Sometimes it must seem that the inhabitants of Barga live in a kind of paradise where nothing negative ever happens. Unlike most other media outlets in Italy at the moment, barganews does not have screaming headlines about soaring crime rates and violence on the streets. In part this is due to the fact that yes we do generally highlight the positive things happening in Barga and in part it is also due to the fact that the crime rate is very low in this area. People still do leave cars and houses unlocked. The community is still strong and vibrant so when negative things do occur it does touch people in a way far deeper as they have not yet been “vaccinated” against what counts as modern city life for many other places-

This weekend vandals broke into the Villa Gherardi.

The villa was used as part of the very successful catering school – Scuole Alberghiere but has been closed for a number of years as it did not comply with the stringent earthquake regulations in this area. Money from regional and local government has recently been found to renovate the villa and bring it up to standard. This work is scheduled to start later this year.

Sometime during Saturday morning somebody broke in and apart from other random vandalism in various rooms poured cooking oil across the ground floor and set fire to mattresses on the floor above.

Luckily, the smoke from the smouldering mattress was quickly spotted and the prompt intervention by the emergency services stopped what could have been a potentially disastrous situation.