Just before our recent return to orange with the accompanying restrictions, I went with friends to San Pellegrino in Alpe. The tiny settlement is high in the Apuan Alps, on the border of Tuscany and Emilia Romagna.
There has been heavy snow on the mountains for a while and it took some time for the roads to be clear. We drove through canyons of snow to reach San Pellegrino. The snow was much higher in the weeks before we were there, but it was still impressive.
We stopped along the way to take in the gorgeous snowy scenery.
San Pellegrino is not much more than a couple of houses, a bar and a restaurant. (Which is very good)
You can see the snow ploughs that have been busy recently.
At the centre of the village is the Santuario in Alpe or Santi Pellegrino e Bianco. It is a Roman Catholic Church built on the site of a hostel dating from 1168. By 1200 a church had been built to house the relics of Saint Pellegrino. By 1400 the church had been refurbished and in 1473 a small sepulchral monument in the form of a tempietto was constructed by Mattei Civitali.
In the 17th century the relics of San Bianco were added and today we can see them lying side by side in their glass case in the current church which was built in 1908 after the previous church collapsed.
After a quick visit to see the side by side saints we walked through the arch near the church to take in the stunning view over the mountains sitting above the clouds.
From here we drove to Abetone on a around about way back to Bagni di Lucca. There has been a huge amount of snow at Abetone, but because of covid the ski fields have not been open. This hasn’t stopped large numbers of people descending on the village on weekends. The snow is dirty from the cars splashing along the streets and does not look appealing at all, so I have just one photo of Abetone.
There has been more snow this season than there has been for years. What a pity the ski fields have not been able to operate because of travel restrictions. Perhaps there is still a hope for some spring skiing if the covid situation improves.