The Lima drops off the Abetone pass and spends forty kilometres getting to the Serchio, most of it through the kind of clear, boulder-strewn Apennine water that makes you want to just stand and look for a while before stringing up a rod. Bagni di Lucca sits at its lower end — spa town and fishing water both — and the twenty-four kilometres of river running through its territory, from Lucchio down to the Fornoli confluence, carry a real weight of local fishing history. No-kill water, barbless hooks, and native trota fario holding in the seams behind boulders the size of small cars. It's smaller and steeper than the Sieve, wilder than the managed water below the Bilancino dam, and it rewards the kind of unhurried, watchful approach that Apennine pocket water always demands.

• Sandstone shale