What could be better than the arrival of spring to go to Riofreddo, the last town in the province of Rome just before Abruzzo region?
Traveling along the Rome – L'Aquila route, I cannot see it and only a large building on a hill appears to me. So, I was expecting a small village, perhaps with abandonment problems, but when I arrive in the square, the bar is already full of people having coffee in the heat of March. I too am waiting for Mayor Giancarlo Palma with my face turned towards the sun.
We have a coffee and go together to talk about the Town Ambassador network in small towns, the project we are doing with Alessia Pieretti from the Rome Metropolitan Area.
We enter a building with a long central corridor and many rooms: "this was once a hospital, and every small room was a surgery" the mayor tells me that he is a history and art enthusiast.
“Ours is a small municipality but has the services of a big city, which is why you have seen it so animated. We have schools up to middle school, a hospice, a football field with synthetic grass and a football team, the largest museum in the Aniene Valley and also the aqueduct management”. Incredible!
It reaches us councilor Patrizio Giustini and we chat a little more about the history of Riofreddo. Then I start wandering around the village, thanks to a perfect light for taking photographs and the surprising beauty of the streets of the historic centre.
The houses are all enriched with artistic details: sacred images, carved balconies, padded doors and stately doors. A series of noble palaces recalls a past of splendour, when trade made it one of the most important centers of this area.
Riofreddo was in fact born along the Via Valeria which connected Rome with Abruzzo and the Adriatic Sea and was an important commercial transit route.
And this enterprising spirit is still alive among the citizens. But strangely I meet only women!
I begin my discovery by being guided by the scents and enter the Forno Pasticceria Pizzeria, the tradition has continued since 1929' near the arch of Santa Caterina. The smiling Stefano Conti welcomes me and lets me photograph the delicious 'half egg and half water' donuts typical of Riofreddo and the Fallone bread that his grandmother used to make.
But as we speak, I hear a voice from the lab intervene and intrude on my search for the Town Ambassadors. It is Mrs. Valeria Caffari, Stefano's mother, who begins to tell me about people who have left Riofreddo and then directs me to her cousin Lidia of the restaurant 'La cucina di Rio' at the opposite entrance to the village.
I go down the ancient Via Valeria and, after photographing the beautiful Piazza Donizetti and the castle, and I go in search of Lidia.
I almost feel embarrassed to enter a restaurant early in the morning, but the scents are already inviting and I find myself welcomed by the Cheffa's smile, this is what she wrote on her overall. Lidia is not only one of the best restaurateurs in the area, but a woman who has taken life the right way, with her smile.
She shows me the whole room that she has recovered from an ancient deposit of concrete tanks for wine, in some rooms you can still see the mouths of the wine tanks.
“This is the photo of my grandmother at the fountain and this other of the noblewoman of the village. I like to put photos close together to show the two sides of life. But today this tub shown in the photo is inside my restaurant”.
She calls everyone on the phone, cousins, friends and acquaintances to find a family who had gone to Sydney and who have maintained relations with the borough. Then she floods me with the telephone numbers of all the mayors in the area “because I push all the tourists who come during the weekend to go around the village. Only together can we win. On the restaurant placemat I depicted all the beauties of the area to encourage people to turn around and come back.”
And before I leave, she calls me and shows me her Facebook profile of her with a video from 2019 when she came second in 'You know the last', the televised joke contest with Ezio Greggio. (but someone told me that the best jokes came from Vincenzone from Camerata Nuova, but that's another story!)
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