I have been tagged in ” My 3 best kept “arttrav ” -el secrets for Florence “ a post by Alexandra . The post is a meme started by Katie of Tripbase.com .
And now my selection for Prato , because it’s impossible to hide corners and monuments in Florence .
1) Spazzavento Hill
The Spazzavento hill , in the north of Prato , it’s a peak on the valley of Bisenzio.The mountain is bare and stony, exposed to the cold north wind. Here is found the tomb of the great Prato author Curzio Malaparte, built in 1961, on which is inscribed a sentence written by him: “…..and I want to have my tomb up there, on top of Spazzavento, so I can lift my head once in while and spit into the north wind’s cold blast ”
2)Cascine Park
The Parco delle Cascine di Tavola, in the town board in Prato, near the town Medici at Poggio a Caiano, is one of the most ambitious projects Renaissance farm, a park-farm created by Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1477.
The Parco della Cascine di Tavola prevailed over the years in Tuscany as a production center of cheese, beef and equine breeds, production of silk worms and keeper of exotic animals such as blacks deer, peacocks, lions and giraffes. Recently the local authority has, however, expressed their desire to renovate all the buildings owned by municipalities, along with nineteenth-century bridges Lorraine and refilled with water.
3)Gonfienti – Etruscan Site
In 1997 Gonfienti in area, a hamlet of Prato, were found the remains of an ancient Etruscan city, extending over about 16 acres bound in the plain between the river Bisenzio Prato, the river and the mountains of Calvana , on the edge of the lake-river Florence-Prato-Pistoia basin (Fiorentina).
Dating from the late seventh century BC, the Etruscan town of Gonfienti (which ignores the Etruscan name) is in the center of the important communication route between the central and Etruria Valley and had planned the whole plain between Florence and Aglianico. Abandoned around the late fifth century BC, for reasons still unknown, it is recognized as one of the major Etruscan cities of the Archaic period, as witnessed by the importance of the finds so far emerged from excavations still in its infancy.
Article by Luca Tempestini
Hi Luca,
Please send me your email, I need your permission to use your text/images if you want to be included in our Travel Secrets e-book.
Thanks,
Katie.
i send you an mail , this afternoon 🙂
Definitely can say that Italy is one of the most interesting destinations to travel. I like Italy, but most of all like Sicily. This island is quite beautiful and I visited it twice. It is amazing.
[…] This is a small museum in the basement of a Medici Villa in the province of Prato. It has a good quality, easily digestible collection that you can see as part of a day trip to Medici Villas, or while looking for local evidence of Etruscans like at the nearby lost city of Gonfienti. […]
oh my gosh! these really are great secrets! I did not know about any of them.