Some journeys, let’s be honest, are not measured by kilometers traveled or monuments photographed. They are measured by what lingers on the palate, by the scent of a forest walked at dawn, in the deft gesture of someone rolling out a sheet of pasta on the board as if time itself had no hurry to pass.
The Tosco-Emilian Apennines is one of those places where this kind of travel is still possible: far from the most trodden tourist routes, among pastures and beech woods, chestnut groves and villages where the week still runs to the rhythm of the seasons, a gastronomic tradition survives without needing to reinvent itself.
The Territory
Yes, the Tosco-Emiliano Appennino is a succession of slopes and greenery that unfold at a relaxed pace, where every bend in the provincial road opens onto a landscape different from the one before. And there exists a specific place here where visiting is magic: it is Madonna dei Fornelli, at 800 meters above sea level.
A place that opens among the woods, like a breath: a few houses, a silence that does not oppress but frees, and that air whose texture changes the moment you step out of the car. It is the kind of place that surprises with its lack of noise, since when you arrive you immediately understand you have arrived at the right place.
And if that isn’t enough, you must know that it is a place that “works” in silence: here grows the porcini, the mushroom that more than any other has shaped the cuisine of this area, but the land also returns the black truffle, the wild berries, the aromatic herbs that local foragers know by name and by season. It is a landscape that offers rewards: you just have to know where to look.
The Taste of Tradition
And one of the places to look, in fact, is a perfect spot to spend a weekend if you want to enjoy tranquility and good (indeed excellent) cuisine. The Albergo Ristorante Poli is located in Piazza Madonna della Neve, in the heart of Madonna dei Fornelli, and for generations the Poli family has carried on a cooking that is simple and carefully crafted in which every dish tells a story made of genuine ingredients and deep ties to the land.
It isn’t a restaurant that tries to astonish with form, because it convinces with substance: the pasta is homemade, always. Among the first courses you’ll find tagliatelle with Bologna ragù, ricotta tortelloni with speck and walnuts, fresh mushroom gnocchi, green lasagna, tortellini in broth. Among the second courses, the beef tagliata, porcini scallopine, mixed roasts, polenta with ribs and sausage, the platter of Bologna salumi.
On request there are also the Chianina Fiorentina and boar: dishes that you won’t find on every menu and that here have meaning, because they’re backed by a territory. Yet be aware, because Poli’s strength lies precisely in the woods: porcini mushrooms and fresh black truffle become the absolute protagonists of the cuisine. They are personally selected, often harvested in the nearby beech woods and chestnut groves, and they enter traditional recipes reinterpreted with respect for the original flavors.
The Table that Meets the Via degli Dei
But Albergo Poli is not only a place where one eats extraordinarily. It is a base from which to depart and to which to return, a place that knows the pace of those who travel the Via degli Dei, the path that connects Bologna to Florence across the Appennino and that is not merely a hiking route: it is an invitation to slow down, to choose the longer road because it is the one that passes through the most authentic places.
For more than fifty years the Poli family has pursued a simple but precious idea: make every guest feel at home. The rooms are welcoming and well cared for, designed for those who need to recharge after a day among the woods. In the morning, a buffet awaits guests with homemade desserts and local products. The sauna and the hydromassage shower complete the experience, in the moments when the body asks to rest.
Outside, the garden and the greenery of the Appennino remind you why you came here. This is the heart of slow tourism: not “consuming” a place, but inhabiting it for a few days, letting it enter the soul at a pace that the city does not permit. Poli, in this sense, is not a place where you merely sleep and eat: it is the place where a weekend on the Appennino gains the right flavor.
