Finding the Source

Nothing strenuous.  We started at the head house of the aqueduct that carries water from Mt. Pisani into Lucca.  The head house is right behind the train station in Lucca.  The aqueduct stretches across the valley to the foothills of Mt. Pisani for about ten kilometers.  It's interesting to walk through these farming fields and tiny  little towns, but the trail is a straight line across the valley and flat, with the huge aqueduct serving as an elaborate trail marker. 

It was when we reached the foot of the mountain that things got interesting.   The arches of the aqueduct kept getting shorter and shorter, with the water flow chamber that started high above ground when we began the walk eventually disappearing into the ground of the mountain's foothills.  We walked along the top of the water flow chamber -- now at ground level -- for about another two km just to see what was at the other end.


Friends had told us there was a "park" of some sort at the end of the aqueduct.  But, what we discovered was much more fascinating.  The water flow chamber stopped creeping underground and opened up to an elaborate catchment system that climbed for about another 2 km up a gully in the mountainside -- all of these man made, stone lined catchment streams lacing the gully to capture the flow of water that would run down the mountainside.  We followed the system up the mountain until it disappeared and became a foot trail heading up to the top of the mountain.

We didn't go to the top.  We're saving that for a return trip during one of our winter visits when the system should be gushing with water.  Still, it was very cool to wander through this simple, but smartly engineered system for turning the water flow down the mountainside into a water supply for Lucca.  Also, the fact the Luchessi would accept -- more like take -- water from Pisans provided an ironic cultural twist.