Norcia’s Open Cafés: Earthquake Solidarity

On a rainy November Sunday here, Pino and I headed towards Norcia – planning to eat out on the way in a Valnerina trattoria. A deliberate choice: we knew that tourism had detoured from the Valnerina area post-October, 2016 earthquakes, that any ristorante or trattoria would be eager for diners. And I wanted to head to one of three cafés now open in Norcia for post-lunch espresso. Just a small sip of quake solidarity.

After a Valnerina lunch, we had to follow a corkscrew, narrow mountain road up to Norcia: a detour from the usual route but through pastoral splendor, passing tiny village clusters clinging defiantly to mountain outcrops. Here and there, we passed a blue tent, sign of a farmer wishing to stay near crops or livestocks: either his own home had some damage or frequent seismic shocks had worn nerves thin.

A thin drizzle hung like a curtain over the mountains as day slid toward night.
As we approached Norcia, crimson fire trucks and police car flashing lights letting us know we’d arrived. We’d been to Norcia after the August 24th earthquake, had seen segments of the 12th-century wall crumbled..but we weren’t prepared for that day’s emotional wallop. The tremors had gouged out vaster sections of the medieval bulwark, huge mountains of stones now piled up along Norcia’s wounded walls.

We parked just off a quake-cracked road bordering a tent camp and headed to an open café, adjacent to crumbling medieval walls, spire of the devastated Basilica di San Benedetto rising up in the darkness like a sentinel. A sentinel overlooking destruction. On the café veranda, local men and a few women in quilted jackets (nights are colder now) sipped aperitis or beers, talking heatedly about the quake damage and the need for immediate restoration – and better lodgings than tents and pre-fabs before winter sets in. With his passione for building (and direct experience in L’Aquila in anti-seismic restoration), Pino was soon in the midst of the conversation.

And inside the café, we talked to smiling young owner Andrea (from Norcia but now living in Cascia), able to recently re-open the café he’d inaugurated three years ago, after inspection – and after “cleaning up all the mess: broken jars of honey, bottles of wines, liqueurs, beers – everything had come crashing down”…

Pino bought Andrea’s last bottle of Nursia the famous artisanal beer of the Norcia Benedictine monks (now all living in Rome). “I sold the last three cases this morning,” Andrea told us, pleased. We bought a bar of Norcia’s renowned dark chocolate, too, before leaving. The chocolate, the beer, our espressi – and being there – a feeble attempt to express solidarity.

I’d tried to express solidarity to a now-homeless woman in the café, wishing to tell her how sorry we were about everyone’s loss. To my own surprise, sudden tears came. I couldn’t finish the sentence. She just nodded – and hugged me.

A sign of the forza e coraggio of these people. Needed.