In the outskirts of Capannori, a quaint village in the Tuscan countryside not far from Lucca, in the beautiful park surrounding Villa Carrara, there is a 600 years old oak, so famous and so distinctive that it is officially recognized as a national landmark by the Italian Government and it even appears as a reference on NATO maps.
This ancient, majestic exemplar of quercus robur, or common oak, is legendarily known as the Quercia delle Streghe: the Witches’ Oak. With its almost 50 feet in height, a trunk of about 13 feet in diameter and, most astonishingly, a crown of more than 130 feet, this incredible tree is the second in size in the whole of Tuscany.
