Barga

Yesterday, we did our first day trip, to the small town of Barga.  Barga is a small town of 10,000 located about an hour from Lucca by bus, and we picked it to visit for two reasons.  The first is that we had been told that we should visit a “hill town” in order to get the full Tuscany experience. The second is that we learned shortly before our trip that Barga was the home town of Shelley’s grandfather, Louis Giannotti, before he immigrated to the United States and became a firefighter in Richmond.  We didn’t have the opportunity to celebrate the Fourth of July American style, but as July 4 is partly a day to celebrate those who have come to America as immigrants and taken the oath of citizenship, we used the fourth to see the place where Shelley’s grandfather came from.

We very nearly didn’t make it out of Lucca.  We had stopped by the bus station several days before to find out what time buses left for Barga and the cost of tickets (3.80 Euros one-way).  The ticket agent said that buses left at “9 and 10.”  Knowing how confusing we’ve found the Italian transportation system to be, I went on the LAI website to check the timetable, and unlike my experience with the Trenitalia (trains) website, I was actually able to find a timetable, which said that the only morning Barga bus left not at 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m., as we had understood, but at 9:10 a.m.

We were at the bus station by 8:45 and purchased our tickets despite a mild hiccup on my part where I tried to pay with a 20 pound note we had purchased for when we are in England at the end of the month rather the 20 Euro bill I thought I had.  My incompetence amused to no end the English-speaking folks in line behind us.

The ticket agent told us that we would board the bus at stop 8, located “across the…”  I understood this as across the Piazza Giovanni Verdi, but when we went there, the only buses parked were orange local buses rather than the blue intracity buses we wanted, and the only bus stops we saw were 17 and 18.  There were two blue buses parked on the curb perpendicular, but only bus stops 4 and 5 were there.  Shelley was getting irritated, and it was clear who she blamed.  She found the bus driver for one of the buses sitting there who told her with limited English (which, to be fair, is far more than the Italian we know) that we wanted the bus “not on the right, not on the left, but in the middle,” which didn’t help a lot.

It was like 9:09, and I thought I glimpsed a couple of blue buses outside the walls, so as a last ditch we walked through the portal just in time to see the bus for Barga turning around to leave.  We signaled, and the driver stopped, and as we got on the bus the English-speaking tourists who were behind us in line told us they had been looking for us as they heard us request tickets for Barga.  We thanked them profusely.

After that rough start, we had a great day.  The trip by bus takes an hour through pleasant countryside and small villages, and except for the woman who got on at one of the first stops and talked incessantly (not sure to whom) and the fact that roads leading up to Barga are extremely narrow with s-curves, the ride was relaxing.

The bus stop was next to the remains of the walls to the old city.  We followed the signs to the Tourist Information center and picked up a map, because what I had read was that getting around the old part of Barga was more confusing than Lucca.  We didn’t necessarily find that to be the case.

I had read some interesting things about Barga online in preparation for the trip.  It is an artsy town, with an opera company (the opera Madam Butterfly debuted in Barga in 1904) and a jazz festival.  If your taste in music runs more contemporary and you are by chance going to be in Barga next Saturday night, I saw a flyer posted for a concert by Mo and the Toy Boys.

Barga is also reputed to be the most Scottish town in Italy, although we didn’t see any evidence of that.  That connection supposedly dates back to the period after World War 1 when many of Barga’s young people moved to Scotland for work.  That was probably just about the time when Louis Giannotti came to the United States.  Barga is the site for an annual Fish and Chips Festival held at the end of July, and also hosts a gathering of Fiat 500s each year that is reputedly the largest of its kind.  By coincidence, we encountered an old Fiat 500 in the parking lot next to the bus stop.

Almost immediately after leaving the Tourist Information center, we saw a sign for “Vicolo Giannatti,” obviously named for some descendent of Shelley’s.  “Vicolo” means alley, but this Vicolo was nothing but a set of stairs.

The most suggested place to see while in Barga is the cathedral which sits at the old city’s highest point.  It is a steep walk, although not as bad as my reading had warned, and we wanted to see it for two reasons.

One was that it supposedly had the best views of the surrounding valleys, the Appenine mountain range, and the Apuan alps, and the views were worth the climb.  Of greater interest to me was when I discovered the day before that the cathedral is dedicated to San Cristoforo, St. Christopher.

At St. Christopher’s School, where I work, my colleague and experienced European traveller Rich Hudepohl did a fascinating chapel talk a couple of years ago about the various depictions of St. Christopher he had found in Europe.  I don’t remember all of them, but don’t think the church in Barga was one (apologies, Rich, if I’m wrong).  

The cathedral dates back over 1000 years.  Inside we found a wooden statue of St. Christopher that dates back to the 12^th century, a 19^th century painting of the saint by the artist Nicolao Landucci, and both a stained-glass window and a banner depicting the saint. Of course, that sense of history, that sense of simple beauty, and that sense of piety are hardly immune from the annoyances of modern life.  On the outside of the cathedral I found written in chalk, “Veronica Lecion (hearts) Ty Oglebene” not far from a sign asking pet owners to clean up after their dogs.

After visiting the cathedral we had lunch at Café de Riccardo’s across the street from the bus stop.  It didn’t open until noon but within a few minutes was full, for good reason.  With lunch I drank regular Coke served in the same long thin cans we had the day before only for Coke Light and Coke Zero.  We had a while before the next bus so walked down the hill to the business district, only to find all the businesses closed for riposo.  We found one interesting photography shop with great photos of the cathedral and town, but it had closed a 1.pm. and wasn’t reopening until 3:30.  With nothing else to do, we sat and had a beer at an outdoor café right by the bus stop, an excellent way to finish our day in Barga.

Better, in fact, than the ride home.  The very same woman who had talked incessantly on the trip up got back on the bus on the way out of Barga and never stopped talking all the way back, engaging the bus driver and a couple of young girls in conversation except for the fact they had no opportunity to actually talk.  Not speaking the language, I couldn’t tell if they were glad or annoyed, but when she finally got off there were smiles all around.