Barga

Barga is a medieval village in the Garfagnana valley in Lucca Province, northern Tuscany, set on a ridge above the Serchio River with panoramic views across to the snow-capped Apuan Alps. The village is one of the best-preserved medieval settlements in northern Tuscany and has maintained an unhurried, authentic character largely unchanged by mass tourism. The historic centre clusters around the Duomo di San Cristoforo, a Romanesque-Pisan church built from pale local limestone on the highest point of the village, whose square campanile is visible from the valley below. Inside the duomo, an outstanding twelfth-century marble pulpit by Guido Bigarelli da Como depicts scenes from the Life of Christ with exceptional carving detail and is considered one of the finest examples of Pisan-Romanesque sculpture in Tuscany. The church also contains an unusual polychrome wooden statue of San Cristoforo — an immense devotional figure — and works attributed to the della Robbia workshop. From the churchyard terrace, the view encompasses the Garfagnana valley, the Serchio River, the Apuan Alps to the west, and the Apennines to the east. The narrow Via del Pretorio, with its arcaded Palazzo Pretorio and loggia, forms the civic heart below the church. Barga has an unusual Scottish connection: many inhabitants emigrated to Scotland in the early twentieth century to work as ice cream vendors and café owners, and a distinctive Scottish-Italian cultural heritage persists in the town. The annual Barga Jazz festival in July and an opera festival in August draw international visitors. The village is also a base for hiking and mountain biking in the Garfagnana valley and the Apuan Alps regional park.