How many hilltop villages does it take before I stop gasping at the sight of them? How many villages have I said I could live here? How many empty old homes are there in the French and Italian countryside?
The dream is to breath life back into these places. To be able to wind them up like a music box and watch daily life return. Farmers, shopkeepers, cafes, cats in the windows, bicycles leaning against the wall, lace curtains billowing over a pot of red geraniums.
Instead my imagination toys with the possibility and admires the soul the still reaches out.
I OFTEN DREAM THE SAME DREAMS OF PLACES EMPTIED BY TIME....IF ONLY....
Posted by: g | 18 February 2023 at 10:25 PM
Perhaps your fascination with hilltop and hillside villages derives from the fact that they're the opposite of your native (flat) California Central Valley.
Posted by: Kathie B | 18 February 2023 at 10:25 PM
I spent a year abroad in Italy during college in 1974. On a trip with Italian friends we ended up in a hill town made of stone that was practically empty. It had been evacuated by the government because they deemed the buildings unsafe. I remember that there was an old couple who refused to leave and still lived there. The government had moved the whole population to a new town. To me the old stone hill town was so beautiful and I couldn't imagine being a resident and being made to leave.
Posted by: Lil | 19 February 2023 at 12:08 AM
So many untold stories.
Posted by: TracyH | 19 February 2023 at 02:47 PM
So beautiful. I hope the same thing doesn't happen to these buildings as happened to so many of the small farmhouses in the Midwest where I grew up and what is happening now in Boulder, Colorado, where our planning commission seems hellbent on allowing every old and charming house to be demolished and replaced with steel and glass structures so modern that they do not complement the Rocky Mountain environment.
Posted by: Teddee Grace | 19 February 2023 at 06:12 PM
Your postings are always so lovely
Thanks for sharing always
Much love
Jeanne
Posted by: Jeanne | 19 February 2023 at 09:00 PM
So often I say "if only I were younger". I would do it in a heartbeat.
I love reading and seeing stories online of others that take this road less traveled.
Posted by: marilyn | 21 February 2023 at 01:36 AM