Itinerary: Larderello, Pomarance, Castelnuovo Val di Cecina, Sasso Pisano
In Larderello there is the Museum of Geothermal Energy, set up on the ground floor of the Palazzo de’ Larderel, testimony of this unique experience. Founded in the late fifties, the museum traces the history of geothermal energy in all its aspects: research, drilling, systems of utilization of geothermal fluid for energy production, with the help of original equipment and models. A path that, starting from the uses of the resource in the Etruscan and medieval period, leads to the industrial development and today’s challenge of alternative energy. Free admission, it is a highly multimedia museum suitable for understanding the geothermal phenomenon and its industrial developments. An excellent starting point and a good introduction to the visit of this territory.
Before heading out to discover geysers and soffioni, it is a good idea to stop in Pomarance among the green hills crossed by the Cecina river. Its center contains all the charm of a small medieval village and, walking through the streets and squares, you can breathe the air of the peaceful past. The parish church embellished by the paintings of Cristofano Roncalli, painter-architect to whom the town was born, the Piazza della Pretura and the beautiful 19th-century palaces of Via Roncalli among which emerges Casa Museo Bicocchi, bourgeois residence of the 19th century, are worth a stop.
From here we reach the Sillana Fortress, a significant example of military architecture recently restored and illuminated, which dominates much of the territory of forests of environmental and landscape importance.
Along the way, it is worth visiting the village of Castelnuovo Val di Cecina, with its original shape of a grape cone and with its ancient “chiassi“, or narrow streets, from which you can enjoy a splendid, well-preserved landscape of hills and woods all around.
In addition to a walk through the streets of the village well preserved, it is good to take a walk outside the town, in Lagoni del Sasso, near the village Enel, where you can go into a surreal scenario, climbing the hill overlooking the village. Soffioni, biancane, putizze, fumaroles, hot springs and lagoni can be visited freely at any time of year. If you are not satisfied with the geological aspects, at a short distance, on the road leading to La Leccia, the imposing Etruscan-Roman thermal establishment of Bagnone has been discovered.
Along the marked walk, which connects Sasso Pisano to the Biancane Park of Monterotondo Marittimo, natural basins, medieval wash-houses fed with thermal waters, manifestations of steam in the subsoil strike those who cross it thanks to the very beautiful panoramic position.
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The route to the discovery of the spectacular phenomena of the subsoil as the lagoni, small craters containing hot water, and the boraciferous soffioni, continues to the south. To fully appreciate the naturalistic aspects of geothermal energy it is necessary to move to Sasso Pisano where there is an extensive field of natural manifestations.
