The places of making between tradition and modernity

Total length (km): 55
Accessibility: by car, by camper, by motorbike/vespa
Difficulty: none

PONTEDERA – Piaggio Museum
First stop Pontedera, the city of Vespa. The Piaggio Museum preserves the historical memory of the great engineering company. It is located in the former tool shop, one of the historical warehouses of the Pontedera factory, near the train station. The permanent exhibition, divided into the three collections Vespa, Piaggio and Gilera, includes more than one hundred models including vehicles of various types, engines and mechanical parts, which have made the history of Italian and world transport. Bookshop and historical archives complete the offer of the museum managed by the Piaggio Foundation, which also hosts temporary exhibitions, musical and theatrical performances, conferences and seminars.

MONTECATINI VAL DI CECINA – The Mining Museum
We now move on to Val di Cecina, a landscape marked by the signs of the activities for the exploitation of natural resources, which have in geothermal energy the best known expression. But not only. There is an important testimony linked to the mining activity for the extraction of copper in the village of Montecatini Val di Cecina, dominated by the profile of the Belforti Tower. Just outside the town is the mine of Caporciano, active since Etruscan times. In the nineteenth century, thanks to the boom in copper mining, Montecatini became the largest copper mine in Europe, consisting of ten levels from which they branched off various tunnels up to 35 km. The activity ceased at the beginning of the 20th century. Today it houses the Mining Museum, open to the public with guided tours (in summer, dinner by candlelight). To be combined with a visit to the Documentation Center at Palazzo Pretorio.

SALINE DI VOLTERRA – The former State Saltworks
The former State Saltworks are spread on an area of 65,000 square meters divided into 10 buildings, where brine is extracted saturated. The salt mines, cultivated since the Etruscans, have always been an important resource for the territory. In the 18th century the Grand Duke Leopold increased the production by building new plants and decreed the birth of the village of Saline di Volterra. The salt works first passed under state control, then in the 90s it was privatized. Today it produces recrystallized salt for the production of tablets and for the agro-food industry with a minimum purity of 99.99%, so as to be considered the purest salt in Italy. It is open to visitors.

LARDERELLO – The Museum of Geothermal Energy
The itinerary ends in the Valle del Diavolo (Devil’s Valley), in Larderello, in a cult place of man’s know-how: the Museum of Geothermal Energy, set up on the ground floor of Palazzo De Larderel. The museum, named after François de Larderel, the French engineer who in the 19th century promoted the industrial exploitation of the boric acid fumaroles in the area, illustrates the history of geothermal energy and the various phases of the activity through models, slides, videos and original equipment. The visit includes, by reservation, the experience of seeing a blowhole in action and the entrance to a geothermal power plant.