Civita di Bagnoregio
An
Italian hilltown
People who've been there say "Civita" (chee-VEE-tah) with
warmth and love. This precious chip of Italy, a traffic-free community
with a grow-it-in-the-valley economy, has so far escaped the ravages
of modernity. Please approach it with the same respect and sensitivity
you would a dying relative, because in a sense that's
Civita.
Civita teeters atop a pinnacle in a vast canyon ruled by wind and
erosion. But, while its population has dropped to 14, the town survives
(and even has a website: www.civitadibagnoregio.it).
The saddle that once connected Civita to its bigger and busier sister
town, Bagnoregio, eroded away. Today a bridge connects the two towns.
A man with a Vespa does the same work his father did with a donkey
ferrying the town's goods up and down the umbilical bridge
that connects Civita with a small, distant parking lot and the rest
of Italy. Rome, just 60 miles to the south, is a world away.
Entering the town through a cut in the rock made by Etruscans 2,500
years ago, and heading under a 12th-century Romanesque arch, you
feel history in the huge, smooth cobblestones. This was once the
main Etruscan road leading to the Tiber Valley and Rome.
Inside the gate, the charms of Civita are subtle. Those looking
for arcade tourism wouldn't know where to look. There are no lists
of attractions, orientation tours, or museum hours. It's just Italy.
Civita is an artist's dream, a town in the nude. Each lane and footpath
holds a surprise. The warm stone walls glow, and each stairway is
dessert to a sketch pad or camera.
Sit in the piazza. Smile and nod at each local who passes
by. It's a social jigsaw puzzle, and each person fits. The old woman
hanging out in the window monitors gossip. A tiny hunchback lady
is everyone's daughter. And cats, the fastest growing segment of
the population, scratch their itches on ancient pillars.
Civita's young people are gone, lured away by the dazzle of today
to grab their place in Italy's cosmopolitan parade. And as old people
become frail, they move into apartments in nearby Bagnoregio.
Today, Civita's social pie has three slices: the aging, full-time
residents; rich, big-city Italians who are slowly buying up the
place for their country escape (a blue-blooded "Marchesa"
owns the house next to the town gate and Civita's first hot
tub); and visitors enjoying la dolcezza di fare niente (the
sweetness of doing nothing). Buoyed by my writing and exposure in
German and French travel magazines, Civita can see up to 200 tourists
a day on summer weekends. In summer, visit on a weekday.
Explore the village. The basic grid street plan of the ancient town
survives, but its centerpiece a holy place of worship
rotates with the cultures: first an Etruscan temple, then a Roman
temple, and today a church. The pillars that stand like bar stools
in the square once decorated the pre-Christian temple.
Step into the church. The heartbeat and pride of the village,
this is where festivals and processions start, visitors are escorted,
and the town's past is honored. Enjoy paintings by students of famous
artists; relics of the hometown-boy Saint Bonaventure; a dried floral
decoration spread across the floor; and a cool, quiet moment in
a pew.
The basic grid street plan of the ancient town survives. Just around
the corner from the church, on the main street, is Rossana and Antonio's
cool and friendly wine cellar (their sign reads bruschette
con prodotti locali). Pull up a stump and let them or their
children, Arianna and Antonella, serve you panini (sandwiches),
bruschetta (garlic toast with optional tomato topping), wine,
and a local cake called ciambella. Climb down into the cellar
and note the traditional wine-making gear and the provisions for
rolling huge kegs up the stairs. Tap on the kegs in the cool bottom
level to see which are full (open April-Oct daily 11:00-17:00, Nov-March
closed Thu).
The ground below Civita is honeycombed with ancient cellars (for
keeping wine at the same temperature all year) and cisterns (for
collecting rainwater, since there was no well in town). Many of
these date from Etruscan times.
Explore further down the street, but remember nothing is
abandoned. Everything is still privately owned. After passing an
ancient Roman tombstone on your left, you'll come to Vittoria's
Antico Mulino, an atmospheric collection of old olive presses.
The huge press in the entry is about 1,500 years old and was in
use as recently as the 1960s (donation requested, give about €1).
Antico Frantoio Bruschetteria is a rustic place for a bite
to eat. Vittoria's sons, Sandro, Maurizio, and Felice, and her grandson
Fabrizio (with his American wife, Heather) run the local equivalent
of a lemonade stand, toasting delicious bruschetta (roughly 10:0020:00
in summer, winter SatSun only, tel. 0176-948-429). Peruse
the menu, choose your topping (chopped tomato is super), and get
a glass of wine for a fun, affordable snack.
Farther down the way and to your left, Maria (for a donation of
about €1) will show you through her garden with a grand
view (Maria's Giardino) and share historical misinformation
(she says Civita and Lubriano were once connected). Maria's husband,
Peppone, used to carry goods on a donkey back and forth on the path
between the old town and Bagnoregio.
At the end of town, the main drag winds downhill past small Etruscan
caves to your right. The first two were used as stables until
a few years ago. The third cave is an unusual chapel, cut deep into
the rock, with a barred door this is the Chapel of the Incarcerated
(Cappella del Carcere). In Etruscan times, the chapel may
have originally been a tomb, and in medieval times, it was used
as a jail. When Civita's few residents have a religious procession,
they come here, in honor of the Madonna of the Incarcerated.
After the chapel, the paving-stone path peters out into a dirt trail
leading down and around to the right to a tunnel. Dating from the
Etruscan era, the tunnel may have served as a shortcut to the river
below. It was widened in the 1930s so farmers could get between
their scattered fields more easily, and now the residents use it
as a shortcut in fall to collect chestnuts from the trees that cover
the hillside. Backtrack to the town square.
At Trattoria Antico Forno ("The Antique Oven"),
owner Franco serves up pasta at affordable prices (daily during
peak season for lunch 12:30-15:30 and sporadically for dinner 19:30-22:00,
on main square, also rents rooms, tel. 0761-760-016). Pina's
Pizzeria cooks up good pizza and homemade sweets to eat there
or to go (daily 12:00-22:00, near entry into town).
Spend the evening. After dinner, sit on the church steps with people
who've done exactly that for 60 years. Children play on the piazza
until midnight. As you walk back to your car that scourge
of the modern world that enabled you to get here stop under
a lamp on the donkey path, listen to the canyon ...distant voices
...fortissimo crickets.
Towering above its moat, Civita seems to be fortified against change.
But the modern world is a persistent battering ram. Civita will
be great for years, but never as great as today.
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