And so all of the seasonal festivities are over in Barga – Christmas, New Year and the Befana. It is now the quietest in time of the year, with just the Carnival festa between here and Easter to look forward to. In fact, a quick tour around Barga Vecchia this morning revealed that effectively the castle is shut this week. Okay, so I am exaggerating slightly, but the fact remains that many of the shops and businesses do appear to be closed either through illness (the influenza bug is still working its way through the population) or it's their day off or maybe they just shut up shop and gone skiing. The last summer season was a long one and a busy one and so there is some justification for the many closed doors in the town during the lull period.
Things will of course start to open up as Easter arrives and as we all know Easter arrives early this year. On a more positive note, the Barga Book Exchange (site here) opened its doors again this week in Piazza Angelio after being closed for the last two months while changes were made to the barganews office. Good news also in the virtual Barga world as finally, the barganews Forum is back up and working once more. Problems with the software has meant that many features on the forum have been disabled since the summer. All is now back up and working with the possibility to post up your images and videos directly onto the forum.
Shocked to see the downturn in business considering the appearance of Robert De Nero outside Aristo’s on the 24th January (check daily images), obviously in disguise as he appeared shorter and with a slightly bigger hooter!!! Hope he makes another appearance in August as I will also be there!
Ciao Bella
Double 0 no mistake, but it did seem a bit late in the day for him still to be up!! I noticed his shadow was slightly taller than him, must have been at least 6pm!