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Arquà Petrarca and Petrarca’s house

Arquà Petrarca and Petrarca’s house

“In the Euganean Hills, I had a small house built, decorous and noble; here, I live out the last years of my life peacefully, recalling and embracing with constant memory my absent and deceased friends.” (Petrarch, Senili, XIII, 8, Letter to Matteo Longo, January 6 1371).

Francesco Petrarca, one of the first humanists, was a founding figure in the Italian Renaissance, but also the poet who helped…

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Petit Minou Lighthouse - France

Petit Minou Lighthouse – France

On the west coast of the European continent, at Brittany’s tip, Finistère’s string of lighthouses shine as unshakeable witnesses to the tides that sculpt the beautiful landscapes of the Iroise Sea. The port of Brest, in northwestern France, together with one of the two French naval bases, Brest Arsenal, located in the Finistère department, litterally “Department of the End of the World”, are…

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St. Mathieu Lighthouse - France

St. Mathieu Lighthouse – France

Located on Pointe Saint-Mathieu in Plougonvelin, around Brest in Finistère, Saint-Mathieu lighthouse was built in 1835 among the ruins of the ancient Abbaye Saint-Mathieu de Fine-Terre. The Abbey gives the cape its name, and It was dedicated to Saint Matthew the Evangelist, whose skull it housed. It was a Benedictine abbey, but was revived and reformed by the Maurists in the mid-17th century.…

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Motel Letizia

It is a bad business card that is offered to tourists who leave the A13 exit of “Terme Euganee” to reach the hotels of Abano and Montegrotto or to visit the Euganean Hills. As soon as you pass the toll bar, on the left there is a situation of degradation that has lasted for years. An open-air rubbish tip in front of and inside the structure abandoned for about 20 years by the former Motel Letizia.

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Haus Der Statistik - Berlin

Haus Der Statistik – Berlin

“Haus der Statistik”, is the former statistics-gathering HQ of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, or DDR, depending on how good your German is), with the top three floors given over exclusively to the Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit, better known locally as Stasi. Following German reunification, the building became “Die Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der…

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Beekbergen VSM Steam Trains

Veluwse Stoomtrein Maatschappij (VSM) is a Dutch heritage railway between Apeldoorn and Dieren which passes through the following villages: Lieren / Beekbergen, Loenen and Eerbeek. Rides on steam trains are popular with tourists visiting the region, and that is why it operates mainly during the summer vacation. Founded in 1975, it is operated by volunteers. Each year, on the first weekend of…

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Blub Waterpark - Berlin

Blub Waterpark – Berlin

A lost waterpark sits in the Britz area of Neukölln district in Berlin, Germany, or, at least, what remains of it. The place seems to be inhabited only by rats now, and all they wanted was to swim and frolic like anyone else, even if today the place is totally destroyed. And, It seems, that the problem of people was only rats and the thought of peaceful coexistence never even occurred to them.…

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Burgruine Gösting - Austria

Burgruine Gösting – Austria

Sitting in a valley surrounded by rugged hills, Graz is the second largest city in Austria and has historically been an important point of passage between Western and Eastern Europe. In medieval times, the hills around the city were fortified with watch towers and castles for defensive purposes. Few of these fortifications remain today, but one of the highest peaks still boasts the eerie ruins of…

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Abandoned Mansion in Italy

Abandoned Mansion in Italy

When you come across an abandoned place, you don’t always find information about its past. Who were the owners? What is their story? Why are they gone, leaving so many personal items? In this mansion, the walls of each room are literally carpeted with a multitude of nails where they were hung pictures and frames following an almost obsessive criterion of size and gender. Hundreds (but perhaps…

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Libreria Acqua Alta - Venice

Libreria Acqua Alta – Venice

Perched on a lagoon in the Adriatic Sea, the beautiful city of Venice evokes countless quaint aquatic images, from gondolas and vaporetti lumbering down the canals to tiny bridges arching between its sidewalks. However, sometimes, water becomes more than an idyliic backdrop to the city: strong tides in the Adriatic can cause water levels to rise, creating the so-called “Acqua Alta,” floods that…

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Par Hasard disco, Abano Terme, ITA

Par Hasard disco, Abano Terme, ITA

Sixty years of history, music, loves, dances and foreign customers of the local spas were not enough to save this disco, now abandoned to itself. And here, at the Par Hasard in Abano Terme, Italy, music and psychedelic lights have definitively shut down. It was a historic dance club, opened more than sixty years ago under the name of Dancing San Daniele and then became a Par hasard Village disco…

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Of countries without roads, in Italy, are few left: one of these is Sostila in Val Fabiolo, a small picturesque valley out of time in Valtellina, between Morbegno and Sondrio. The village has remained isolated in time and space, pulsating with peasant life until a few decades ago. Today it is uninhabited: if in 1928 it had about 120 inhabitants, already in the early 50s the number has tragically halved, up to a total of 14 inhabitants in the early 60s. There was the school until 1958, while the church was regularly officiated. Today someone comes here only in summer, on steep and not very safe paths in other seasons, but remains just for a short time. Historically, it seems that these mountain meadows were colonized in the Middle Ages by people who were fleeing from the valley floor, always affected by floods. They lived on chestnuts, a little wood and some animals to be left to graze. The women would harvest apples, pears and cherries which they sold in the valley markets, while some men worked in the iron mines on the distant crests of the Orobic Alps. The characteristic houses with gneiss roofs (rectangular granite slabs) date back, however, only to the seventeenth century. They have ingenious decorations and solutions which, apparently, were imported by German soldiers who were defectors of the Thirty Years War and settled here. According to the legend, it was here that in the past the witches gathered to celebrate their sabbaths. As story goes, from the valley, to the stroke of the Ave Maria, the witches left their houses to fly to the gatherings or to annoy the unfortunate who were still around. It is said that a young man from Sostila had fallen in love with a girl whose family, consisting of two other sisters and her mother, wasn’t too popular by the other inhabitants of the village: they never showed up in the square, nor in the church, nor to the common washroom with the other women. The young man did not want to pay too much attention, thinking that they could simply be very, very private people. He then became engaged to the girl and began to attend her home, welcomed as a son by her mother and as a brother by the other sisters. However, something strange overshadowed his happiness: yes, he could go and find the girl at any time of the week, except on Thursday, when none of the women were present at home. One day, driven by curiosity, he lurked under one of the windows of the house of the four women. At one point he saw the youngest of the sisters enter the room with a burning hearth, followed by the mother and the other girls. Suddenly, each of the four women began to unscrew their heads, twisting in an unnatural way. Once literally “beheaded”, holding their heads in their hands, they began to comb their hair. When the ritual was over, they put the heads in their place. It played the Ave Maria, and at the end of the stroke, they rushed towards the fireplace and disappeared inside it. The only time of the year in which the town lives again is on the first Sunday of August, in honor of the celebrations for the “Madonna della Neve” (Madonna of the Snow) to whom the village church was dedicated. Legend has that the Madonna had the power to bringing rain during periods of drought, which is why, in the summer, in the driest periods, processions of faithful descended from the near Campo Tartaro in procession, praying for her intercession. From the path that descends from the near Lavisolo, it is said that at times one encounters nocturnal processions of people with covered faces, holding candles. There was a witness, a local, who said he had met them one night on his way home: one of these strange characters gave him a candle and asked him to hold it, then the procession continued to descend to the valley until the church of Campo Tartaro, to disappear there. The man, the next morning, realized that the strange apparition had not given him a candle, but a human tibia. Also the flood that in 1911 hit the village was attributed to demonic forces and, in addition, popular tales tells that, in Sostila, happened that some priests who arrived there were of an evil disposition, capable of transforming themselves into animals and of casting evil on people, livestock or objects. Sostìla, the place to stop, according to its probable etymology. The place where men’s stop, time stop. Today no one resides for the whole year, but, starting from spring, it is not difficult to come across someone who climb on the paths. Only these local legends (as well as the festival of the Madonna della Neve) manage to repopulate the valley, a land that lived on simplicity, prayers and chestnuts, for centuries the typical product of the area. Just outside the village, a house is used as a refuge, complete with beds and kitchen. A way to open to tourism also this area which has its peculiarity in the beauty of nature. A land where witches continue, undisturbed, to dance between one stone and another, between uninhabited houses…

My original article on Random-Times.com ©️

Sostila ghost village – Italy Of countries without roads, in Italy, are few left: one of these is Sostila in Val Fabiolo, a small picturesque valley out of time in Valtellina, between Morbegno and Sondrio.

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Die Rückkehr der Kühe

Die Rückkehr der Kühe

Dietrich-Bonhoeffer Strasse is a quiet street in Berlin, which lies on the lively edge of gentrified Prenzlauerberg’s encroachment into Friedrichshain. If you are in the splendid German capital, apparently there aren’t many reasons to visit an otherwise ordinary street. However, Sergej Dott’s whimsical public art installation, “Die Rückkehr der Kühe” (literally “The Return of the Cows”) just…

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This abandoned Slovenian military barracks, in Ljubljana, has become a punky-political art squat. —More info here—-

Metelkova – Slovenia This abandoned Slovenian military barracks, in Ljubljana, has become a punky-political art squat. —More info here—-

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Pyramidenkogel - Austria

Pyramidenkogel – Austria

In Carinthia, Austria, there is a mountain called Pyramidenkogel, reaching 851 metre above sea level. That’s not very tall compared to the real Alps, only about a quarter the size, but add the world’s tallest wooden tower to the top, and now you’ve got yourself a breathtaking view: from the Hohe Tauern in the north, to the picturesque lake valleys, to the neighbouring countries of Italy and…

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Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestiques - France

Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestiques – France

The Cimetière des Chiens et Autres Animaux Domestiques, translated as the Cemetery of the Dogs and other Domestic Animals, in Asnières-sur-Seine, just outside of Paris, is the oldest pet cemetery in Europe, and perhaps in the world, depending on its definition of a “pet cemetery.” It claims to be the first pet cemetery in the world and even if there are some more ancient than it, it is the first…

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The Lucifer of Liège

The Lucifer of Liège

Even though the original structure of St. Paul Cathédrale de Liège goes back to the 10th century, it’s been built over a few times, and today it is mostly comprised of 13th and 15th century architecture. It became a Roman Catholic cathedral in the 19th century due to the destruction of Saint Lambert Cathedral in 1795. The Liège revolutionaries considered it a symbol of the power of the…