Bobbio

This blog entry is a bit late, but records a lovely place with fascinating history.

We took a local bus on 1 October 2018 from Piacenza, five zones to Bobbio. About 70 minutes by bus.

The road runs from flat land by the Po up the valley of the Trebbia, along a two lane road also signposted for Genova.

At Bobbio, seeming almost half way to Genova on a flat map, you reach a point where the rest of the way to Genova is clearly through the darkening Appennine range.

Around the year 600CE a priest, Colombanus, came out of Ireland as among many Irish missionaries. He established substantial abbeys and communities in what is now France and in his sixties went from Germany through Switzerland and only a little bit like Hannibal arrived in Italy.

Where he launched himself into attacks on those elements on the church who were writing negatively about the papacy, against the idea that the church in Rome and its chief were essential intermediaries with god. This is almost a millennium before the reformation. Thus an Irish priest was a significant player in the early buttressing of the papacy, an institution ironically in a little trouble back in Ireland in 2018.

Lombards then were ruling what is now Milan. One can imagine a scene (not offering history here, perhaps more M Python) in which ruling Lombard says to important advisor: "Who is this fellow who has so much to say, my wife thinks he's a bit special" to which the advisor says "I think he's a Celt which is a kind of Gaul. He wants somewhere quiet for a monastery. We could send him up this river, there's space there." "Good idea. I can imagine he wants something quiet, he's nearly 70." There was space to do things like that then. Europe not yet to emerge for centuries, just blokes in charge here and there.

And so Colombanus went to Bobbio. With his writing gear.

The abbey is much refurbished but not active in the monastery business now, having been shut down by Napoleon. It is now host for example to the Bobbio film festival.

The town is a delight, though as one white haired person who struck up conversation, who has always lived nearby said: "It's really a village, a paese. It's beautiful but with globalisation there's now no work."

The bridge which seems to have more designers than now working to rebuild the Morandi bridge in Genova, is a tourist promoted item.

The town itself has great beauty. We walked through the abbey and up to the Malaspina Castle, where spent an hour in quiet beauty.

along the road to Bobbio

The House of Porcini Mushrooms and Truffles