• Tuscany

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The Park

In the last decades, the cultural and natural resources have been put in the spotlight as an economic and territorial development factor. The need to rethink the nature of the activities carried out to enhance the cultural and natural heritage, and by including them in the field of a more integrated strategy on a territorial level, paved the way to a synergy policy in the different fields of the local development. The abandonment of the mines, towards the end of the last century, deeply changed the whole territory of the Colline Metallifere (economy, job opportunities, social relationships, immigration, urban extensions and mine villages, landscape, city-land relationships, quarries, dumps) literally leaving an empty space in the future of the current and the next generations. The Park's project aimed to catch and somehow fill with contents this emptiness. The undertaken path is a tool for a complex territorial enhancement based on the use of the cultural heritage through the eco-museum and, generally, on the environmental improvement, contributing to the definition of the cultural and socioeconomic elements and to the territorial planning of the Colline Metallifere.

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The Tuscan mine landscape

The Park was established not to loose the history of the mining activities and of metallurgy, which lasted for about three thousand years in the territory of the Colline metallifere Grossetane and affected their cultural background.
The safeguard of the industrial and mining sites, together with the noteworthy natural resources and the shining examples of the medieval architecture, make the Colline Metallifere an itinerary for a different tourism.
The leitmotif is the rediscovery of the mines traces and of the work in the underground.
In the journey through these lands, an extraordinary nature and cultural testimonies of great interest follow one another.

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The Park's Master Plan

The Master Plan's goal is to enhance the historical-cultural heritage of the Colline Metallifere: not only the industrial archaeology, but also the environment, the archaeological sites, the historical-architectural heritage and the landscape.
The mining activity and its testimonies represent the leitmotif to propose two thousand years of history to the visitors of the Park, from the Etruscans to the present days.

Further information (Italian text)