I’m no longer updating Casteluzzo, which served as my personal blog for some fifteen years. These days, you’ll find me at Escape to the Bookshop, where I chronicle my journey to opening a bookshop in small-town Italy. Here’s a taste:
Two years ago, I was wandering the cobblestones of a beautiful hill town in Umbria, thinking how lovely it would be to live there. I sat down for a cappuccino next to the fountain in the square and thought, why not go further? Why not picture the perfect life? Given no constraints of practicality, what could make living in this quaint Italian town absolutely perfect? Owning a bookshop there, of course!
The town in question is Narni, and if the name rings a bell for you, well, you aren’t the only one. Could it possibly have to do with C.S. Lewis’s imaginary land of Narnia? Indeed it does, though the link is charmingly obscure. As a boy, Lewis came across the name of “Narnia” in an atlas so old it was all in Latin. Narnia is the Roman name for the town, shortened in Italian to the chic and modern Narni.
For his part, Lewis never made it to see the real place he’d turned into a fantasy world. But if he had, I like to think he would have recognized the magic. Coming into the city through the medieval Ternana Gate, it’s easy to think you’ve walked straight into Narnia. The town looks down from the hill above, and if you wind your way through the streets, you’ll get all the way up to La Rocca, a medieval fortress with panoramic views.
My fluffy dog, Lyra, was with me on this trip (and yes, her name comes from another set of fantasy books for children; give your dæmon a cuddle if you’re a fan of Philip Pullman). You can see her here, investigating between cobblestones. Like many streets in Italy, this one is named very literally: Via del Monte. The way to the mountain. Which in this case means La Rocca, Narni’s own diminutive mountain.
It may be the most beautiful street I’ve ever walked in my life.
“Walked” being the key word here. You can see it’s a walking street. Cars aren’t so much prohibited as impossible. Though I’m sure a few enterprising Vespas have made it up these steps in their day.
It was very hot that August. The day we spent in Narni was 40 degrees. Which for an American is well over a hundred. In those types of temperatures, one becomes aware of the genius of building cities out of stone. With three-story houses on either side of a narrow street, things stay fresh and shady. Or sometimes there’s a house built right over the street, and if you walk underneath there’s a breath of cool, like walking through a cave.
Even in the heat of summer, small plants pop up in cracks between the cobblestones. And people hang small, well-tended pots of cyclamens or geraniums on the walls outside their doors. This is a city that has stood for centuries, so the stone walkways and walls bear the marks of many successive repairs, all the little imperfections that make the place seem real, eternal, outside human time.
I fell so far in love with Narni that I’m taking my long-held dream of Italy out of the cupboard, dusting it off, and taking one more chance, this time with a twist: starting my own bookshop in an Umbrian hilltop town.
The practicalities of all this are, of course, daunting. Moving to a foreign country, with all the red tape, logistics, and packing that entails. Finding the perfect location, building a beautiful interior, figuring out the business side of things. Sourcing books!
But I am nothing if not motivated. And I figured I’m probably not the only one with a dream like this. Who knows? Maybe I can share something that makes your dream feel a little more possible, or even just give you some armchair traveling pleasure, So brew yourself a cup of your comforting beverage of choice, and come along for the journey.
Read more at Escape to the Bookshop.