Pontremoli, 10 – 12 April 2026
Pontremoli is an ancient, once venerable place near the intersection of Liguria, Tuscany, and Emilia Romagna. It was just a three-hour drive from home but we made a day of it, stopping for coffee at Celle Ligure, for lunch at Lavagna, and arriving around 4:00 on Friday afternoon. We had come to meet old friends for a weekend festival of Baroque architecture, art, and music. Palazzi and privately owned villas with gardens would be opened to the public. Churches would host music of the period—choral, orchestral, sacred and secular—for all passersby. The reunion with friends was our main attraction, all the rest would be Baroque flourishes.
The city is tiny and easy to navigate, and walking is the best way to explore. From our hotel it was an easy walk to the centro storico, on a narrow spit of land between two rivers. We crossed a bridge over the Torrente Verde and wandered cobbled streets lined with palazzi, shops, and intriguing little byways. At the end of via Piagnaro we found an entrance to the Castello and promised ourselves a visit to the museum housed there, a permanent collection of stone figures unearthed at Pontremoli and nearby. We stopped in the Duomo to sit a few minutes and lucked into a choir rehearsal—five heavenly voices in the splendorous cathedral. Then it was time to find the restaurant where our friends had booked a table for dinner. We were a party of six, the food was very good and the conversation lively. It was late when we spilled out into the quiet night and drifted off to bed.
Saturday passed in much the same way: walking and talking, punctuated by guided tours of villas and gardens, a visit to the Castello’s excellent museum, another fine meal in good company. Sunday morning was grey and chilly but the two central piazzas—Pza della Repubblica and Pza del Duomo—were filled with vendors offering local produce and flowering plants, cheeses and salumi, and handmade textiles, ceramics, and jewelry. In the Duomo the small choir sang glorious music; a chamber orchestra played Baroque works on period instruments in the Chiesa di S. Gimignano. I walked up via Piagnaro one more time to photograph three green doors that were haunting my mind’s eye.
All the bars were packed and noisy, no place to share a moment, so we exchanged farewell hugs and kisses among the crowds in the piazza and went our separate ways, filled to overflowing with the warmth of friendship and the everlasting beauties of Pontremoli.
