Castelluccio di Norcia it’s one of those places that leaves you breathless at its beauty. The plain is famous all over the world, particularly between the end of May and mid-July when it becomes an explosion of colors thanks to the blooms of lentilsbut also of poppies, gentianels, daffodils, violets, asphodels, clovers and much more.
This doesn’t mean that in the other seasons it isn’t a spectacle, on the contrary. And in winter it has even more charm, especially covered by snow which fell abundantly before Christmas (and not only). The images that we find in front of us remain imprinted in our hearts and minds for a long time, with that candor that only snow can give and that white blanket that covers the plain and the Mount Vettorealmost as if it were a “hat” of icing sugar.
But it is precisely by looking at Monte Vettore that we remember the power of Nature and how small and defenseless we are in its presence. Because Castelluccio is not only its flowering, but unfortunately it is also one of symbols of the devastating seismic swarm that hit the area between 2016 and 2017 with four earthquakes in just over five months. More than 8 years have passed, but those wounds.
Arquata del Tronto: a ghostly town
We don’t talk “only” about split that Monte Vettore bears with the Cordone fault scarp which seems to cut its summit in two. Let’s talk about destruction that we still see today as we go up towards the plain and which reminds us how too little has been done for those who live there and who have lost everything, from their homes to family members, friends and commercial activities.
Climbing from the slope of Arquata del Trontoanother emblematic place of the earthquake, you come across a scenario to say the least spectral. After 8 years, and we repeat not for nothing how much time has passed, today we still see houses, businesses, accommodation facilities reduced to a pile of rubble.
Here, among the various hamlets that you encounter going towards Castelluccio, the red zones remain where you cannot approach. Many cranes, of course, but many, too many houses gutted and which after 8 years continue to be neither repaired nor demolished, perhaps because they have no owners, who died in one of the earthquakes. But that doesn’t take away how much all this is unacceptable.
Castelluccio, Visso and Castelsantangelo sul Nera and the “little houses”
What can we say then? Castellucciowhich is also inaccessible. Here we see much fewer cranes, no more than three. The rest of the houses? . An entire country swept away from the fury of the earthquake. And around it a unique beauty in the world it clashes with all this destruction. Walking from the parking lot below towards the town we find a series of containers, very small, tiny and certainly not equipped to withstand the cold winters. Some even seem to be inhabited, after all there is nothing else here that can be accessed.
Shops, restaurants, everything is located in temporary accommodationa little below Castelluccio, a little close to the entrance to the town. Prefabs with entrances next to each otherwhich belittle years of work by those who have invested everything in these activities and who try to remain standing in these small and anonymous spaces.
It’s not better descending towards Visso and Castelsantangelo sul Nera. Here the villages seem to have been “relocated” a little further downwhile the “real” ones are still totally destroyed and full of rubble. Along the road you come across very small housesone attached to the other or in equally anonymous condominiums with the people who have had to adapt to these new arrangements, with new neighbors, new spaces, new places.
If going to Castelluccio di Norcia is equivalent to immersing yourself in a place of unique beauty, one cannot help but reflect on how it is possible that, and we repeat, after 8 years everything is still so still. Ruined houses, rubble, families forced to live in tiny spaces. A paradise that everyone envies us, but that Italy was not able and still is not able to help.
