🌷Hi Steemians!🌷

We are still traveling through the Alps - searching for the smallest communities in Italy. And I keep having the impression that we’re finding one little diamond after the other. After Cervatto and Sabbia, we are now in:

🌿 PIZZINO 🌿

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We were actually on the road to a place called Roncobello. @creatix was travelling with us and we slowly climbed the mountains with our little Polo VW. This car is doomed to a hard life since we started filming ‘Fuori dal Comune’. But to be honest - even though I’m German - my love for cars doesn’t reach so far that I would pity it.
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The day is cold and we reach a village called Sottochiesa - which means underneath the church in Italian. There are just a couple of houses, a bar and a gas station. Sottochiesa is part of the Val Taleggio - famous for its adorable cheese. There is no room you can enter without somebody offering you a piece of Taleggio - which I'm terribly happy about because I love it.
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🐝We find an abandoned play ground and ... well, of course go and play! With the drone, the camera and the rusty slide.🐝

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The gentleman at the bar told us about Pizzino - a tiny village on the top of the mountain behind Sottochiesa.
Exactly what we are searching for! So we jump back into the car and slowly drive up the hill.
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After 10min of driving we see an abandoned little hut in the fields. We stop the car and start filming this lonely little house with the drone. And I kid you not, even then somebody stopped with the car, jumped out and offered us some fresh Taleggio. @creatix and Ale immediately bought 5kg of cheese and packed it into our car. The odour remains -
also one week later.
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As we reach the top, we're taking the time to wonder through the abandoned streets. Well, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 streets.
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That's it. In winter, there are even fewer families up here on the top of the mountains. Funnily enough, there were a hand full of children playing in front of the church, waiting for their first Mass after the Confirmation. I guess, the parents were much more nervous than the children themselves. I guess they prefer to stay outside rather than sitting down in the frosty church for 90 minutes.
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As we keep wondering, we discover a story - exactly the kind of thing that I was searching for all the time!
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❤ The Legend of Lucia ❤

Pizzino has a legend that every child of the Borgo knows my heart. And it’s a love story like only Italians can tell it.

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Lucia was the most beautiful girl of Pizzino. Her hair had the color of gold and there was no limit to her kindness. Her family owned the highest house in Pizzino - on the top of the Rock. This one:
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She was singing every day and the entire village loved to hear her songs ringing like beautiful bells in between the mountains. One day, a wounded soldier was transported to the village - he was badly hurt and in no state to be transported. His name was Enrico.
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Lucia’s family offered to care for him and so he moved into a free room inside their house - on the top of the rock - in Pizzino. He was so week that he could barely speak.
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Lucia cared for Enrico with all heart, staying by his side, day and night.
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And every day she cared for him, she fell deeper and deeper in love with Enrico. She loved the way he looked at her, the way he smelled...already the second after she left the room in order to fetch some water, she missed him infinitely. And she was afraid. Afraid of the day that he will have to return to the army.
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Six month passed and the people of Pizzino had already accepted Enrico as one of them. Also Lucia’s family loved him and hoped that he wouldn’t leave. But Enrico loved his fatherland and when his wounds were healed and his strength returned, he declared to the family that he had to return to war.
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And so he left Pizzino to join his army, which was stationed in Venice or somewhere in Lombardia. Nobody found out, where he went.
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Lucia cried as he departed on his horse. And she didn’t stop crying for six days. She also didn’t sing anymore and never left the house. The people from Pizzino sometimes saw her sitting at the window and looking into the distance. Everybody knew that she waited for Enrico to return. But he didn’t come.
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For six month, Lucia didn’t eat anything. Her beautiful face emaciated from too much worries. Will he be wounded again? Will he come back and stay? Lucia’s face became the face of an old woman. All her beauty had gone. She became so thin that the light would shine through her body.
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But one morning, after six month, she could hear the hoofs of a horse riding up the steep mountain from Sottochiesa to Pizzino. She knew from the first second that it was him!
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She ran down to the street to greet him. But he only slowed down a bit. Looked at her briefly and continues his journey. He hadn’t recognised Lucia, who wad changed so much out of longing for him. Lucia knew that Enrico would never return to Pizzino.
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So she threw herself from her window - the highest window of Pizzino into the Valley of Taleggio.
THE END.

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I felt like I wanted to cry after reading this heartbreaking story. It is a story that people in Pizzino tell each other in a way, like they knew Lucia. They describe her suffering and how they perceived her body and soul, deprived of Enrico’s love.
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Rumours tell that the family living on the rock on top of Pizzino today, are still keeping the room empty - in which Enrico was healed - for the day that he might return to Pizzino.
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I hope you enjoyed this little story. I always love to learn about legends of far away places - does your village/ town/ city have a legend?
🐛All the best and a big hug to all those curious Steemians out there!🐛
Elena & Ale