Touring with your kids from Santa Luce to Peccioli

Total length (km): 35
Practicability: by car, camper, motorcycle or vespa
Difficulty: none

An itinerary to be traveled with children from Santa Luce to Peccioli, between the Pisan Hills and the Valdera, where history and agricultural tradition have coexisted in harmony for centuries.

Santa Luce Lake Reserve
Leaving Pisa we take the SS206, a scenic road that passes through the Pisan hills with beautiful colors changing with the seasons. A detour leads us towards the village of Santa Luce but we stop first, at the Santa Luce Lake Reserve which offers an interesting range of educational trails, all in nature, dedicated to kids and children. With almost 300 species sighted and 50 km of itinerary, the Reserve represents one of the most visited places by families, birdwatchers and lovers of yoga and holistic meditation.

Lari – The Vicari Castle 

The second stop is the charming medieval village of Lari, dominated by the imposing bulk of the Castello dei Vicari, once sadly famous for having been a place of torture for political prisoners and women accused of witchcraft. Today is location of weddings and ceremonies, as well as an interactive educational museum where you can learn, having fun, many things of the past.

During the visit to the rooms of the castle we can in fact meet the Vicar, an archaeologist who explains the results of the excavations under a part of the castle, a lawyer who illustrates the trials and tortures to which the accused were subjected and a prisoner who spent some time in a cell here. The museum reconstructs history in an accurate and engaging way. At the end visitors can have fun building their own coat of arms or even send a secret letter!

Capannoli – Museums of Villa Baciocchi

The Villa Baciocchi is an eighteenth-century building, built on the ruins of the medieval castle of Capannoli belonged to the noble family of Gherardesca and completely transformed in the mid-eighteenth century when it assumed its present form. The complex of the Museums of Villa Baciocchi offers a series of paths-games and practical-creative activities specifically designed for elementary school children and middle school students, to approach the topics on display (zoology, science and archeology) in an engaging interactive way with practical activities. The duration is about 2 hours. Among the activities, guided tours of the Zoological Museum, Archaeological Museum and Botanical Park.

Casciana Terme – Outdoor Swimming Pool

Moving a few kilometers we arrive at Casciana Terme, known since the Middle Ages for the beneficial properties of its waters. The Terme di Casciana boasts a large outdoor swimming pool under the open sky, immersed in the green of the thermal park, an indoor pool for motor rehabilitation and a third pool for wellness at Villa Borri. The first, the joy of adults and children, is fed by thermal water with continuous change, is 500 square meters wide and 1.30 meters deep, and equipped with various water features such as geysers, swan necks, swimming against the current, waterfalls and Jacuzzi.

Peccioli – Adventure Park and Prehistoric Park

The last stop of our itinerary is in Peccioli, a village that can even be reached by a panoramic elevator that leads to the Pecciolo Adventure Park, an artificial structure unique in its kind because it is the first urban park in Tuscany that rises in the middle of the historical center, in front of the scenery of the Valdera hills. The park offers the Mini, Junior and Urban Wild trails with various games for all ages. The last challenge is the climbing wall: play the trumpet at a height of 8 meters and let yourself go to return to the ground hanging from the abseiling system controlled by qualified personnel who provide safety equipment and information.

Just outside the village the surprise of being catapulted millions of years ago, at the time of Prehistory and the world of dinosaurs that have always exercised an ageless fascination. Adults and children live with curiosity and imagination that world once inhabited by animals so special. A sensation found again when visiting the Prehistoric Park: 22 reconstructions scattered in the woods, including a volcano that erupts colored balls and a life-size reproduction of a Jurassic brachiosaurus, the largest dinosaur currently reconstructed in Europe. Almost all of the trail is accessible to strollers and wheelchairs. Inside the Park and in the area in front of the entrance, there are tables and benches that visitors can freely use to picnic and relax.