destination calabria:photo tour of a medieval village (part II)

51 CommentsFriday • September 7, 2007 • by michelle

We left off yesterday with a glance back at one of the abandoned parts of my village, and now it’s time to delve even deeper.

Here’s where we were.

This is one of the original walls of the village that used to protect from invasions of pirates and the like.

And here’s another angle of the same wall, which you can tell from the flowers growing out of it (remember, this was May when the photos were taken).

The big crack down the middle? Earthquake damage from at least the 1950s, but probably before then even as this area has been hit with quite a few big ones–the city of Reggio Calabria was leveled in 1908.

The village was also the victim of an alluvione, a flash flood that caused a mudslide, wiping off a good chunk of the village–that’s the part we’ve been walking through, and now we’re in a section that, although didn’t wash away, was where a lot of those houses landed.

The village is situated up on a hill, which means a lot of steep inclines and declines, right Cherrye? This is a small one:

And although this entire section of the village is completely abandoned, there are still some chickens, pigs, goats, etc., kept down here. And other stuff.

If you keep walking, you’ll eventually get to the lowest church in the village, Chiesa della Provvidenza, built in 1598, which puts her in the younger half of the thirteen churches in the village.

She’s also one of my favorites because the town celebrates la Madonna di Provvidenza on the first Sunday in July–which means that every year, there’s a cook-out and fireworks at least sometime around the 4th of July, which is nice for this American.

Plus the church kind of reminds me of a gingerbread house, and they always make me smile.

On the left side of the above photo, do you see the small wooden cross that looks like it was built to face the church? I couldn’t resist taking a closer look.

I’m not sure if there is any special significance, but I do know that there was a tragic accident near there many years ago involving young children playing with explosives they found; as legend goes, after World War II, many soldiers literally dropped their weapons and ammunition where they were standing when they heard the war was over, and every now and again, there is word of someone finding something from that time period.

P tells me there were some explosives that resembled sardine cans with a peel-back lid, so one could see how children might get curious.

And this is where Luna lost all patience and ran off towards home without me. Photo tour cut short on that lovely Sunday morning in May.

I hope to take another one soon, though, and I’ll be sure to share what I see.

On yesterday’s post, there were a few questions in the comments regarding the state of the village, how it got this way, what’s happening now, etc., and I promise to answer them all in due time. It’ll require preparing a short yet interesting history lesson, which I promise to work on over the weekend if you promise to come back to learn.

Would it help if I guarantee a mention of the Holy Grail?

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