Between dream and reality: the Castle of Sammezzano

Once upon a time there was an enchanted and enchanting castel, in the middle of an enchanted and enchanting park full of high trees and lots of animals. And as every caste does, even this one has its own ghost. It is its own legend, its own curse: this castle has a monster as well.

But this castle was there not just once upon a time, it is still there, as its beauty is winning against politics´ neglet. We are talking about the Sammezzano Castel, few kilometers away from il Burchio Estate. A very singular building, designed in Moorish style at the beginning of the Seventeenth Century by the Ximenes D´Aragona Family, who during the years has been a royal residence, then luxury hotel while now is unfortunately been abandoned even though it is not in bad conditions, yet sometimes, few times, visits of the interior are organized.

A fairy tail interior which has been several times choosen as a set location for films, video clips and spots on the television. Plasters of every colour and fairy rooms as The Lovers Room, Stalactites Room, the one of the Peacocks and the Spanish barrels Room. In the interior is dreamy, so is the park in which the Sammezzano Caste is.
Yet, it is one of the biggest park of Tuscany: thanks to Ferdinando Panciatichi, owner of the Castle in the Nineteenth Century, who planted several arboreal species (amongst which more than fifty forty-meters high sequoias) and made it beautiful with architectural decorations such as the bridge, the artificial cave, pools and fountains.


Ghosts, curses and monsters? As every respectable Castle, also Sammezzano has its own ghost who is running through the rooms and the tunnels; magazines have been talking a lot about the curse of Sammezzano, a curse that would hurt people who get to have a lion statue stolen by thieves which brings death in few days. Among the three, unfortunately, the true story is the one about the monster: a reinforced concrete skull, a real abusive butchery who is standing in the park since the the Seventies and nobody has taken it off yet.