Higher up and further out

Our other Grafagnana excursion day (after Barga) was almost surreal at times. Perhaps it's a quality of the Italian afternoon...

Once again, we had to wait until after a noon lesson to leave, so we were traveling when few Italians travel, during the lazy hours of the afternoon. This meant that we felt like the Pevensies arriving in the land of the Dufflepuds--we'd hear sounds of life, but only behind closed shutters. We'd hardly see a soul. The towns we entered seemed to be as deserted as they'd be at 3 a.m., with only a few stray people out on unavoidable business. But no doubt the townspeople knew we were there.

Our first stop, and the only one where we walked around and took photos, was Castiglione di Garfagnana. The only thing we saw open was this tiny church right inside the city walls. It had two pews, facing each other across a middle aisle. The doors were open to the main piazza, just in case someone needed to pray, I suppose.

Many of the old paese were surrounded by stone walls, fortresses, since they were built in the medieval city state days when towns were constantly going to war against each other, usually under the banner of one or the other of the larger towns like Lucca or Florence. This wall was built (at least in its initial form) before 1000.

We walked up to the fortress at one end of the town. It was overgrown and there was no way to go in. A man from Castelnuovo told me that they only open it on Sunday mornings. There was a tiny church built into the side of the wall. It was locked.

I thought of this painting as I took the last photo above.

There was another church, San Michele, (above) at the other end of town, less than five minutes' walk away, but also uphill. Again, it was old, battered, locked and deserted. Clouds building up in the distance lent an eerie cast.

We got back into the car and followed Ms. Nuvi (as we affectionately called our somewhat robotic GPS guide) higher up into the mountains--so far, in fact, that we occasionally wondered whether Ms. Nuvi might not quite know what she was doing--but she never lead us astray. We also had a local excursion guide (written in Italian and English) that helped us to check our progress.

As we drove up towards the towns near the tops of the mountains, the roads became uncomfortably narrow for our rental car, which we had chosen to bring ourselves and three large suitcases from Milan. We'd noticed even on the initial drive into the Garfagnana region that we had to approach each turn carefully, checking for oncoming traffic (especially trucks), and that the turns were so constant that a trip of 18 kilometers could take over an hour. This mountain tour was even more remote and narrow. So we not only had to watch our turns, but our time. (We had a concert that evening.)

Some of the towns, like Sassorosso, were altogether inaccessible to our car. I got this photo off of Google Earth. It approximates the steep angle from which I saw the town, but I almost hate to post it, because it doesn't capture the imposing, austere mood of what I remember. It certainly doesn't capture the color, which was a mixture of red and grey. Sassorosso means "red stone," and the town was obviously built from the rock on which it stood. You can even see bits of stone in the foreground. We had to leave before I had gotten a good enough look, so I was left with a dream-like memory.

Also along these roads, we'd see markers memorializing WWII resistance fighters and marking the spots where they died. We didn't read them all, but one marker said, "Died under the brutality of the Nazis." The mountains were a haven for the resistance, but they were also a battleground towards the end of the war.

Finally, though we didn't take the turn for the Passo delle Radici (the old route across the mountains to Parma) for lack of time, we found a viewpoint near the top of the mountains that was wide enough for our car to pull over, and we photographed this view of the valley below. (Photos never quite capture a view, do they?) Castelnuovo is way off to the left on the valley floow. The air was noticeably cooler when we got out to stretch our legs. I almost wanted a sweater. The slope of the grass and trees was almost straight down, with little shelves and terraces along the way.

Some terraces had farms on them. This area is known for its chestnut flour, because the land is too hilly for wheat.

We passed through several other towns on the way down, some of them so small (a couple of houses and a church) that we were surprised they were on the map at all. At one such town, Chiozza, we found two women and come children cleaning the town church. Like Sr. Bertolani said, these towns make Castelnuovo look big and busy. They all have long histories, though, reaching back before the first millenium, and some further.

On a more recreational note, this whole area looks like very promising hiking territory, and I'd love to return in circumstances that are more favorable for a long day hike. Perhaps we could even stay overnight, and meet some of the people who live here, if we spoke better Italian. One thing I've learned is that Italian towns can feel completely different, and much more festive, at night!

Our touring area, from the town of Castiglione's website.