We took a little jaunt yesterday and walked the 5 kilometers to Lagasco with the children in their snuggle backpacks. It was a beautiful day, and the walk is charming–all neat rows of fruit trees and green fields with stray daisies and poppies. There was huge purple clover by the side of the road, too.
We took the letter from the Waldensian Church to show to the Priest in Lagnasco and ask him to write us up a similar one. Unfortunately, we chose a Monday, and it turned out to be some kind of holiday. A holiday peculiar to Lagnasco, evidently. Nearly every house was flying the flag of Lagnasco. Yes, Lagnasco has a flag.
There is such a feeling of apartness to the town. One enters and feels that nothing is important except what is happening right there. In fact, I have more than once been reminded of Brigadoon. There is nothing especially provincial about the people, it is all just too perfect to be real.
In any case, yesterday, I was walking down the street, and a woman said to me that the priest would be driving by to bless all the cars. I thought that my Italian had failed me, and I must have completely misunderstood, since it was the last thing I would have expected a perfect stranger to mention to me as I passed by on the street. But to my surprise (and relief concerning my language comprehension) in a few minutes he appeared in an open car, and it was obvious that he was doing just that. Everyone had left their cars parked lining the main street, and he drove through town and blessed them all. He was actually the superior of the Lagnasco Priest. (I’m not sure about his title, except that Beppe, one of our Bodrero relatives, explained that he was just under a Cardinal) was in town from Saluzzo, and it was the day that he was blessing all the cars.
This boded ill for our errand. We had to just leave the letter with Luca and ask him to take it in and petition the Priest to make us one.
Then we walked back to Saluzzo, pleased with ourselves for having at least partially accomplished our mission, and just feeling good about being out in the fresh air and walking. The view as we walked back to Saluzzo was beautiful. The cities here are all very close together, but they don’t grow together like in the United States. One has the impression that they looked quite similar a hundred or two or three or more years ago.