For a day at the center of the world, everyone in Canterano

It's a hectic day, yet I have a feeling that everything will go just as it should.

Everything seems to revolve around Canterano where I have to meet the mayor for the Town Ambassador project of the metropolitan area of Rome, strongly desired by Pierluigi Sanna and Alessia Pieretti.

I have an appointment with Benedetta Pistoia, a young councillor whom I had met in Vallepietra, but at the same time our friend Frida arrives from Sweden and then I have a telephone appointment with Jason from San Francisco for some Italian descendants of the Lepini Mountains.

We twist the order. My daughter Maria and I decide to pick up Frida at the airport and take her with us to Canterano. So, her first impact with Italy will be this jewel of a tiny town in the Upper Aniene Valley. Unusual to know Italy through Canterano.

We leave the highway at Castel Madama and it is like leaving the chaos behind. According to the girls, the landscapes remind them of 'The Lord of the Rings' and leafless trees allow them to discover castles and bell towers that are dotting the mountain view (and perhaps hide Sauron while we are Frodo's helpers).

“I could not imagine arriving in Italy and being thrown into these postcard landscapes. I feel like I'm living in a dream” Frida tells us that she doesn't understand a word of our language but she understands well the unspoken words, the sincerity of people.

We pass through Rocca Canterano (which almost seems to slide from an inclined table) and arrive in the square where Benedetta's smile awaits us.

All the young girls (apart from this one) and I admire their optimism. An aperitif at the bar where Monica welcomes us, another young girl happy to live in Canterano.

But what a strange town, everyone seems happy.

We look for connections abroad and immediately Mohamed Shalaby tells us about Simona Mastrogiacomo, a Canteranese who married an Egyptian and went to live in Cairo. She comes back every year for a few months and her boys (16-year-old twins and a 14-year-old twin) are growing up with a dual culture but with always firm roots in Canterano.

Mohamed is also a pizza maker and over the weekend he helps Monica transforming the bar into a pizzeria, enlivening the social life of the historic centre.

What surprises me is always the smile.

We climb some elegant stairs and arrive in the square where we meet the mayor Aldo Todini and his cat lying in the sun and, while we update him on the project, he warns us that Pierluigi Sanna is coming to check some building sites right in the village.

Shortly afterwards the mayor Fiorenzo de Simone of Vicovaro and the councillor Luigi Grossi from Pico also arrive (who, however, is here for love of the young councillor).

And while they are on the phone, the girls go around the old town taking pictures and talking to the owner of the grocery store who still keeps the center alive and the image of the shop enclose the past but also the future.

I finish talking and ideally return to Canterano and Benedetta puts me in contact with Tonino Panzini a friend of Ard Geller, a Canterano native who now lives in Washington. With his work Ard travelled all over the world until he put down new roots in the USA but he never forgets to return to Canterano and does his utmost in every way for the village of his heart.

So, in the usual photo, due to circumstances that only fate can create, we find Frida from Sweden, us from Paliano, Pierluigi Sanna from Colleferro/Rome, Fiorenzo from Vicovaro and Luigi from Pico.

We talk for a long time about how to promote the village and they tell me about all the beautiful celebrations that fill life such as climbing the facades of houses or walking to the Bucia Buciera waterfall.

But Canterano is particularly famous for its bread and truffles and in fact it is part of the Cities of the Truffle. And the truffle festival seems to me an excellent excuse to come back to this area, perhaps completing the lunch with some biscuits with milk, wine or tasty ugly but good biscuits.

For one day Canterano was the center of gravity of an intense social life but we are sure that the whole Aniene Valley will be the center of a new way of experiencing the villages.