S. Pellegrino in Alpe, the settled town situated on the highest spot of the Apennines, stands at 1,525 meters above sea level. It was a vantage point, which linked in the past the northern and southern part of Italy.

The old hospital, which is today the seat of the Museo Etnografico (Ethnographical Museum), bears witness to the history of the town and the importance of its mountain pass. The first room of the Museum was opened on 1st August 1970 and two other big rooms only a year later.

After the end of the building restoration works (executed by the Historical Monuments and Arts Office of Pisa over three years) a cellar, two bedrooms, a kitchen, a room for agriculture and bread-baking, some for tanning, spinning and working of hemp, flax and wool, a room for needlework, a shoemaker's shop, a room of kitchen and tobacconist's shop utensils, the rooms of the baskets, the carpenter, the blacksmith and of the miller and a top-floor flat were reconstructed inside the museum to let the old traditions and town life to revive.

It's worth visiting also the village of Pieve Fosciana, which stretches on the alluvial terraces of the Apennines' slope dominating the valley of the river Serchio. The village is well-known for its source of thermal waters and the ancient Pieve (parish church). The inhabitants of Pieve Fosciana can benefit from the sulphur-radioactive waters of the Lake of Prà di Lama.

The municipality of Castiglione di Garfagnana, stretching in the Media Valle of the river Serchio (situated between the Alpi Apuane and the Apennines) was first under the rule of the Gherardinghi family (1169) and then of the city of Lucca (1227).

During the German occupation it suffered the Nazi-Fascist violence.
Castiglione, known for its medieval suburb, is famous also for its ski-lifts (at Casone di Profecchia). Noteworthy is also the Pass of the Radici, the only one with so many accesses (eight on the slope facing Emilia), which is well-known for the length of the climbs back up from the Pianura Padana (the plain of the river Po).