Chestnut forest - Plazza

When you get off the Postbus in Plazza, the gnarled chestnut trees are the first thing you notice. Together with the stone huts, they seem to have fallen out of time. The huts - known as cascine - are still used today to smoke the ripe chestnuts. At the time of the chestnut harvest in the fall, there is a lot of activity here, the Castanicoltori collect the ripe fruit every day, rake the leaves and prickly hedgehogs aside and sort the chestnuts for drying. Then the drying of the chestnuts begins and the promising smell of smoke wafts through the grove for weeks. During the Festival della Castagna it is sometimes possible to visit the Cascine.

A short walk leads along a dirt track 200 m above the Postbus stop on the right to the old Soglio quarry. About 50 m below the bus stop there is a small road that crosses the forest between the Cascine. From Plazza you can walk to Castasegna or Soglio in 30 minutes. The dirt road to Castasegna branches off from the main road 20 m below the bus stop in a northerly direction, right next to the footpath to Soglio, which is quite steep in places.

In the south-western bend, about 300 m below the bus stop, a dirt road leads to a marked public collection point. Here you can collect chestnuts for your own use.