Museo Nazionale di Villa Guinigi, Lucca, Tuscany

Advantages:
Disadvantages:

...As you get further away from the road flanking the river Serchio towards the valleys of torrent Freddana and Pedogna, you will enter the municipal territory of Pescaglia. Pescaglia was first mentioned in a ninth-century document. As early as the fourteenth century, it already had its own podesta and took part in the procession of Santa Croce di Lucca with a flowered candle. The village retains many traces of its mediaeval past; particularly noteworthy are the parish church, the town hall, "the Madonna della Solca", also called "Madonna of the Pebble", a very ancient fresco venerated in a little oratory north of the village. The present municipality includes some typical villages full of quite interesting Romanesque churches and towers: Fondagno, Gello (with a beautiful Romanesque belfry and an ancient baptismal basin font), Castel... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: Stunning. Well worth visiting
Disadvantages: Short of its former glories

...Garzoni dominates the scene, standing sentinel at the entrance to the town. But just outside the confines of the ancient town, lie the Gardens of Villa Garzoni. The Garzonis were a powerful family who originally hailed from Pescia but they sided with the Ghibellines and as a result, had their property confiscated around the 13th century. They then settled in Lucca and by the 17th century had risen in prominence to the extent that they were able to build a handsome villa in 1633. It's thought the same Marquis Romano di Alessandro Garzoni who had the villa built was the architect of the gardens. Sadly, he never lived to see them finished. He would have been hard pushed to, since they allegedly took 170 years to complete. Obviously there was no bonus system in place for the workers who fashioned them. Collodi was surprisingly quiet when we... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful

Advantages: interesting collections
Disadvantages: quite expensive (

...The Museo Nazionale Romano has recently (in the past year) relocated to Palazzo Massimo alle Terme, which is situated in Piazza Cinquecento, very close to the Termini main rail station. It is hard to do everything in Rome, and it isn't usually the first Museum that springs to mind, I'd place it behind the Vatican Museums and the Capitoline Museums, but that still makes it an incredible place! The building, for a start, is impressive. Unlike the better known, aforementioned museums, the Nazionale Romano, because it relocated recently, has had more of a chance to order its layout. It costs 12000L to get in, (about £4), and it is possible to hire an audioguide. This 12000L includes a timed guided tour to the top floor (the top floor is actually the second floor, not the first floor as stated on the ticket and got me remarkably... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful