After passing the small Pieve di Bardone, the path rejoins the Cisa state road. Despite being a state road, the road is not very busy. Since the Cisa motorway was opened in 1975, motor vehicle traffic passes all the way down the motorway.
The stele statues of Pontremoli
The Statale is today an artery with very little transit, almost an Eldorado for cyclists, who can ride in peace, enjoying the views of the Apennines on the Parma side and, after the pass, on that of Lunigiana, where a well-preserved woodland mantle welcomes you on a splendid descent to the sea.
After Montelungo with its diuretic water spas, you enter Pontremoli, “the keys and gates of Tuscany”, Key and door of Tuscany, as Sigeric defined it.
The village, in a strategic position at the confluence of the Verde stream into the Magra, is worth a visit. Above the Piagnaro Castle houses the Museum of Stele Statues, small but interesting. On display is a collection of Lunigiana steles, anthropomorphic statues carved in sandstone between the fourth and first millennium BC Archaic forms, but at the same time very modern. With the advent of Christianity they were considered “pagan idols”: many were destroyed, torn to pieces and reused as building stones.
Before leaving Pontremoli, stop at the historic Caffè degli Svizzeri, under the arcades of Piazza della Repubblica since 1842, to taste the “Amor”, Chantilly cream pastries between two wafer pods.