Isola Santa: The Submerged Village That Resurfaces in the Heart of the Apuane

Isola Santa is a mountain borgo in the Garfagnana, at the foot of the Alpi Apuane, partially submerged beneath the waters of a small artificial lake. The village was a settlement of marble quarrymen who lived at the edge of the world, surrounded by white mountains and chestnut forests. When the dam was built in the 1940s, part of the borgo went under water.

Today Isola Santa is a place of singular atmosphere: the stone houses emerge from the green lake water like an amphibious village. Some are completely submerged, visible only as shadows beneath the surface; others surface with their walls and roofs, creating a surrealist landscape that seems drawn from a Calvino story.

You arrive along a narrow road that climbs from the Garfagnana towards the Passo di Turrite Secca. The lake appears suddenly, cupped in a hollow of beech-covered mountains. The white Apuane peaks rise behind, their sharp crests and bare slopes a striking backdrop. The water is emerald green, still, silent.

Around the lake a easy path takes half an hour to complete the full circuit. The emerged houses can be viewed from outside: some have been restored as refuges or refreshment points, others remain open-air ruins. A small stone bridge connects the two banks of the lake, making a perfect panoramic viewpoint.

From Isola Santa trails depart for the Antro del Corchia — the most extensive cave system in the Alpi Apuane, visitable on guided tours — and for Monte Corchia and Monte Sumbra. The territory is the wild interior of the Apuane, seldom visited.

The submerged houses do not resurface every year: this happens only during periodic drainings of the reservoir, roughly once a decade, for dam maintenance. In autumn the beeches turn red and the landscape becomes even more dramatic.

Isola Santa is one of those places that exist on the boundary between reality and imagination: a village that the water has claimed by half, leaving it suspended between two worlds.