Epiphanies – Bagnena
It’s amazing that I should have come across those pictures now. Taken four years ago this week, a large set, salvaged from my old Mac, buried in a deeply nested folder on the hard drive. They tell many stories. Fast rewind.
Eight friends, all from the four corners of the world, flew to Italy to celebrate the New Year and a birthday in a Tuscan castello, a two-hour drive from Pisa. I, meanwhile, took a train from Rome where I had spent Christmas and was to return there after the New Year break in the hills. The solitude of an explorer gripped me when I got off the train in Arezzo and found myself among a handful of passengers on a slow train to Rassina, a small market-town, off the beaten track, at the bottom of the valley. The azure sky in December and half-barren hills, drenched in sunlight, heightened a sense of alienation that I always felt at provincial train stations and bus stops. A mini-bus with the burly woman driver took me from the square to the village of Talla, another half-an-hour winding ride uphill. The village looked small and ancient, but somehow gave the impression of being a secure place. I knew my destination, Bagnena, was very near, perhaps up the street round the corner. Rather than phoning my friends and letting them pick me up, I decided to walk but talking to the men in the bar made it obvious I was wrong. Apparently, there was Santa Bagnena – the village, and my Bagnena – the lonely villa I was heading for. In no time it was figured out how to get to the latter. Giuseppe, a scruffy, cheerful looking local, with a broad gap-toothed smile, was more than happy to take me there in his rusty Fiat that badly needed a mechanic and wash, just as its driver needed a shave before the New Year. It took his barking and coughing machine more than a quarter to reach the top of the steep hill, where, 3 kilometres from and 200 hundred metres above Talla, was Bagnena itself. Giuseppe refused to take any money for his stunt. I entered the building the moment my friends were getting ready for lunch.
The epiphany – true pilgrims do not have money on them.
true pilgrims have no money on them