Daytrip to Scarperia

Scarperia is a small town about 20 miles north of Florence in the Appenine Mountains. The main road does not go there so traveling to Scarperia involves a little effort. But it’s worth the effort because Scarperia has been a center for making knives, scissors, swords, daggers, and all other kinds of things with sharp edges for many years. In the past there were many producers of such items in Scarperia; today there are only four but the knives and related products made in Scarperia are well regarded in Italy.

The trip from Florence to Scarperia has two legs. The first leg is by train and takes about 30 minutes.The train travels from Florence to a little town called San Piero a Sieve. The second leg of the trip begins at the San Piero rail station. From there you take a regional bus for about 5 minutes to Scarperia. Fortunately, there is a pleasant coffee bar in San Piero to kill time waiting for the bus early in the day and waiting again later in the day for the train.

Town walls

The Florence-to-San-Piero-and-return train is interesting. The end of the line is in Borgo San Lorenzo, only a few miles beyond San Piero a Sieve. The train includes only two cars, a passenger car and a car that combines the engine and another passenger car. Very comfortable, very punctual, and very cheap (only about $4 a person each way.) Most people leave the train in the towns near Florence.The bus and driver were waiting for us when we arrived at San Piero.

Appenines in the distance

Scarperia is an old town. The sign for the town is on the ancient city walls. Today, of course, the town is larger. The photo to the north of the town shows apartment buildings outside the old city walls and the Appenine Mountains in the distance.

The main street, Via Roma, includes a number of shops that sell the town’s knives and related products. The window of one store shows the usual knives, jack knives and a nice selection of swords. We assume that the swords today are for ceremonial purposes but, honestly, we don’t know of any ceremonies that would require a sword. Swords were never required in the jobs where we spent our working lives.

A store window

The town museum, of course, features the local industry. This device shown in the photo was used by two workers to sharpen blades. The actual sharpening must have been dangerous to one’s eyesight since there was no evidence that workers used eye protection.

We passed by the stores on the main street with the impressive displays and stopped in Giglio Coltelleria or the Lily Knife Shop. The Giglio is the symbol of Florence and many businesses have adopted the giglio as their emblem. The shop is on the main floor of what appears to have been a factory at one time. Today the factories have moved to the outskirts of the town and this one former factory near the center of town seems to be an outlet rather than a shiny, impressive retail store. We made our purchases easily and quickly.

Sharpening tool

A cat guarded the Giglio Coltelleria in the piazza in front of the store.

We had lunch in a restaurant near the knife shops and waited for the bus back to San Piero a Sieve on a beautiful spring day. The bus arrived and a few minutes later dropped us at the rail station where we waited very briefly and enjoyed the the view of the countryside from the station platform.

Giglio store in Scarperia

Returning to Florence