Castelvecchio di Rocca Barbena has presented himself to me and me as someone in his own home invites and is invited in it: welcoming, kind, respectful, and in the din of the radiant silence in the lights of the tastyly fresh midday.
Those arriving by car can park at the entrance of the village, where a pitch welcomes the stranger, and along a short descent that goes through small houses, vegetable gardens and pleasant culinary scents reach the central square on which they are facing – from just under a thousand years-stone houses on one and two levels, talvota protected by modern red roofs that blend well with the gray of the site. Chimneys, roofs and terraces fluttering in the sun and the warm wind of spring seem to frame the castle, which on the heights of the village admires the rural landscape and the anthropized one. And while I admire all this, the Leopardian craftsman comes to mind with the opra in man, singing, fassi up the door ..
From the square you take a small road (or carrugio as they say in Liguria), surmounted by arches that join the side walls, along which – as in other carrugi – the presence of new, old and restored doors makes me think of who he lives, who lived there and who returns.
The steps of those who return think they are like those I heard walking along the village: silent and busy, who in his warehouse worked with open doors; silent and weary, those who went from the village or came in it with pedulas and flasks to be filled along the trek; affectionate and silent, those who walked like me.
From the carrugio we arrive in a widening where the gray of the stone is pleasantly covered by the green of the vegetation, which climbs on walls, balconies, terraces, which together with the trees, which accompany the steps along the road leading to the church, gives the visitor a kind tranquility. From here the space widens towards the valley that leads to the vegetable gardens, to the olive groves, to the paths that lead to other villages, to the sea. From here the look is oriented, now the hour that turns to good lunch, to a nice and hospitable place, to the tasty products of the village.
