Vinca is a small village high on the eastern flank of the Alpi Apuane reached by a tortuous road from Monzone; it sits in a forested bowl, ringed by bare limestone peaks such as Pizzo d’Uccello; it is both peaceful and stunning. Vinca is famous for its dark bread, the Pane de Vinca, baked in wood ovens. It is infamous for the massacre of 162 men, women and children by the Nazis and Black Brigades over three days in August 1944. The little cemetery outside the village carries all their names and ages.

Below Vinca, the road passes through a dramatic gorge where there there is Campanula speciosa and tufted saxifrage on the roadside cliffs. The roadsides nearby also hold a range of Ophrys orchids and we watch an Andrena bee species ‘pseudocopulate’ with a sombre bee orchid Ophrys fusca.

Pietra di Bismantova is a wonderful inselberg or island mountain and a long way east from Vinca and the Alpi Alpuane; it is within the Apennines that run down the spine of Italy.