Friday, January 6, 2012

Old ladies of the Appennini mountains


Mrs. Fidalma, resident in the village "Ca' di Franca" (Arezzo) in the Appennini Mountains, Italy. She has nicely agreed to have her picture taken and shown here.  Photo taken by the author on Jan 5, 2012.


Some areas of Italy have maintained the lifestyle of a hundred years ago; especially in the mountains. In small villages, people still rely on wood for heating their houses and for cooking, as their ancestors have been doing for thousands of years, before fossil fuels appeared. Old ladies in these places still dress the way they were dressing 50 years ago, as Mrs Fidalma does in the photo above. Below, another picture, this time showing Mrs. Iliana of the village of Trecciano, in the same area of the Appennini Mountains. It gives a good idea of the nice atmosphere of a house all made in stone, heated by a fireplace.



Maybe it is a world that will disappear in a few more years, or maybe it is a world that is going to return with the gradual disappearance of fossil fuels. But, what was I doing in the mountains, in a cold day of January? Well, there are some interesting windy places, there.....

Who

Ugo Bardi is a member of the Club of Rome, faculty member of the University of Florence, and the author of "Extracted" (Chelsea Green 2014), "The Seneca Effect" (Springer 2017), and Before the Collapse (Springer 2019)