Watch your step

The Molisano hamlet of Fornelli lives up to its claim of being "one of the most beautiful villages in Italy," but it is a tough town for the not-so-able-bodied. Most of the historic center was built centuries before there were such things as building codes or handicapped access, or automobiles, for that matter. It's wonderful that so much of the center is pedestrian-only, but even without cars to worry about those on foot, particularly on older feet,  had better proceed carefully. 

Here's a chiseled stone staircase from the top of the old city wall down to the street below. Kudos to Fornelli for adding a sturdy handrail.

Inside the centro storico there are steps everywhere. 

They just keep going and going.

A relatively easy ascent through one of the city gates.

Note this staircase's artisanal (i.e., irregular) charm.

This is another portal through the city wall.

The alternatives are cobblestone ramps of varying steepness and, in wet weather, slickness.  

Going up.

I first encountered this ramp and staircase (above and below), which leads through yet another of the old city gates, as we made our way to the lovely B&B we stayed in during the Fornelli part of our trip. 

Going down.

Neither photograph captures how alarmingly steep it is. And when the cobbles were wet with rain, it seemed more like a waterslide than a sidewalk. 

Inside the tunnel is a small niche (upper left, next to the portal, in the photo above) housing a statue of the Virgin Mary. Below it is a plaque explaining that back in the day children passing through on their way to the church below (where, as it happens, the records of all my di Carlo family's early births, marriages, and deaths are reportedly stored) would stop to offer up a simple prayer: Bless me, Madonna, and let me live to adulthood. In those days there probably wasn't even a handrail. Atheist though I am, I couldn't help feeling a bit prayerful every time I went up and down. 

My worry that I might fall and ruin the trip for all of us, and my daughter's evident worry about the same ("Mom, hold on to the railing!") was not lessened by the fate of our hostess. My companions had stayed at the same very nice Fornelli B&B some months before, and the woman who runs the place had been very friendly and extremely kind. They were looking forward to introducing us to each other. But the day before our arrival, when she was readying our rooms, she tripped on the stairs leading up to our door. 

The stairs in question.

When we arrived the next day she was in the hospital with a broken leg, and I never got to meet her.  Last we heard, though, she was healing well.

Although we saw plenty of spry oldsters toiling up and down, I couldn't help wondering what becomes of residents who were no longer able to scramble up and down. The gentleman with the small Fornelli museum told us that according to an old legend, people who reached the then ripe old age of 60 were taken to the top of a local mountain and pushed off the edge.

That is clearly no longer true. Pretty much everyone in our breakfast bar looked to be well past that dispose-by date. Moreover, the little market in town sells birthday cards that run all the way to age 89. 

I don't mean to sound critical of Fornelli. I'd hate to see the town razed and rebuilt to ADA standards, and it's actually more navigable than many of these old hill towns, since their staircases are mostly fitted with sturdy railings and mostly in good repair. Some of the other towns we visited had even more alarming climbs. 

Our daughter's sure-footed compagno and their dog.

Here is one we scrambled up and down in Fragneto Monforte, in the neighboring region of Campania, the next region over, where my Italian great-grandmother was born. But that is a story for another blog post.