Kastanienwald - Plazza

When you get off the Postbus in Plazza, the first thing to catch your eye are the old chestnut trees. Together with the stone huts, they seem to have fallen out of time. The huts, so-called cascine, are still used today for smoking the ripe fruits. When the chestnuts are harvested in autumn, there tends to be quite a lot of activity here. Every day, the castanicoltori gather the ripe fruit, rake the leaves and the prickly ``hoglets´´ aside and sort the chestnuts for drying. Then the drying of the chestnuts begins and for weeks the promising smell of smoke wafts through the grove. During the Festival della Castagna it is sometimes possible to visit the Cascine.

A short walk along a gravel road (200 m above the post bus stop on the right) leads to the old Soglio quarry.
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 about 30 minutes. The little road to Castasegna turns off from the main road to the north 20 m below the bus stop, right next to the steep footpath to Soglio.

In the south-western bend, about 300 m below the bus stop, a field path leads to a marked public harvesting point. Here you can pick chestnuts for your own use.