Barga, a beguiling 10th century hilltop town, sits on the edge of Tuscany’s Garfagnana region, nestled beneath the towering peaks of the Apuan Alps and the Apennines. It’s a champion of ‘slow food’ – think locally grown porcini mushrooms, pecorino cheeses, sublime chestnut-inspired desserts, indulgent black truffles and leisurely lunches – but it sticks in my mind for an entirely different reason. Walking the sleepy, cobbled backstreets of this medieval town, I remember noticing a disproportionate number of fellow redheads. On further investigation, it would seem that Barga has very close ties with somewhere much closer to home…West Scotland to be precise. This Tuscan gem has a Scottish legacy that dates back to the 19th century when many of its inhabitants migrated to Scotland to escape poverty, often opening up ice cream and fish and chip shops. Nowadays, the flow of people has reversed and the town is home to a number of Scots. Barga even celebrates its strong ties with Scotland with La Sagra Del Pesce e Patate – the Fish ‘n’ Chip Festival which is held every August. Paisley singer-songwriter Paolo Nutini is also rumoured to appear at this sleepy town’s modest annual jazz festival – now I know why. Sarah Belcher
I am sorry to nitpick but I keep seeing these phrases about Barga pop up on the net and then get promulgated by other rss feeds, quoted in other blogs and in the end they become a kind of accepted wisdom … somebody somewhere has to stand up and say …. enough. Again I apologise to you all at travelpr but if anybody should get it right, it should be you.
Barga is not a town (or a village as is often quoted)It is a City .. the smallest city in Italy in fact.
It is a champion of ‘slow food’ and yes wild porcini mushrooms and chestnut flour based foods are all locally grown but this is not a truffles area. There are some but they are low quality and generally overlooked or ignored.
There are no cobbled backstreets in Barga Vecchia. Cobbles are smaller rounded stones. The streets of Barga are all much larger dressed stone.
As for your final line mentioning “the sleepy town’s modest annual jazz festival” … maybe you should come and see for yourself just how sleepy this city actually is in the summer.
We have an internationally known and well respected opera festival – Opera Barga and the long running Barga Jazz Festival which brings in Jazz musicians of such international standing as Lee Konitz, David Liebman and last year, Tom Harrell. This year the festival will have as its guest Steve Swallow.
Added to which each summer there are more than 30 art exhibitions including painters of such standing as John Bellany (who incidentally has his own gallery here), book signings, classic music concerts, traditional sagra and religious processions.
Please call in on the barganews.com site and have a look at just what goes on there each summer, you will, I promise be surprised, a) by the quality and b) by the quantity
Thank you for your very informative comments on Barga. It’s nice to know that someone out there is so passionate about such a fascinating destination – the smallest city in Italy no less! I travelled there such a long time ago now that some of the details are a bit hazy, and internet coverage (I did do some online research), as you say, is not always reliable. I visited Barga off season but would love to return to see it come alive in the summer! Thanks again for correcting some of the factual detail. Sarah