Borgo Baruffini- An Italian Alpine Village with A Story

Come with me to the Valtellina Valley in Northern Italy, nestled between Swiss Alps to the north and a string of Italian lakes to the south. Like a painting, the land is artfully divided into terraced vineyards and apple orchards growing along-side a picturesque and well-maintained tarmac road. Clusters of villages, formed by small hamlets of 8-10 farmers, are nestled on the mountain-side. Many ancient stone cottages, built in the 1200-1400’s, stand empty, radiating a magnetism, offering opportunity for a different quality of life.

 Like so many other villages, Baruffini, in the municipality of Tirano, Lombardy Region, lost population over recent years, down from 1,000 inhabitants to two hundred. But this village is making a comeback!

On a late September visit, I heard their stories, cooked with them, drank their wine, sang and danced with them as part of a small group tour of sixteen people with Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT).  Similar “Day in the Life” activities are part of all OAT trips, but Baruffini was the first.

Our trip leader, Giulio Mazzega, told us that all development in Italy must adhere to national guidelines -  to be eco-friendly and reflect the beautiful landscape, benefit the people who live there, and celebrate their culture and traditions. Baruffini helped me to realize the truth and sincerity behind these words. If I were younger and didn’t mind the snow, I would consider becoming their next transplant.

That morning, we left our hotel in Tirano and drove 1.9 km up a winding, paved road to meet Fulvio, president of the village, standing, with a smile, in front of the church that was built in 1536. It was raining and he held a bright red umbrella. He invited us into the church to escape the rain while he told us about the villager’s efforts to revitalize this gorgeous village.

The church’s interior reflected an ongoing effort by locals over centuries to embellish the décor with traditional woodcarving and collaborative purchases (such as the organ in the 1700’s) and labor (such as stabilizing the bell tower over the last ten years). The church has been further enhanced by frescoes that were painted by a traveling painter and financed by the municipality. The beautiful Barufinni chapel was our first introduction to the community spirit that suffuses its people.

When the rain let up, we gathered outside in a tiny park. Each of the hamlets in the village has such a resting place with a hand carved birdhouse, a wooden bench, a small flower garden and a sign board to post announcements.

Each hamlet also has a traditional stone watering station that dates back centuries. It was here that locals accessed fresh water from mountain streams and where they washed their clothes. Water still flows and my husband, Charles, enjoyed a cool drink.

We proceeded upward along a paved car path passing a building that once housed a school for two hundred preschool and primary children. Now the few children who live here are bussed to Tirano in the mornings and returned home by taxi, according to the varied dismissal schedules, also paid for by the Tirano municipality, which we could see in the distance from our mountain side perch. The former primary school now houses a senior center, a part-time medical facility, and a youth center. There’s a Peter Pan park for children, playing on the theme of St. Peter, the patron saint of the church.

The community has gone through a visioning process to identify amenities that would lure young families and support them as they age. This was followed by a planning stage on how to proceed and a decision to submit a proposal to OAT.  Their partnership with Overseas Adventure Travel provides additional income to help build these dreams and an opportunity to engage foreign visitors in their culture and traditions.

Along this path, we met a 94-year-old woman. She chatted in Italian with Fulvio and he translated that she was asking about her son, Claudio, who was cooking our lunch today in the old church refectory. I asked her how she retained her youth. She laughed and replied in Italian, “working in the garden,” and went on her way.

Fulvio pointed out features of the traditional stone houses with tile roofs. Each has a cellar. Above that, the ground floor was used as a stable for animals, and the living quarters above that. Each has a small plot of land filled with vegetables, flowers, grape vines and fruit trees. Families store prepared fruits and vegetables, as well as cheese, wine and buckwheat for the winter in the root cellars.

Half the houses are abandoned, but stand in beautiful decay after several hundred years. The village keeps the properties tidy and covers the cottages with tin where the roof tiles are collapsing. It is prohibited to demolish these historic structures. They stand in wait for some TLC from a young homesteader.

A few stone bungalows have been restored by people returning to abandoned family property and restarting traditional livelihood practices of cheese production and wine making, using methods that pre-date the Roman Empire. Fulvio was pleased to report that three babies were born in the past year.

He pointed out that growing olive trees this far north is a new thing enabled by climate change and a warmer winter. In the past there was an average snow accumulation of three feet deep; most winter snows accumulate less than a foot. To our surprise, they also grow kiwi trees, with Italy being the second largest producer in the world.

We noted a se vende sign on one old house and asked about availability of this and other abandoned cottages that we saw. Fulvio said it is difficult to locate owners. If an owner agreed to sell property abandoned by ancestors, he or she would be required to pay back taxes upon sale of the house, so most do not own-up.

Throughout the trip our group made picking out investment property as a bit of a game, with an undertone of I really want to renovate this ancient bell tower, open a tavern on the ground floor, and toss my ringlets out the upper windows when I greet the sun each morning with my cappuccino and croissant. 

Fulvio moved to this village thirty years ago and built a modern stone and wood house with clay roof tiles that blended attractively with the old ones. He loves to garden and decided to landscape by playing with leaf shapes and shades of green foliage instead of flowers. He pruned  several shrubs into hearts in memory of loved ones. Great photo opportunity.

It was time to help prepare the lunch so we headed back to the village center. Along the way, we admired the renovation on one of the old homes. Fulvio asked if we would like to see inside one of the renovated cottages.

We were eager to do so and stopped at Claudio’s house (our chef for the day) to see his “man cave” on the ground floor, where he created a small tavern, a place for villagers to have a glass of wine and watch sporting events on his big screen TV, out of the area that once sheltered animals for the winter.

Some cellars had a cat door!

Time to cook. We arrived at a well-kept building where the town hosts OAT groups, such as ours, to learn a bit of history and join locals for a hearty alpine lunch and conversation.

After washing up, we met Claudio in the chef-kitchen to help make La Fritula de Barfi, a buckwheat and chestnut pancake with slabs of local cheese melted in the center.

We copied the recipe and began to stir the ingredients and set it to fry on a low flame, 30 minutes on each side in a lake of melted locally churned butter.

Fulvio asked us if we wanted to meet an 84-year-old female smuggler while Claudio and his team finished lunch preparations. That was an intriguing idea. While walking along the narrow paved path, Fulvio told us that the Swiss border was only three miles north, as the crow flies, and that after WWII villagers smuggled coffee, cigarettes, sugar, and chocolates from Switzerland to sell in Tirano to make ends meet during this difficult period.

We stopped at a traditional stone cottage, knocked on the door and met Celeste, who told us her story. Claudio said that she was on a mission to tell her survival story to strangers, perhaps to assuage a bit of guilt for the illegal practice.

Celeste told us that she was a smuggler from ages 14-25. During those years, villagers worked collaboratively in teams to traverse the alpine trail. Celeste said, “While it was illegal, officials were less than harsh in retribution. They knew we were feeding our families in a time of near starvation. If those in the front of the caravan were caught, officials took their goods and gave them a small fine. Others further up the trail absconded in the woods until the coast was clear and then came down. All the smuggled goods were purchased and sold communally so that those who were caught and lost goods, were still awarded equal share of the profits.”

Celeste also told us this: “The smuggler’s caravans included around fifteen people carrying 30-40 pound backpacks. Others were involved in distribution networks and sales. When the police came into the area, ladies in the hamlets would lay out white sheets to dry in the garden. It was a warning sign to those up on the mountain to lay low. Bus drivers coming up the mountain also warned the smuggler’s caravans by honking their horns vigorously when they met a curve. Cars and busses are legally required to honk when going around a mountain bend but not like the heavy honking used to warn about police presence.”

After the 1970s, smuggling was no longer profitable, but this practice had kept the village afloat and many prospered. Some spent the money and others saved. Celeste was able to use her savings to educate her two sons. One is now a nuclear physicist and the other works for the power company. The second son developed a passion for wine making. She is so proud of her sons and wants people to see that smuggling was what her family had to do to get to where they are today. She doesn’t want people to think badly of her. They were just trying to survive in a tough period after WWII.

For a long time, no one in the village discussed this smuggling legacy, looking back on it with some shame. However, bit by bit some villagers began to write memoirs telling about their experience. Someone wrote a play about the smuggling years and now the village puts on periodic smuggling festivals where the play is enacted and locals share their experiences.  

All our questions answered, Celeste said that she would provide the wine for our lunch from her son’s cellar. She held up an old key to open the cellar door and bid us to follow her. We enjoyed seeing a traditional wine cellar with bins of potatoes, shelves of canned vegetables and two traditional chestnut wine kegs. We bottled several from the keg. We warmly thanked her for sharing her story and for the wine before returning to the community center.

Fulvio told us the history of the community center that was once the Parrish House. In the 1600’s a priest was stationed to this village. When he saw the state of the church refectory he said he would only stay if they built a proper house on top of the ancient stone foundation. It remained the Parrish house from 1600’s to 1970s. At that time, the population could not support a fulltime priest so a rotating priest was sent to give services at designated times but does not live there.

After sometime, the church told the villagers that it wished to sell the church. The villagers argued that it was a community house and could not be sold. The church agreed that if the villagers could keep up the Parrish House with no cost to the church, that they could use it as a community center.

With this in mind, Borga Barufinni, petitioned Overseas Adventure Travel with the idea of a partnership, launching the idea that OAT might enhance the cultural tours by identifying traditional communities that are picturesque, capable of hosting, and have a story worth telling. An agreement was launched and renovation began, adding a professional kitchen, modern toilets, new plumbing and electrical system, and refectory hall for OAT visitors to join villagers in a communally prepared lunch. This is the back story on how Borgo Barufinni became the initial site for OAT’s “Day in the Life” tour activity that is now part of all their tours world-wide.

The biggest task was cleaning out the building and cellar. Townspeople had used the space to stuff things they no longer needed or wanted. It took a group effort. Everybody pitched in.

Since that time, OAT identified two nearby villages and rotates “Day in the Life” visits among the three villages on the mountain-side in the Tirano municipality, spreading the extra income and the work. This popular northern Italy and Dolomite's tour passes through this area every couple days from spring to late autumn, so having three villages rotate the hosting of “Day in the Life” allows those working with the project to get on with other things in their lives, as well as their tourism/heritage contribution.

Before eating, we were given a peek into the 400-year-old cellar and saw some of the traditional items the smugglers had used – woven backpacks and aprons, and traditional farming tools and cheese-making molds.

Charles’s cousin, Carol, tried on a replica of an apron with pockets for smuggled goods that many of the women used. Even children helped, wearing child-sized aprons on the one day of the week they were out of school on Thursdays.

Sometimes the caravan  traveled up the mountain and back two to three times carrying 30 to 40 pounds, each trip taking 1.5 hours through the forest path. Their motivation was the ability to earn equal pay in one night’s work to a month’s factory work down in Tirano.

Now ready to sample the Fritula, we took our places at the dining room table. First we were served locally made cheese and dried salami plates. We enjoyed first course with Celeste’s son’s wine.

Then we moved on to the main course of the buckwheat pancake with fresh green salad and ruby red tomatoes harvested from the garden just outside the window (served proudly by the tall volunteer gardener, seen below in pink t-shirt, stooping for a photo with shorty).

More wine!

Dessert - cake with limoncello sauce. Yum!

The meal would not be complete without learning how to prepare coffee like an Italian - spiked with a bit of herbal liquor digestive. “Correcto!” as we were taught to say.

Thinking our beautiful day had come to the end, our hosts launched into Karaoke. Fulvio along with our trip leader, Giulio, sang Ava Maria and other Italian favorites.

Then there was a switch to an American playlist where we joined in for Oh beautiful for Spacious Skies, moving on to the Beatles, John Denver, more Italian songs, and James Taylor. With all the wine, full tummies, and feelings of camaraderie, we rose to sing and dance with our hosts.

For the final good-bye, our chef, Claudio, with an operatic voice sang John Lennon’s Imagine…All the people living life in peace. Swaying quietly in thought, we were spell-bound by his voice, his words, and the moment.

And for those few moments we imagined Italy and America sharing a dream to live as a world family in peace. You may say I’m a dreamer. But I’m not the only one. Just imagine!

Written by Deborah Llewellyn

November 2024

https://www. Deborah-llewellyn.com/blog

email: Deborah.llewellyn@gmail.com

Our ever-patient trip leader, Guilio Mazzega, trying to organize us for a parting group photo. Perhaps made difficult because we didn't want the day to come to an end.