Eugi Gufo's siteEugi Gufo

Stradella is one of those small Lombard towns whose history was completely unknown to me. And it would never have crossed my mind to visit it before all the others.

From a cultural point of view, I had not missed much: its historic centre, certainly pleasant, can in fact be summed up entirely in the following photo. We see the only one of the four towers from 1390 still standing (with a fragment of a bell tower that collapsed during a nineteenth-century earthquake added on top), the typical streetlamp of the centre, and the general state in which most of the historic buildings are kept.

Historic buildings, unfortunately, are often renovated by people completely devoid of any aesthetic sense. I invite the mayor of Stradella to issue an urgent anti-kitsch decree.

Apart from the already mentioned tower, all that remains of the old Rocca Inferiore (early 14th century) is a small section of wall.

So let us go back to looking at some interesting buildings…

I must say that among all the Italian towns I have happened to see, Stradella has the highest rate of abandoned buildings. It is unbelievable: both in the central areas and on the outskirts, countless urban corpses appear in various stages of decay. Meanwhile, construction sites—also quite numerous—mostly concern new buildings.

The same applies to commercial spaces: I have never seen so many empty shops in a historic centre. The industrial areas, moreover, remind me of those in Russia in the 1990s: lots of ruins among which a few strange characters move about. In short, the famous financial crisis lives in Stradella.

That said, I must admit that abandonment itself can sometimes be beautiful.

A considerable part of the town of Stradella lies on the hills of the Oltrepò Pavese, which makes it a little more interesting than many similar towns: on sunny days the view must be quite pleasant.

Slightly higher up than the historic centre lies the ancient settlement of Montalcino, noteworthy for just two reasons. The first is the Basilica of San Marcello from the 12th century. Recently restored, it has already been partly covered in graffiti by local teenagers. Unfortunately it was closed, so I cannot say anything about the condition of the interior.

The second reason why Montalcino interests us is the 11th-century fortress located on another, even higher hill. After just 35 minutes of climbing along a road without pavements, however, I realised that the historic monument stands in the middle of private land (the «Vini di Lombardia» company), so it is impossible to get any closer than this:

On the other hand, one can admire some unusual hilly landscapes… While I was taking this photo, the first snowflakes began to fall from the sky.

At this point, lacking a sledge, let us return to the town to study its small details. Preparations for Christmas have already begun.

I have not quite understood what these round granite objects are: they are often used as litter bins, but on a couple of occasions I saw them filled with soil and roots.

The most common litter bins in Stradella are these:

Near a bar, however, I saw these two obscene objects:

Two or three times I also came across bins similar to those in Cremona.

A litter-bin model never seen before (the only example encountered):

The same designer of the green bin also designed a bench:

In the historic centre there are very few benches (very bad), and they all look like this:

Near a Stradella school (primary/lower secondary/upper secondary) a new anti-graffiti system has been applied. I am not entirely convinced that these works are artistically superior.

Well, if a town cannot modernise itself, that is its own problem. Only in Stradella does the well-known petrol-station chain still operate under its old name.

Anyone who has never been there has missed nothing.