Years of Poems and Spirits

Civita was on Rick Steves’ recommended Tuscan village list. It is on top of huge rock (or small hill?) in a hilly region roughly half way between Florence and Rome. The owner of a B&B picked us up from the train station in the neigbhoring town. He told us the town had only 15 permenant residents. The soil underneath the town has been slowly eroded by rainfall. There is an EU sponsored project at 10 mil euros to fortify the town, to be completed in 2006.

The town was small: a church, a town square about two basketball courts. But there are definitely more than 15 rooms. Not sure what the rest rooms are for? Anyway, this town used to be the center of action in the neigborhood until an earthquake destroyed much of it, and the seat of government moved 400 meters to the next hill. Therefore, the town is now formally called Civita da Bagnoregio.

The towns in the region are not too far apart. Before some modern bridges were built, however, the residents traveled in between via winding and dusty trails under full grown wild chestnut trees, on donkey backs. Apparently, donkeys played such an important role in their lifes that, had the Romans not invaded, they would have had a ass-cult;)

Instead, they hold two inter-town donkey races twice a year (in US, we have one only every 4 years). We are so lucky that we visited on the late summer event. The atmosphere started to build with the arrival of a local band. All looked like coming out of the Godfather movies: in wrinkled and overwashed uniforms, with their instruments under their arms. One of the fellow apparently spoke some German, and he was not shy about that: he asked us among all others whether we spoke German. But he connected us with someone in the band, a guy named Simone, who spoke enough English that we started a prolonged conversation between their plays. He was a telecomm. engineering student in a local university and has been playing piano since childhood (now a drummer in the band). There was a little fat boy with a sanguine face who played flute in the band. He seemed to know everyone and everything in the town. He was a genius, we were told: he didn’t know how to read scripts but remembered a tune once he heard it.

The donkey race was proceeded by a formal procession led by local priests, the mayor, a lady in naval uniform and other local luminaries. With the incense smokes, the band playing behind a conductor dressed like a professor, the spectators circling the town square sensed something important was about to happen!

The donkey race didn’t happen until about 45 minutes later. After the local church bells rung every 5 minutes. It was a play off format: 12 donkeys from Civita and neighboring towns ran in pairs and the winner advanced. A local black stud eventually won the race. The award? The winner with his stud got to hold a flag with a image of Jesus circling around the square a couple of times. But don’t expect donkey races are easy: donkeys run at their own liking. Several apparently strong contenders steadfastly refused to move an inch and were ungamely disqualified.

We had dinner at the B&B. The owner spoke fluent English and we chatted a little. But the maid, a nice teenager, spoke none. It took us 5 minutes, in sign languages, to communicate: yes, breakfast at 8:30am tomorrow.

The town was dead quiet in the night. We took some pictures at the town gate. Definitely an unique experience.