Some times in life you are able to close a circle with your past. The challenge is not always finding and closing the circle, but trying to understand, comprehend and appreciate the totality of the experience. Maybe a partial appreciation is all we can hope for after all.
Some time about a hundred and twenty years ago, a nineteen year old Swiss-Italian packed a bag and walked out of the Valle Maggia, high in the mountains of Switzerland close to the Italian boarder where he had grown up in a village that raised cattle and cut granite. Hard times had come to the valley and many of the community had to immigrate or starve. Innocente Giacomazzi made his way by foot, cart, ship and train to the west coast of America and joined his brother in the Salinas Valley of California to start a new life. Today his great granddaughter visited the same valley and crossed his footsteps, touched his rock house, visited his church and, walked through the cemetery that contained their common ancestors. I’m not sure that Innocente took the road less traveled by, but it certainly has made all the difference for his great granddaughter.
We are staying at a Bed and Breakfast run by Alexa, a distant relative to Jamie, actually the ex-wife of a distant cousin . She and her family have been delightful hosts, even opening the B&B early in the season to accommodate our trip. Her son Lorenzo and his American wife Jamie (also) spent the evening and some very nice local wine with us last night and shared so much information about the family and the area. We are taking them to dinner tonight to a local restauranta.
Today we took a drive another twenty K up the valley to see the Foroglio waterfall which is a very nice site but to us, an afterthought compared to the architecture and cultural interests. It’s really hard to describe how stunning the area is for a newcomer. The valley is less than a mile across edged with very steep mountains of pine trees and granite. About every mile or two there is a village built into the hillside. They are really a cluster of perhaps thirty or forty homes, with little or no separation and mostly made out of the granite from the area, stacked in every way imaginable. Even the roofs are thin granite tiles. I’m sure the construction dates vary but each village seems hundreds of years old. Many of the homes have a ground level that is really a barn. This allows protection for the animals and heat for the family above. The house is often built on granite pedestals with one flat rock much larger in diameter than the pillar and flat on the bottom so that the rodents can’t get into the main house or the grain storage area. Many of the stone houses have been updated with electricity and modern windows and doors but the basic houses are straight out of history. In my usual articulate style I must have said “Wow, look at that” a hundred times. I would have loved to tour the interior of some of the homes.
It is pre tourist season so when we walked through the villages we were clearly outsiders. I’ve always teased that you are an outsider in Chico if you have only been there twenty or thirty years but here, you are an outsider if your family has not been here for two or three hundred years. They have added tourists to their economy during the season but the valley still produces primarily cattle and granite. We watched a group of men in a granite quarry hand cutting the slabs with hammer and chisels, sitting on small wooden crates and moving the granite slabs by hand. College never looked so good. What a wonderful skill and heritage that is being preserved. I know that I can’t really communicate all of this with words or even pictures. I wish that all of you could share the experience with us.
Share some of our Pictures.
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