Codiponte's Medieval Bridge...
Dang if it isn’t done.
Something is up whenever one sees un commitato of mostly men in jeans gesticulating, bounding off suddenly to gain perspective on whatever they have been pointing at or, milling about in chat before adjourning to quickly drive off in their white SUV’s.
Soon afterwards, operai arrived and dealt with substituting the ugly white PVC water tube which ran right across the top of the bridge’s parapet. There is now a long iron conduit… in chic Anthracite, A Signature Colour… running inside and just below the parapet. At night, there is an explosion of light from that type of Chinese plastic tube LED lighting popular at Italian beach cabanas and at mercati di Natale. Railings, two ignored do-not-pass-go stanchions… there is always an idiot who will try crossing what to others would definitely be a no-go or, resist the temptation to park un motorino where it is not wanted… and two early 19th Century looking lamp posts installed, again, all in iron painted in the bridge’s Signature Anthracite. Il pezzo di resistenza are the two some-one-has-escaped-from-prison high-intensity spots aimed at the entire Medieval Bridge plus a goodly portion of the village of Codiponte on the other side. Il Poggiolo a prime victim. More so for the poor Swedish Sister’s house at the head of the bridge… capo del ponte = Codiponte… have no choice but to shut themselves inside against the searing hyper-lighting. The Swedish Sisters cannot come to Italy ‘cause Sweden did not go into Lockdown. Swedes are persona non grata in Italy. The Swedish Sister’s are in for a shock. when they can come to what was once their grandparent’s abode.
I have thought to complain to Our Mayor, Sindaco Riccardo about the lighting choice.
Again, like the two neighbour women, who consulted NO ONE regarding the when, how and with what they sought to clean the ramp leading to il Poggiolo, neither had the sindaco,… il comune manager responsible for Codiponte’s Medieval Bridge’s re-conditioning… and his jean clad cohorts thought to even MINIMALLY consult the recipients… WE, THE PEOPLE OF CODIPONTE… about anything to do with the Medieval Bridge’s restoration and especially, the way more than necessary lighting. There was probably enough of a quorum just with the fellows in jeans, damn-it. A closed group. Thank the Good Catholic Lord, THESE POWERS-THAT-BE DID NOT INSTAL SIRENS, BELLS OR WHISTLES. When You experiences the shenanigan of any Italian asshole, his prompt comment is… Che cornuto!!! He applied the same when he took in the result of the non-consultation of Codiponte’s roller-coaster bridge… be be reminded: hardly anyone crosses it, everyone parks their cars/SUV’s/Panda’ on the dirt track below due to the Medieval Bridge’s now confirmed DANGEROUS and variable stone pavements. And, two village women have fallen. Both broke a wrist. One lost teeth and got a healthy gash on her lovely face. To date, You has not yet had the pleasure to take in the Final Touches. I feel assured he will invoke his… Che cornuto!!! If not, I will.
Final touches...
Archive post September 19, 2019…
They aren’t done yet. Darn it. You know, rumour had it back at the beginning of July that the bridge renovation project had to be completed by August 10th. Terms of the contract, one informed person had told me. I can attest the re-construction work did proceed apace despite the OFF & ON soaring temps past 100 degrees Fahrenheit during the Summer months. Many of our community thought it would certainly be finished before Codiponte’s oldest sagra of all the sagras, La Sagra dei Pomi, for the first weekend in September. Come & gone. And the metal barriers are still in place and work guys show up at 8:30 to continue their labors. They are a noisy group. I cannot enjoy the terrorism of Codiponte’s church’s campanile ringing in the hours and half-hours from 7AM onwards. Darn it.
So, here we are, middle of the 09, and what is going on? Work-guys about to lay down more ripply stone pavement on top of the yet-to-be sunk gas & water pipes. And at an important AND historical juncture. Crossroads, so to speak, of the via Comunale lacing its way from the Medieval bridge to Codiponte’s piazzetta and the ramp leading past our il Poggiolo up to the sentiero to reach the Borgo Castello above.
By the way, the stone arch on the right in the left hand photo is the cornice to the now defunct sportello to pay the toll to cross the Medieval bridge. I’ve mentioned this before but, it warrants it again… Codiponte is dialect for al capo del ponte… or, at the head of the bridge… a traveller’s advisory of a toll to pay to cross the Medieval bridge.
I don’t fool with this ongoing construction site. And few do too. Occasionally, I look out the window of our salotto and see n’er a car parked at the start of the Medieval Bridge. There’s a kind of scenic overlook at that end. As predicted, and though the bridge is passable… barely… the folk choose to park on the dirt road which passes below the bridge. Ahhh, Concevience with a capital C.
I find it funny to watch the rare pedestrian risking neck & limb while crossing the bridge. A head runs just above the stone wall, and then, sinks slowly into disappearing as the person descends one of the arches, only to rise and fall again from view with the second arch of the bridge. A fun-house vision. Slightly nauseating too.
Meanwhile, no action to be seen over at the village’s piazzetta. There was a meeting of the minds between the officials of the Comune… or, City Hall… and the Culture Police on the day I departed Codiponte for Genoa and USA. Perhaps the people’s petition against the Medieval Bridge’s over-ambitious reconstruction has caused a re-think? I seriously doubt it. But, if I have learned anything about living in Italy, Hope & Patience are Virtues to hold dear and until further notice. Stay tuned.
Unforeseen changes in Codiponte...
Archive post July 21, 2019…
The work guys are working away on re-building Codiponte’s Medieval bridge. All day and in its heat and under a searing sun, sporting no hats, using hot gas-powered equipment, the dust, dirt and grime. Heavy labors, indeed.
The current task for the work guys is in rebuilding the stone pavement of the bridge. The two roller-coaster arches paved and mortared with river stones. So uneven and wobbly is the new footway, Life in Codiponte will never be the same again. Few will be able to walk across. The elderly & infirm. Many more will not want to. Families with baby-strollers, anyone with groceries, and one American with a bad back, a bum left hip, and two Weimaraners on leashes. There may be others refusing the challenge of a bridge crossing.
I wonder if the Young Woman in City Hall, who pitched the bridge project to the EU and to ask for funds to do it, and those folk over at the Italian Culture Police had extrapolated the Math to foresee what the changes might be living with a renovated Medieval Bridge. I don’t think so. No, not at all. I’m not a fan of bureaucracies, in general, and the Italian ones, in particular. A thankless, stupid lot of rule imposing ignoramuses.
The Codipontesi no longer park their cars at the head of the bridge or, below it either. They can’t. Those two areas have mountains of gritty sand, stones, a beached bulldozer, stacks of scaffolding, a pre-fab office and a port-a-potty. Some park on the ramp A) leading to the river and where the trash containers are kept, in all their filth & icky glory. Let’s hope it doesn’t flood any time soon. A more popular location is along B) the dirt track which twists and climbs up to the Borgo Castello, the Option C) for a parking lot. No light at night though. The D) is the lucky option, if there is space available, on Codiponte’s piazzetta cum war memorial. Three squat poplars provide shade. And there’s even a spicket for water at the WWI War Memorial. Appears the seven car spaces are inherited and those so anointed frown upon anyone usurping one. I believe this new parking arrangement will be FOREVER! In the meantime, we can see what happens on the re-built bridge when it rains. Have seen no attempts at proper drainage. Brava your woman, bravo the Culture Police.
Codiponte updates...
Archive post June 25, 2019…
Lordy, it’s hot! Boiling. Un forno. I sweat profusely just sitting on the Loggia at il Poggiolo sipping an iced-coffee and minding my own business. Many showers and costume changes of T-shirts. The Italian Civil Protection Folk predicted EXTREME HEAT last week for the middle of this week and boy, it has hit! All of Mid- to Southern Europe is affected. When I came home from lunch at 2:00PM this afternoon, it was 105F degrees in my courtyard. That’s 40.5C. Imported African heat.
The Dogs were bizerk crazed to go out. I said no. Neither has thought to alter the Fall/Winter W-a-l-k Schedule to adapt to the Summer Heat. Creatures of habit. What happens is… I take them out so they will have the sensation of the hot wind brushing across their Weimaraner hides, i.e. Total Liberation!!!… and the smoke from their paw-brakes is clearly visible, when they realize the HEAT on the Medieval Bridge is way beyond a tad too much. They rigorously keep to a shady spot. Hugging the walls of the old bridge. Waiting rescue. I give them the Good Word… Casa!!!… and they gallup back to the relative COOL of la Casa Grande’s salotto. Deed done. Not that they demonstrate much patience to wait-it-out until the COOL of 7PM or, later. Dogs.
Photos left to right: Nina looking back to insure I will, yes, cross over the last part of the Medieval Bridge. Safety in numbers, I believe. Where she is standing has been filled to render the dip more gentile; a fond view back towards il Poggiolo on the other side of this public works project; Me and The Croesus-person admiring the view from the bridges now altered ramparts in the early evening sun. Please note whose tongue is flapping in the heat. Dog.
Work on the Medieval Bridge has resumed. Apparently, the Culture Police deliberated and found consensus on a Plan. Three workmen started Monday at 7AM and were gone by 2PM. If they had remained longer their brains would’ve fried. Why they don’t wear caps is only your guess. Ditto for today’s schedule and imagine the same for tomorrow and on until this Heat Wave subsides or, moves elsewhere. To Russia. Or, by a miracle, the guys finish the work ASAP. Learned from a neighbor that the work on the bridge and any associate structure must be finished by August 10th or, thereabouts. The C.P. risk an Arrivederci for the funding of this exercise in public restoration. Certainly, all needs to be spiffy for the Sagra dei Pome in September. Surveying the work done, the decision of a Plan involves lessening the roller-coaster effect of the dips from the two arches of the bridge. It will still be very hard for anyone relegated to walking with a cane to managed the up, up, up, and the down, down down, twice in a row, and survive the trip, in my mind.
On another front…
no abatement to the Watering Battle with la Signora Accanta. I am watering sections of the garden at il Poggiolo all the night through. The plants & grass are bearing up as can be expected with this elongated but less effective nocturnal program and also, despite the adversity of our EXTREME HEAT.
More on these and other topics later.
Manna . from the EU...
Archive post May 12, 2019…
Mentioned a few times before…
Codiponte is the local dialect for… At the head of the bridge… notifying travelers, pilgrims & merchants in the post-Fall-of-the-Roman-Empire of a toll to pay at the village’s singular & important bridge. It was the only one around allowing folk to continue to the Garfagnana, Lucca and on to Rome.
There have been several Codiponte bridges over the last millenium and a half. The last was built in 1978 and is referred to as The New Bridge. Or, at least, that is how You & I call it. Others say, The Casciana Bridge. Casciana is the town with a scenic overlook of Codiponte way down below. The New Bridge is a typical ode to 70’s heavy concrete and enormous I-beams spanning the Aulella River. Saves people from driving or walking over the next-to-last bridge erected sometime in the 17th Century to reach the villages above Codiponte, i.e. Casciana. It is the very one You & I and Our Neighbors use to get to the proverbial other side or, the parking lot. There is the vestige of a yet another bridge, the Before-the-next-to-last one, today acting as a terrace to a neighbor’s stone batiment of a house. They rarely use the it.
Today’s Next-to-last-bridge has two lovely stone arches, a Madonnina in the middle to commemorate one span swept away in the devastating floods of 1967. The 1966 flood which swirled Florence to Nightly News destruction hit Codiponte too, but town & bridge resisted. Not so the year after. The bridge is a sure-shot to car or house. Old ladies with canes, three-wheeled Ape’s, FIAT Panda’s and tractor’s often cross over it to fast-track into or out of the village. From afar, it is a pleasing monument in weathered stone and lichens. Walking across it is a reminder of how ugly asphalt can be. Well, no more…
A Young Citizen of Codiponte, a recent graduated from Parma University in the management & safe-guarding of historic monuments & stuff, found gainful employment to do just that at our City Hall, in Casola in Lunigiana, Our Mother Capital. One fine day, tending to her duties, a letter passed across her counter from the ministry of the European Community concerned about the continent’s vast array of historical & cultural monuments, small or large. The gist of its communication was, the ministry was disposed to launching a whole bunch of Euro funds in anyone’s way, if they/it could demonstrate a worthy cause, small or large. Our Young Citizen got fast to work. One of her proposals was our Next-to-last bridge in Codiponte. And, it was accepted.
You & I knew nothing of this until one day last summer, a Committee of Suits was seen gathered at the Next-to-last bridge, along with Our Young Citizen and others not in suits but, jeans & giubbotto’s from hailing from City Hall.
Then, last week, we could not leave our cars at the parking lot before the bridge. Its space consumed by large equipment, a portable latrine, scaffolding, an aluminum sided-shack, other. Some things were later moved. Quickly following though was a sun-glasses clad hunk manipulating a ditch-digger. Here is what they dug up…
A Medieval stone roller-coaster.
Our First Reaction was… Oh! Che bello!!! Second Reaction was… How in the Hell is Terasina going to cross the bridge even with her cane? Third was… How in the f**k are we going to cross with our groceries? The Dogs love it. New earthy smells. The best avenue was to move onto hypothesis of the bridge’s history according to Our Esteemed Local and historian…
Originally, the bridge was shorter and with only one arch, the one nearer the houses along the banks and below il Poggiolo. The Aulella River was not as wide as it is today. Problem with rivers and flooding is the flood waters often alternatingly ricochet off its banks. Someone got fed up with how the river was managing flood waters at Codiponte and changed the river’s flow. And, a second arch was added. It got washed away in 1967. A Madonnina was built in the arch’s reconstruction to commemorate the event but, you had to step up to leave flowers or a lighted candle.
Forgot a Reaction… They can’t leave this roller-coaster pavement, can they? We will know soon. Met another Esteemed Local, who told me a meeting of Suits and City Hall senza is scheduled for tomorrow to find out what next. Another bridge?