As advocates of urban exploration we have enjoyed sometimes hair-raising adventures visiting decrepit ruins of houses, factories and such-like. The only rules of the game are not to take anything from the site and not to be specific about where your exploration is. Of course, such places must be safe to enter – I would not wish cement girders from disused mills to fall upon me, for example – and common sense must be applied in all cases.

Italy is a particularly exciting place for urban exploration and several of my posts have covered objects of our investigations. For example:

Urban Exploration at Pieve Fosciana

The Decaying Beauty of a Villa

The Secrets of Villa Ada

Lucca’s Tallest (and Biggest) Building

I would extend the field from urban to rural exploration for Italy abounds in so many abandoned farmsteads, its former denizens having been lured away from poverty by rich prospects in emigration to overseas cities

Sometimes there is no clear reason why such domestic buildings should have been abandoned. The sight of this once charming farmhouse traumatised us the other day.

Clearly a lot of love and effort had been spent in restoring the house and garden. And it must have been carried out recently too! Yet the almost tropical forces of our flora were slowly recapturing and strangulating the building with luxuriant foliage covering steps and walls.

How sad! What had happened for this little treasure to come to this? What curse had befallen its stones and bricks? What family tragedy had struck the once beloved plot? How could the place not have been sold or at least auctioned? Truly it seemed to forecast the start of the fall of another House of Usher!

Religious buildings and chapels abound in secluded parts of our beautiful countryside and luckily so many of them have been preserved as living parts of the landscape and never foresaken. True, there may be just one Mass celebrated in them annually (usually in May, the month of the Madonna) but this is enough for these charming chapels in the woods to keep their roofs and to be lovingly tended with offerings of flowers and a good sweep. Happily a sacred place in Italy is still largely respected and is free from the horrors of vandalism. Indeed, if such behaviours take place they do make headline news.

Yesterday we took a walk in the luscious woods in our area.

Eventually we came across this delightful ‘chiesina’, or little church, which celebrated its annual Mass last May. Some might ask why build a chapel in the middle of a forest and away from human habitation. However, these ‘chiesine’ were conveniently placed for shepherds and farmers to practise their religious devotions in areas away from their villages without having to detour to the main parish church. Their delightful pillared porticos also make welcomed shelters from those sudden thunderstorms!

I love the association of chapels in woods with legend and, especially, with Malory’s evocative Morte d’Arthur. One of the loveliest places I know in Wales is indeed called Betws-y-Coed or Chapel in the Wood and has Arthurian connotations.

Chapels are naturally sacred places and often built on sites of ancient significance where miracles have occurred or where holy hermits have lived in olden times. I always feel strong natural forces entering my whole body when approaching such spiritual places.

May the chapels in the woods continue to heal our souls and ever be kept free from abandonment.