January 9, 2024, 3:31 pm | Read time: 3 minutes
Fabbriche di Careggine is something like the Italian Atlantis. Decades ago, the village, once home to hundreds, sank beneath the waters of a reservoir. But that’s not its only peculiarity. From time to time, Fabbriche di Careggine reemerges. This year, for the first time in over 30 years, it’s expected to happen again! The full story.
The village of Fabbriche di Careggine is located in the province of Lucca in Tuscany, about an hour and a half north of Pisa. Its history goes back a long way: As early as the 13th century, blacksmiths settled in the area, extracting iron from the nearby Monte Tambura. In the 17th century, Fabbriche di Careggine became one of Italy’s most important iron production sites, and by the early 1900s, the village was also trading in marble, according to the website of the neighboring municipality of Vagli di Sotto.
But just under 40 years later, the residents had to leave their homes and move to Vagli di Sotto. With the construction of a massive dam, standing 96 meters high, all of Fabbriche di Careggine was submerged under the waters of Lago di Vagli, now the largest reservoir in Tuscany.
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Village’s Reemergence Became an Attraction
But Fabbriche di Careggine is not lost forever. Since the village’s submersion in 1953, it has resurfaced four times. The reason is simple: When the reservoir is maintained, workers drain the water. Then the medieval ruins, including the Church of San Teodoro built in 1590, become visible again.
So far, the water has been drained in 1958, 1974, 1983, and most recently in 1994. At that time, the village’s reemergence became an attraction, with reportedly a million people visiting in 1994, according to the Italian magazine “Dove.” Initially, there were plans to maintain the reservoir once a decade, but it’s now been almost 30 years since Fabbriche di Careggine was last visible. This year, it’s finally expected to happen again!
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According to the local news portal “Intoscana,” the ghost village is set to reemerge from the waters in spring 2024. Originally, the dam was supposed to be emptied in 2016, but this date was repeatedly postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, ongoing water shortages, and low rainfall in the area. It remains to be seen if Fabbriche di Careggine will indeed reappear next spring–and how much the buildings have changed since 1994.