, the greatest journalist of the past century specializing in gastronomy spoke of the Versilia as the Italian capital of restaurants but he did not stop here: he advised tourists to get invited to a countyman's cottage in Camaiore. “Get yourself invited” he wrote to eat boiled fowl. In short the Versilia is a sort of gastronomic movement, a laboratory of new trends and rediscoveries which, through this little itinerary, we now wish to help you discover between villages and artisans, markets and restaurants, between the coast and the plain, the hills and the mountains. .