At the side of our house is the road going around the castle. Just above the house the road narrows and at this point there is the entrance to the Osteria Casa Mina on one side and Maria Grazie’s house on the other. Under the last administration this road had been closed off both ways by the comune placing a large concrete block and a no entry sign. This was because as cars would drive through they would sometimes graze the wall of Marie Grazie’s house. When the new mayor was elected the block and sign were removed and the road opened to traffic again. However, now that the Osteria seems to be continuing to survive and that the entrance leads directly onto the road the council have decided to close the road again but this time only to traffic coming up rather than down. Clearly the policy option was for a compromise.
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Another change in the village is that the Post Office is now only opened on Tuesday, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Monday and Wednesday it is closed and the young lad who runs it has to work in another village. The Post Office as an organisation is under pressure to adopt a “business model”. The first impact was the cancellation of a saturday delivery and now we have the second impact.
Archive for November, 2011
Things changing in San Giorgio
Monday, November 21st, 2011New business in San Giorgio
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
Another thing that we missed while we were on holiday was the opening of an Estate Agents in the town. It is just around the corner from us and has been opened by a man who previously had a shop in the nearby town of Orciano but as he has a house in San Giorigo decided to move his business here. It is still waiting to have the sign put up over the door but it is already open for business complete with a television screen rolling though the properties on offer. The area around our house becomes ever more interesting and one can spend a lovely evening looking at the newly restored church, cross over to look in the Estate Agent’s window and then walk about 100 metres to the Osteria Casa Mina for dinner.
Hallow’een
Thursday, November 10th, 2011For the last few years the Pro-Loco of San Giorgio have been organising a Hallow’een festival. This year the event was very well publicised and more people than ever came to walk around the town and to walk through the “Tunnel of Fear”. One of the narrow streets in the old centre is divided transformed into a long tunnel with a number of frightening rooms e.g. room of the spider, room of the witch. More than 2,500 people walked through the tunnel with adults paying 1 euro fifty for the privilege. So many people came to the event that the police had to control the number of people getting into the old centre as there was a fear that some of the streets, which have cellars underneath, could collapse under the weight.
One of the treats on offer were roasted chestnuts or castagna (hence the name on the poster). The organisers had ordered 500 kilograms (1,100 lbs) of chestnuts and they had run out by early evening. I think the success of the event surprised the organisers and for next year they are already preparing something bigger and better.
Spirito Santo
Thursday, November 10th, 2011
While we were on holiday things were happening in San Giorgio. Early in October the official opening of the restored church of Spirito Santo took place. This is the church in front of our house and the restoration has been continuing for a few years. Now all the scaffolding has gone, the brickwork repointed and the inside of the church repaved and repainted. The most important work was to restore the roof and in doing so get rid of all the pigeon droppings that had accumulated over many years. Now all the accesses to the roof have been closed and wires giving low electric shocks have been installed to ensure the pigeons don’t come back to roost in or on the church.
The church has a number of paintings and among them is the “Madonna del Carmine”. This painting shows a naked baby Jesus in his mother’s arms. At the beginning of last century the priest of the town decided that this was indecent and had scored out the offending part of the picture. Changed times means that when the painting has been restored the offending part will be put back.
