Category Archives: Bagni di Lucca

My Christmas Carol

Posted on by
Reply

This will be an introspective Christmas for many. It will certainly be rather different for all.  So many, in various states of isolation brought on by the present world health crisis, will muse on their own Christmases past, present and future. Like Dickens’ immortal tale we shall be visited by the ghosts of those three spirits of Christmas.

One will remember that the first spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Past, takes Scrooge to the Christmas scenes of his boyhood, reminding him of a time when he was more innocent but also where he makes his first mistakes including the ending of his engagement to his fiancée Belle.

The ghost of my Christmas past brings on a rather mixed bag of memories. Joyously, I will be reminded of happy Christmases spent with my grandparents in Milan where the tree was decorated with lights in the shape of little houses, cottages and chapels, where there was a lovely animated crib in the parish church of San Camillo, where presents, especially from my aunt were truly special like that clockwork excavator from ‘Western Zone’ Germany

and where lunches were graced with panettone and panforte.

The English Christmases were somewhat less enjoyable. I wonder why? Perhaps it was because my mum really wished she was back in Milan celebrating an Italian-style Christmas and not one with that cheapest of meat for Italy, turkey, and that stodgy pudding. Perhaps that’s why she was more often than not, in an irritable mood, especially on one occasion when my brother secretly opened his presents before the appointed time.

One will remember that the second spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Present, takes Scrooge to a jolly market with people buying food for their Christmas dinner. Everyone is in a happy mood no matter how poor they may be. My second spirit of Christmas first showed himself himself when I married Sandra. Suddenly so many things changed for the better, even though we were so often quite poor, and Christmas became a truly joyous occasion with visits to Sandra’s Italian parents in north London and a lunch supervised to exquisite perfection by her Florentine father. Every Christmas with Sandra has been a joy and our rituals of decorating the house, making the nativity crib, going to Midnight Mass at London’s, Saint Etheldreda’s

 or Lucca’s chiesa dell’Angelo,

adorning the Christmas tree with lights and baubles and giving presents to each other with the names of our cats has followed a reassuringly set pattern.

For only four Christmases, including, unfortunately, the one this year, in our forty-three years of marriage years of marriage have we been apart. One of them was when I spent it Greenwich hospital with an embolism and the other this year – well we all know the reason why so many people will not be spending their Christmases this year with their families. (Incidentally it’s a slightly cold comfort to know that at least two of my friends from Lucca are marooned like Sandra in London. And clearly they are missing their lovely city badly).

The third spirit, the Ghost of Christmas Yet to come, shows Scrooge a Christmas Day in the future and reveals scenes involving the death of a disliked man whose funeral is attended by local businessmen only on condition that lunch is provided. That disliked man is, of course, Scrooge himself.

What will the third spirit, the ghost of Christmas future, bring for all of us? Who knows? I suspect, however, that it will not start brilliantly for many unless the world changes its attitudes on many things – in particular on money….. It will start even less well for the UK thanks to the will of a slim majority of persons who voted to cut the continent off from their thoughts in the mistaken belief of regaining their sovereignty.

In this respect it is pleasantly ironic that the first group of people offering food and help to the beleaguered truck drivers blocked on the roads to Dover were the Sikh community – immigrants to the United Kingdom.  All praise to them for showing the true spirit of Christmas. They stand for the changed Scrooge when he is shown a neglected grave, with a tombstone bearing his name. Breaking down and sobbing, Scrooge pledges to change his ways. The first thing he does is to order a goose for his poor exploited employee Bob Cratchit. As the carol says:  “They go and collect the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.”

And, as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless Us, Every One!”

The Longest Night

Posted on by
6

Whether we’re in a red, orange or yellow day in Italy may matter little to today’s five big points for me:

First, it’s a beautifully sunny day,

It’s one of the last such days we’ll be having before Christmas, for soon the real below-freezing winter will start and our plants will have to be protected if they are not to die.

Second, it’s going to be a rerun of the Star of Bethlehem as seen by the three Wise Men in AD zero. Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction and it will be a treat to see such a bright light in the sky tonight. Let’s not miss this sight since another eight hundred years may pass before we get a similar chance.

Third. It’s the year’s shortest day…and the longest night. As John Donne writes in that quintessentially sad poem ‘A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day’ “this both the year’s, and the day’s deep midnight is”.

Fourth. If the UK has shut the door on Europe, Europe has done the same on Britain. But this time it’s not because of a misplaced political choice but because of a very real health emergency. The Continent (and the rest of the world) do not wish to be invaded by mutants, especially if they originate from Dover or Heathrow.

Fifth. For many people (like us) it’s going to be a zoomingly whatsapping Christmas with virtual lunches (but some real conversations at least). Yes we’ve been marooned: Sandra in the UK and I in Italy. All those cancelled flights, all those false hopes etc. It’s only the fourth time we’ve not spent Christmas together since we married over forty years ago. This is pretty good going, however, and for so many of us Christmas can be any day we wish. Like Miss Havisham with her cancelled wedding party I’ll keep the decorations up but will refrain from having rats on the dining table rushing about eating the panettone and may even do a bit of dusting to wipe those cobwebs away.

I will also not continue to wear my Santa Claus hat when going out. And as for those Christmas carols…

If anything this Christmas season will teach us many things. We are all refugees in our own countries and all in need of that little extra piece of love and humanity from others. Let’s trust we all receive that as a present at least.

Double-Thinking In Bagni di Lucca

Posted on by
4

When towards the end of his life the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked what he thought the most important axioms were he replied:

“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say…I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more closely and closely interconnected we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don’t like. We can only live together in that way and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”

It would certainly be lovely to be able to tolerate other people’s views without question even if one believed that the facts they were based on were largely fanciful. After all, that other great philosopher Voltaire is said to have uttered:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”.

We are about to end this year with a double whammy, at least as far as the UK is concerned. The first is the unending saga of Brexit. I voted to remain as I felt the devil one knows was better. Certainly the EU is full of imperfections but it still adheres to the ideals of its original founders and has preserved us from the worst forms of worker exploitation and, above, from the threat of an endemic state of war which has tortured the European continent since the fall of the Roman Empire. Yet I continue to receive these messages from persons I not only tolerate but still respect:

“I believe that the EU which is a corrupted organisation and involved in the most dishonest financial and political crimes will be dismantled, once lots of truths will be coming out in the near future.

I do believe it from the bottom of my heart. What we have been living for the past nine months is the most important time in history in a long time. It is a time of awakening to the false truths and that we have been fed for a very long time. It is not political. But I would say biblical. 

It is literally the third world war. It is a fight between The Dark and the Light. And the Light will win.”

The other thing I find hard to take is the conspiracy theories of those who believe that Covid-19 is a tool of a carefully engineered totalitarian scheme to reduce us to obedient servants of an oppressive world government. Like this other message I received:

“Listen to the true scientists – Nobel Prize medical scientists. People that have actually been involved in making them for military purpose like Montanari and Gatti.

There are two kind of science. One is the corrupted science that has been giving us all lies up to now and that has the monopoly with giant pharmaceutical companies. The other is an independent science that has been squashed and silenced by the ones in power.”

Another message on this same theme comes from someone I used to play chess with before covid concerns entered into the equation. I certainly could not accuse good chess players of lacking logic: 

“The masks are the symbol of the muzzle and the gag to silence those who are not in line, just like dog- owners, to prevent them from barking or biting.  Nature has taught us to breathe pure air and we pollute it. Just use appropriate masks where the air is not pure, but outdoors and above all it is more harmful to use them.  Furthermore, as indicated on the packaging, they only serve to protect our interlocutor from any Covid transmitted by you, not the other way around.  The virus is a millionth part of a millimetre and a normal tissue is not able to stop it. It can only stop a drop that contains it by fixing it on the mask but then it is not enough.  On the other hand, you breathe in the carbon dioxide you emit.  So when in doubt it should be used in closed places in contact with others, not to defend you but them and in the shortest possible time.”

The problem is that the quotations I have printed above are all from people I have considered friends and in some cases worked alongside in artistic projects. Have they been brainwashed rather like the way Winston was by the end of Orwell’s ‘1984’? Or is it I who is the brainwashed victim?

Does ‘doublethink’ really exist? As Winston, in ‘1984’, mused in front of the telescreen while doing his morning exercises as instructed.

“To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic”

Now what am I supposed to do? Refuse to talk about religion and politics and stick to safe subjects like what will the weather be like tomorrow or what is the best way to cook lasagne?

Of course, we are all entitled to our opinions. That surely must be the basis of a democratic and balanced civilization. However, there is this significant difference. There is a tone of almost messianic ranting, of belief that unless we believe the messages’ viewpoint we are all doomed to enslavement and eventual extermination.

I look forwards to two world developments once I have tried to forget all these tantalizing thoughts during Christmas: the state of the UK after New Year’s Eve and the covid vaccination programme. Will we still have to continue double-thinking for long after that I wonder?

We are now in the White Zone?

Posted on by
Reply

It was lovely to reminisce about our fabulous Sicilian journey in my last few posts. However, we have to hit the present reality at one time or another. Even in the Apennine village we live in one cannot forget the current covid situation. From the least dangerous yellow zone Tuscany moved to orange zone and now it is in the red zone with the highest strictures applied to social interaction. No doubt my friends in the local branch of the Reformed Italian Communist party may humorously quip on this point but we remain red until at least Christmas.

Better red than dead? Only essential shops are open (which include hairdressers, of course) and if one wants a cappuccino and a pezzo dolce (bun) one will be served it in a cardboard cup with the bun put in a paper bag and then leave from a newly named exit door and enjoy elevenses in the cold of winter Bagni di Lucca’s deserted market square. Not quite what one expected of Italy but then Italy is in a very unexpected situation as, indeed, is the rest of the world.

Actually, since yesterday morning we are now no longer into the red zone but rather in the white, as a scattering of snow has turned large chunks of our mountain landscape into a winter wonderland.

This was the scene looking out of my bedroom window yesterday morning.

These are some photographs from friends who live further north at Porretta. They got a more generous helping of the white stuff.

A beautiful set of photographs of Montefegatesi, our highest village, was taken by that master photographer David Bonaventuri. I’m sure he won’t mind if I include this one in my post. It’s so atmospheric!

One helpful thing which the pandemic has brought for us is the ability to look and act locally. This may mean anything from clearing out our kitchen cupboard in need of attention, or tidying up the garden or by-passing supermarkets like the plague (literally!) and using the excellent local shops we have here at Bagni di Lucca. Here is the front of Ragghianti’s shop, for example:

And Borghesi’s bar and restaurant do offer a good selection of take-aways:

 

Although the UK has perhaps prematurely rushed to grasp the saving rope of a vaccine Italy has to wait at least another month, I just hope that southern Italy and Calabria in particular, where hospitals coping with the pandemic are close to breaking-down point thanks to a combination of the local version of the mafia known as the ndrangheta and badly-cut health services, will not have to suffer for too long. It’s just not fair to a beautiful country and to such beautiful people as the Italians.

We two are towards the end of our employment history and consider ourselves lucky that we don’t have to suffer both the economic hardships of much of the population especially the self-employed like artists and musicians and also the psychological damage which younger people are bound to suffer as a result of social distancing. (How could we have been forbidden parties when I was at uni!) In this respect Italy is particularly hard-done-by. Different countries have different concepts of social space: the further north one goes the wider the distance of interaction between people. Italy is a particularly tactile country; hugs and kisses abound here, especially between generations. How sad that so many cannot express themselves in this way for the time being. Let us truly hope that a New Year will bring hope and that one day not too far away we will be able to shake hands and hug our friends and, most of all, appreciate anew how valuable real (and not virtual!) human contact is and how we must treasure life’s most valuable gifts: our loved ones and true friends.

Bagni di Lucca’s Previous Pandemic

Posted on by
Reply

BAGNI DI LUCCA’S PREVIOUS PANDEMIC.

Premise: I have translated and made a few additions to Bruno Micheletti’s fascinating recent article on Bagni di Lucca’s 1629-31 pandemic. Bruno Micheletti, as many of you will know is a leading member of our local historical association and some of you may have met him during Bagni di Lucca’s organised visit to Casabasciana. Bruno’s knowledge on these matters is, therefore, second to none.

***

Wear a face mask? No thanks. I prefer wearing a noose round my neck…

Every age has its own remedies and ways of facing and resolving emergency situations that arise. Obviously in the days when no-one knew how infections were transmitted, how they could be cured and, above all, when there were no vaccines, people turned to supernatural measures. Thus, during the great Italian plague of 1629-31 which claimed perhaps one million lives, or about 25% of the population, [the inhabitants of Bagni di Lucca, implemented the following measures. In September 1630 news of the plague pandemic arrived in the Lima valley. At that time, the entire territory of Lucca was still free from infection, so Bagni di Lucca’s local company of Suffrage (a charitable body dedicated to good works, and prayers for the dead) decided to make a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Foce Colonia which is on the road that leads from the Monti di Villa to Montefegatesi and is better known today as the oratorio di Sant’Anna.

From there the procession decided to return via the Pieve di Controne and passed by another image considered miraculous: the Madonna Del Poggio at Guzzano.

(This is the church on the hill just outside Guzzano which suffered earthquake damage in 2012 but was well-restored thanks to the efforts of Claudio Gemignani. See my post on this church resurrection at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/08/07/guzzano-church-resurrection/)

The same company also decided to undertake another penitential procession, this time from the church of San Martino (the as yet under restoration building just above the Terme Alte) to the Bagni Caldi down the hill to the church at Ponte al Serraglio. From here they proceeded to the church of San Marco. The brothers were all with their hoods pulled down over their faces and wearing a rope noose around their necks.

During the height of the plague (October 1630 – April 1631) every Saturday evening the Company of the Rosary would depart from Bagni di Lucca’s parish  church of Corsena and head for the Madonna del Colle. They too wore a hood over their faces and a rope noose around their neck. The Commissioner of Val di Lima also participated in these processions, wearing his more elaborate noose. In addition guards were posted at the two bridges at Seraglio and at Palmaia, and a large gate installed across the road leading to the Controneria. Nobody was allowed to come in and nobody was allowed to leave…complete lock-down!

The plague fortunately ceased with the first summer heat of 1631. The town of Bagni di Lucca had only five deaths. The victims were all buried near the baths and not in the church. So the processions, the gates and the nooses worn around the neck had apparently worked successfully.

This valuable information by Bruno Micheletti prompted me to note that our own little church or Chiesina ‘della Margine’ at Longoio bears the date 1631 and is dedicated to the Madonna of the Seven Dolours.

This date cannot be coincidental. It is quite clear Longoio was saved from the pandemic by the prompt action of Bagni di Lucca’s company of suffrage. Having stated this I just wonder how long it will be for us inhabitants of the Controneria to be able to enter the town of Bagni di Lucca without fear of contagion or the necessity of wearing a face mask or of sanitizing one’s hands or practising social distancing. I, for one, almost feel that, subject to the arrival of the miracle vaccine, a suitably social distanced religious procession might even be in order. If it was successful in 1631 why not today?

I, at least would feel inclined that in order to give thanks to the Almighty for eventually delivering us from the pandemic we could have the former church of San Rocco outside nearby Vetteglia and now in a ruinous condition restored as a refreshment and information point for modern day pilgrims to the extraordinarily beautiful area of the Controneria.

(In case you didn’t know San Rocco was invoked against the plague and, judging by the number of churches dedicated to him, was particularly venerated. Born in a noble family the saint gave his wealth to the poor and became a mendicant pilgrim. During his travels the town of Acquapendente became badly affected by the Black Death; Saint Roch stopped there and healed its victims by making the sign of the cross over them. He cured the sick from several other plague-ridden towns without catching the disease himself. However, when the saint reached Piacenza in northern Italy he fell a victim and a fetid ulcer developed in his leg. So rank was its smell that people kept well away from him. Luckily a dog befriended Roch and brought him some food on a daily basis and even licked his ulcer clean. Hence St. Roch has also become the patron saint of dogs. So let’s have a refreshment point here for dog walkers and their pets too!)

The beautifully distanced photograph of the oratory of Foce Colonia (Madonna di Sant’Anna) is by courtesy of one of our finest local photographers, David Bonaventuri.

Prehistoric Mists

Posted on by
Reply

We are really looking forwards to a spot of sunshine. For almost a week now our valley has been immersed in thick mist from which the silhouettes of spectral hills occasionally appear.

 

It’s a bit reminiscent of those pictures one sees of the Colombian rainforest or of the plateau of Roraima, Conan Doyle’s lost world. Will dinosaurs perhaps peer through the vaporous horizon?

Will pterodactyls beat their huge bat-like wings above our heads

or sabre-toothed predators enter our bedroom?

The valley is truly atmospherically locked down here in the Lucchesia. Friends have told us of a similar situation in their part of the area. Indeed much of Italy appears submerged under a vast cloud.  Anyway, let’s look towards the end of this week when things should brighten up a bit… I bet there will be a splurge of woodland mushrooms everywhere! There might even be a rainbow bringing promise to our skies like there was last week over our village…

A Tankard-full of Chanterelles

Posted on by
2

Mushrooms, for so many people in our area, mean ‘porcini’, or ceps mushrooms. However, there are several other species which in our view are just as good to eat and, in some respects even superior. Among these is the chanterelle. There are plenty of these delicious fungi around at this time of the year when rain alternates with sunny days and leaves are falling fast.

 

We find chanterelles have several advantages over other edible mushrooms. They are more easily identified than many others and, thus, less likely to have one poison oneself and be placed under dialysis for life or, even worse, buy it. They also have a very subtle taste with a hint of apricots and even a touch of pepper. I enjoy them sauted with a dollop of cream: that’s a great way to combine fresh woodland produce with excellent nutritional value! They can also form part of a delicious flan:

Why are these mushrooms called chanterelles? It’s because the name derives from from the Greek kantharos meaning “tankard” or “cup”, referring to their shape.

Here is an example of a kantharos from ancient Greece:

Every season has something great on offer but autumn with its mushrooms is truly special!

Paint it Black

Posted on by
Reply

Why is it that a black cat crossing one’s path will bring good luck in England – so long as it crosses from left to right – but bad luck in Italy? Black is such an ambiguous colour! Associated with evil, dark forces, violence and death it is also related to authority and justice as with the cloaks of judges and academics. Regarding dress how can a colour be connected with totalitarian shirts and, at the same time, remind one of that little black number worn by Audrey Hepburn in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’? Sadly for many the colour is the black dog of depression. These thoughts entered my mind while artist Delfina Nahrgang guided me through an exhibition of her paintings on display at Bagni di Lucca’s Corona Hotel since October 10th. Delfina, who has a studio in New York’s Manhattan and, since 1981, in Italy’s Pietrasanta, eschews labels affixed on her work. However, it is clear that her artistic journey owes much to abstract expressionism, a movement which turned the Big Apple into a newly pulsating arts centre. Delfina mentioned the names of some painters she felt an affinity with: Robert Motherwell, that most refined of abstract expressionists, Willem de Kooning and the surrealist Max Ernst.

Looking at the canvases displayed in the hotel, happily reborn in its picturesque riverside setting, I sensed the power of black both liberating and controlling the surge of colours emerging from the depths of metaphorical caves and canyons within a redefined space-time continuum. I was intreagued by the dialectic between the paintings’ visual message and their titles, bestowed by Delfina’s literary husband. ‘Opera’, for example, invites one to dream of plush opening red curtains, spectacle, expectancy, the radiant oscillations of musical sounds.

‘Bagdad ‘, on the other hand, with its suggestion of crude power and primeval jungle, paints a harrowing battle between positive and negative forces and is as direct an emotive reaction to the Iraq war as Motherwell’s ‘Elegies to the Spanish Republic’.

Of particular relevance to today’s health situation is ‘Masks’. Here swirls of colour seem to liberate themselves from the blackness. A white mask emerges, there are shades of lagoon waters, of secret liaisons, of midnight trysts. But is this a festive carnival or is it a dance of death?


Most of the paintings use oil but there are two delicate works in pastel which the artist says she rarely uses. Delfina is also a wonderfully fluent watercolourist.

Few artists enjoy labels fixed onto them. However, I felt that in any art history book Delfina may safely be placed as one of the finest Colour Field movement painters of contemporary times. Her creations have both power and delicacy, forcefulness and lyricism. Above all they encapsulate an originality and an honesty all too rarely found in today’s artistic universe.

The exhibition was due to close at the end of October. Let us hope that our persuasion to have it extended is possible for it would be a real pity to miss Delfina’s art.

 

‘Et tu Brute?’

Posted on by
4

 

As I wake up to the following gloriously expansive view from my bedroom window with its clear blue Mediterranean sky and autumnally tinged forests it’s easy to momentarily forget that the world is living through some cataclysmic crises: climate change, species extinction, covid-19 for starters, and that so many countries, in addition, are having to face wars whether they be arms or trade ones.

 

As I write this large areas of our planet are being devastated by fires, by sea level rises, by military destruction and…by a new Kentish lorry park, digging into the idyllic landscape of the North Downs, in preparation for the impending brexit deadline of January first 2021. (To be suggestingly named, according to some wags, the ‘Nigel Farage Memorial Park’).

I just wonder how many New Year’s eve parties will be celebrated at the end of this year what with the strictures imposed by pandemic rules and the growing doubt among believers that what they voted for might have all been a con and that they were sold a pup.

I have sadly come to the view that there is a close relationship between those people who still deny climate change, those who are against any form of vaccination, those who affirm covid-19 is a hoax and those who believe that brexit is the best thing since sliced Hovis. Of course this is not to say that these belief systems completely tally one with the other but there is a far more intense overlap between them than between their opposites.

OK, we have earned the essential privilege, after centuries of feudal oppression and crass totalitarianism, of individual freedom as encapsulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We have evolved considerably from being the huddled masses exemplified in the hierarchical ideology of so many societies – from the caste system in the Indian sub-continent to the class system still prevalent in the British Isles – towards the individualism which has arisen out of it.

However, if we all continued to behave in a highly individual manner as before – refusing to wear face masks in prescribed areas or failing to differentiate our household waste – then many of us will be in the same position as those inhabitants of German towns, just after World War 2 had ended, who were escorted into the remnants of concentration camps to witness their own country’s version of man’s inhumanity to man on a scale never before seen. I doubt there could have been any holocaust deniers left after these visits to their local extermination camp.

Yes, regretfully there’s also a connection, in my mind, between pandemic deniers and holocaust deniers. Perhaps visits to the local intensive care unit (where I was a denizen earlier this year) might be organized to dispel this belief if health restrictions did not permit it.

In Bagni Di Lucca I have come across people who blatantly remain mask-less in the middle of the Saturday morning market. They don’t even seem to carry one on their arms. I just wonder if they ever step into a store for their shopping; shop-keepers would never let them in for they too are subject to hefty fines for breaking anti-virus regulations. Other people have asked me ‘do you know anyone who has died of Covid-19?’ Sadly I do now and tell them so. They still appear to remain unconvinced, however.

The conspiracy theorists spread far and wide into that dark area of persons known as members of Q-anon who apparently are now considerably influencing the forthcoming US elections.

How does one relate to those who believe in these conspiracy theories? Bertrand Russell said that tolerance is necessary in any human relationship. All well and good but then are we to tolerate FGM, Suttee or legalised lethal injections? The other thing Russell said was ‘confirm the veracity of the facts’. That is clearly more difficult to handle and that’s where conspiracy ideology finds an easy way to worm itself into the collective subconsciousness.

Whatever happens in all this mess one thing is clear. Unless British residents in Bagni Di Lucca confirm their residence permission documents, obtain their Italian medical cards, exchange their UK drivers license for an Italian one and ensure their now European-citizenship-less passports are up to date they are going to find that discovering any brexitian benefits will be as difficult as locating the proverbial needle in a haystack. I just hope they will at least wear their ‘mascherine’ (as sanitary masks are called in Italy.)

Or you could sleep your way through all this…

From Power Stations to Hospital Trains in Tuscany

Posted on by
Reply

This autumn FAI, ( Fondo Ambiente Italiano), the Italian counterpart to England’s National Trust, is organising special openings to several unusual places. In Tuscany thirty five sites from Florence to Livorno and from Lucca to Grossetto, will be open (with booking recommended) to the public.

The places it will be possible to visit include the thermal power plant of Santa Maria Novella station in Florence, a fine example of twentieth-century architecture, the maze of underground passages in the New Fortress of Livorno and the little theatre of Vetriano, in Lucca, the smallest historical public theatre in the world.

There is also a natural monument, the oak of the Checce in Val d’Orcia (also known as the oak of the witches), as well as a train-hospital in Massa used as the set of the ‘English Patient’.

The dates for these special visits are Saturday 17, Sunday 18 October, Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October 2020. Booking is recommended as entry is not guaranteed and the locations can only be visited if there are free places left.

Because of an agreement National Trust card holders are admitted free to the sites. Otherwise a minimum contribution of three euros is required (paid by credit card or PayPal). Children under six enter free.

Anti-Covid rules obviously apply: during visits it is mandatory to wear a mask, keep a safe distance and wash your hands often.

Near us at Bagni Di Lucca the following places will be open:

Church of Santa Caterina, Lucca

(Described in my post at https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/luccas-baroque-flower-blossoms-anew/)

Oratorio degli Angeli Custodi, Lucca

Little theatre of Vetriano, Pescaglia (Lucca)

San Cassiano di Controne (Lucca)

Village of Vico Pancellorum, Bagni di Lucca

Carlo Niccoli marble sculpture workshops, Carrara

Centoporte Hospital train, Massa

Further details are available including how and where to book at:
https://ilreporter.it/sezioni/eventi/giornate-fai-autunno-2020-toscana-firenze-luoghi-aperti/quote

See you there?