Barga – Bella and Bonnie!

We arrived in Barga after a day of train travel…and oh, what a sight for sore eyes!  As the train came through Lucca in Tuscany and onward to Fornacci di Barga station, we were all looking out of the train windows and thinking how the green hills looked a bit like the Highlands in Scotland, where we had spent some time at the start of our trip.

We met our hosts of Villa Sophia, we had the ground floor of the villa all to ourselves and had plenty of room to spread out.  It was just lovely and the views were magnificent.  Lois even took her laptop outside as there was wifi and we all got a chance to

relax and explore.

Sasha was in her element, as this place was not only great accommodation, but the family included a boy and girl to play with and an English bulldog puppy!  Great fun was had, and the kids played in the cubby, watched DVD’s, drew pictures, rode bikes around and of course, played up with the mischievous puppy.  Not to be forgotten, the adult hosts were fantastic too, a lovely couple – Tom, a published author of spy novels was the writer of a movie we had all seen (The Princess Stallion), which was amazing with Sash being such a horse lover. Sasha was inspired to do more writing, having met him (Lois too, but the food and wine of Tuscany also beckoned).

Barga was a gorgeous place. it felt like home and we were glad to have almost two weeks there, although it flew by.

There was old town and new town. We spent many hours wandering the lovely streets.  Our favourite haunts were Riccardo’s (a brilliant trattoria frequented by workers having the two course lunch special, which we grew accustomed to. The fungi pasta was to die for. Yum…) and for coffee (and cake!) Lucchesi’s.

The funny thing about Barga…we booked the place because it looked great, was available, and had wifi for our laptops.  What we didn’t know is that Barga declares itself as “the most Scottish town in Italy”. What a hoot!  Considering Ed and Lois were born in Scotland and we had spent 6 weeks there at the start of our trip, it was a bit weird to be served in shops by people who looked Italian, but when they spoke English, spoke with a Scottish accent. 

Apparently after the war, a large contingent of Barga people left and went to Scotland (some stories say they were headed for America and got off the boat at Glasgow by mistake!?).   Many have since returned, married Italians etc.  so there are quite a number of Scottish Italians in the town.  There is even a bagpipe maker and a smattering of tartan in one of the shops!  Suffice to say, our Italian language skills were used only a little, and Sasha helped us out most of the time as she has been learning Italian at school.

Barga has been entered into the “places we could live” list and we all are determined to return some day.  We all were a bit sad to leave the place, our lovely hosts and the wee pup “Georgie”.  But Switzerland beckoned…