 Welcome to Viareggio
The town - home of Lorenzo Viani, Giacomo Puccini and Mario Tobino - is surrounded by the hillside, the Apuan Alps and the lake of Massaciuccoli; it provides a unique ensemble featuring pinewoods, a colourful harbour, shipyards and a 3 km promenade with superb shops, cinemas and a theatre; here the Carnival of Viareggio the most famous in Italy.
The territory which today the city rises on, was occupied by the sea one thousand years ago, and the inland was constituted by great matrshes. The town's symbol, and also the heart of its history, is the Tower of Matilde, built by the Senate of Lucca in 1550. In the 1601 Viareggio, that was already a township, was declared a free port, and, in 1617, it became the chieftown in the Vicaria del Litorale (the coastal vicariate). The birth of the first bathing establishments dates back to 1823.
We owe it to Maria Luisa di Borbone the building of the Viale dei Tigli route, through which she could reach the centre, leaving from her villa, situated in the East pinewood. In fact, the touristic activity began in Viareggio right in this period.Also many men of culture stopped for a time in this area: the poet Percy B. Shelley, Lord Byron, Manzoni, Puccini and D'Annunzio. | 
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