The Frigido Trail

Setting off from the city of Massa, from the beautiful Piazza Aranci, and proceeding at a walker’s pace, we very soon find ourselves immersed in nature, history, art and traditions. The route, with a total length of 60 kilometres, develops “in a loop”, and along its roads and trails one rediscovers the ancient connecting paths that were once essential for the subsistence of mountain communities, of the inhabitants of the small villages surrounding the city, which thanks to the “red thread” of the Frigido Walk come once again to meet one another.

The Frigido Walk aims to create greater opportunities to explore on foot a territory rich in natural beauty and, at the same time, seeks to foster the development of slow and sustainable tourism, rediscovering walking as a means to regain contact with nature and with the widespread heritage that characterises our entire country. A project that invites people to fully experience the territory, both for those who live there and for tourists and visitors, whether or not they are enthusiasts of “walking”.

The loop is divided into seven stages, which can be easily adjusted according to one’s needs and wishes. To best prepare for the walk, visit the section of the “walker’s handbook” and the pages dedicated to the various stages, where you can find a detailed description of the routes with interactive maps.

The Walk owes its name to the figure of the deity of the Frigido river, whose head was sculpted by the Carrara artist Pietro Fontana and which can be admired today on Viale Trieste, at the end of the bridge connecting Via della Foce with the centre of the city of Massa. The Frigido, a river that rises behind the building of the old spinning mill of Forno, a small village a few kilometres from the city centre, has been a fundamental element in the birth and development of the communities that overlook its valley.

The mascaron also ideally unites the Frigido Walk with the Aronte Walk. Carlo Fontana in fact also sculpted the head of the deity of the Carrione river, the watercourse near which the community of Carrara originally developed. The Carrione river is also the silent protagonist of the legend of the mermaid and the haruspex Aruns, on the basis of which the name and symbol of the Aronte Walk were chosen.

The mascarons, personifications of the two rivers, Carrione and Frigido, were placed as the keystones in the arches of the bridge that connected Massa to Via Friedland (today Via della Foce), through which one could reach the “sister city” of Carrara. The bridge was destroyed during the Second World War, and only the sculpture by Pietro Fontana dedicated to the river of Massa survived, a testimony to the ancient architecture and to the relationships between the two communities.