Features correspondent
Beyond the glitz of the Italian lake district, there are locals who are preserving centuries-old traditions.
The scene resembles an illumination from a medieval book of
hours. Smooth, clear waters glitter in the Italian sun. Elegant villas are
hidden among cypress trees and wisteria. Above groves blossoming with camellia,
the peaks of the Alps sweep up, piercing through the occasional fluffy cloud
into a rich blue sky. A little boat sails across to a fabulous palace, built on
its own island in the middle of a lake. All that’s missing are the peasants
toiling in the fields. These days, on the shores of the Italian lakes, you’re
more likely to see a Ferrari than a farmhand.
The lakes region has been a
holiday destination for the rich and famous for centuries, but in the past few
years it has been inundated like never before. The leader of the celebrity pack
is American actor George Clooney. So often is his name dropped in his adopted
hometown of Laglio, on the shores of Lake Como, it’s a wonder that they haven’t
renamed it Clooneyville. He filmed part of Ocean’s Twelve here, and the lakes
have also served as spectacular film locations for the James Bond movie Casino
Royale and the three Star Wars prequels. For those families who have worked
here for generations, the blessings are mixed. On one hand, money coming from
outside helps to sustain local jobs. On the other, the cost of living has risen
alarmingly. Across the lake region, which ranges along the Italian-Swiss
border, traditional ways of life are under threat. Even so, alongside the
sports-car traffic and designer boutiques, there are still plenty of people
making a living from old-fashioned arts and crafts.
The boat builder
George Clooney is a great advertisement for the region,’
says Daniele Riva, whose Laglio-based family has been building boats on Lake
Como since 1771. ‘But it’s difficult for people who have been living in Laglio
for generations if their families have always rented their homes. Now rents are
high, and nobody can afford to buy.’ In 1951, Daniele’s family created a unique
design – the Riva, an elegant motorboat cruiser made of polished cedarwood that
went on to become a Lake Como icon. His workshop is full of Riva boats at
different stages of construction or restoration. Rough hulls of young wood
suffuse the workshop with a rich and resinous fragrance. Further along the line
is the finished product. The separate elements are so perfectly joined together
that the Riva looks as if it might have been carved out of a single tree, the
grain of the cedar lustrous under gleaming varnish.
‘Boat building is a small industry, but it’s a good one,’
Daniele says, sanding the side of an old Riva he has taken in for repair. ‘My
kids are aged nine and four. They already love boats, and if they decide to
carry the business on I’m sure there will be Rivas built here for generations
to come.’ As for his famous neighbour, Daniele is sympathetic. ‘Signor Clooney
had three boats, but he asked me to sell them,’ he says. ‘If he’s on the lake,
everybody gawps at him.’
The winemaker
Some people treat the drive up the winding roads that lead north, to the nearby
Swiss border and Alpine end of Lake Como, as a further exercise in gawping. On
one side is a villa owned by Richard Branson; on the other, Gianni Versace’s
former pile, now in the hands of a Russian oligarch. And a short drive south of
the beautiful village of Bellagio are two colossal mansions that once belonged
to a former king of Saudi Arabia – ‘with an atomic bunker beneath both of
them,’ a local restaurateur tells me. Which should prove very useful, no doubt,
should anyone ever nuke Switzerland. At the northern end of the lake, cool air
floats down from the Alps and somehow the whole atmosphere seems to relax.
Fewer celebrities make their way up here, and something more closely resembling
a traditional way of life is thriving. Above the terracotta roofs of the
commune of Domaso, terraces have been cut into the steep slope amid clumps of
wild asparagus, trails of ivy and fresh-scented mint bushes. Gnarled vines curl
around simple wooden frames. Daniele Travi’s family has tended this Domasino
estate for more than 200 years. Though he is now of retirement age, he
scrambles up the hillside like a teenager, eager to show off the oldest vines.
Some, dating back centuries, have grown as thick as a person’s thigh. ‘I
started this as a hobby,’ says Daniele. ‘I’m a metallurgist by trade. But now
the wine has turned into a company.’ As a child, Daniele would trample grapes
with his grandfather. Production methods are mechanised today, but he is still
focused on tradition. ‘We are reintroducing the rosseia – an old, rare grape
variety,’ Daniele says. ‘It has a long history. famous local writer of
classical times, Pliny the Elder, mentioned it. Yet with industrialisation in
the 1960s it almost disappeared.’ He laughs and gestures at the abundant vines.
‘Now we are recovering.’
Daniele Travi hosts wine tasting evenings by appointment
only at Cantine Sorsasso (the
Domasino Estate, Via Gaggio 1, Bis 22013, Domaso).
The cook
Within 10 minutes of leaving the golden-hued
lakeside wine country and joining the road to Switzerland, the climate and the
scenery become distinctively Alpine. Lake Lugano is set in a valley of
extraordinary beauty, half in Italy and half in Switzerland. This region, known
as Ticino, is home to most of the five per cent of Swiss people who are Italian
speakers. It is also home to another clutch of the international super-rich,
who prefer – as the local joke goes – to live the Italian lifestyle with Swiss
organisation. Away from the expensive restaurants that line Lugano’s shore,
authentic Ticinese cuisine is simple and delicious. When locals invite guests
to eat in a ‘grotto’, they do not mean a cave. A Ticinese grotto is an
old-fashioned type of restaurant in a cottage, serving one or two homemade
dishes. The usual dishes are minestrone soup and polenta with stew. Grotto
Pierino is next to the San Gottardo church in the hills above Lugano, off the
beaten path and therefore quite possibly unknown to celebrities. It was opened
43 years ago by the late Pierino Cassina to feed pilgrims who hiked to the
church. Now, his daughter-in-law, Maria, runs the grotto. ‘I’m from Portugal,’
Maria explains. ‘But I married into this Ticinese family and learned to cook
like this from my motherin- law. In a grotto, the food must be Ticinese. Some places
that call themselves ‘grottos’ now serve a whole range of dishes, but that
makes them restaurants – which are really a different thing. A grotto is a
family place.’ She takes a long wooden paddle, the shape and size of a hockey
stick, and stirs the copper cauldron of buckwheat polenta, which bubbles away
volcanically over the open fire. The grotto is packed for lunch. Most of the
diners are neighbours and friends of the family. Everybody seems to know each
other by name, laughing and slapping each other on the back. Today, Maria
serves the polenta with a thick, savoury rabbit stew and sliced beef in red
wine. The meal finishes with nocino – a local grappa the colour of tar, infused
with cloves and walnuts. The stuffed head of a deer, which was shot by Pierino
in Caccia in 1977, stares balefully at the bar, as if it wouldn’t mind a glass
itself.
The puppet makers
On the other side of Lugano is the tiny hamlet of
Bedigliora, built higgledypiggledy along a winding road next to a 17th-century
church. Just across the square, down a cobbled alley, is a house with frescoes
of Italy’s most famous puppet, Pinocchio, painted on the plaster walls. This is
the home of identical twins Giannina Tenti and Angela Leuenberger- Tenti. They
open the door together – two identical ladies complete with identical neatly
bobbed hair and identical broad smiles of welcome. Seven years ago, in a
coincidence that seems to be common to some twins, Angela and Giannina suffered
serious illnesses. They retired to pursue their shared dream of making puppets.
Fantastical examples of these – fairies, goblins, mermaids, even a puppet of
the Dalai Lama – hang from exposed and painted wooden beams in their living
room. Beside a crackling fire, Angela and Giannina are hard at work sculpting,
trimming, painting and sewing. Bedigliora, the cottage and the twins all look
like something from a fairytale. ‘Every puppet is like a baby,’ explains
Angela. ‘We can’t make two identical – even with us being identical twins!’
‘You can tell who made which puppet,’ adds Giannina, ‘because they reflect our
personalities. Angela’s are cheerful and outgoing, while mine look a little
shyer.’ Angela and Giannina’s workshop contains a personal history of
Bedigliora. Many puppets represent local characters, friends and family. In the
village’s pretty church, the twins get out identical guitars and perform
Amazing Grace in Italian, Swiss-German, English and Ticinese. ‘Welcoming
visitors with music is a Bedigliora tradition,’ Angela explains. It’s one that
everybody seems happy to keep going strong.
The Church of St. Roch
in Bedigliora, consecrated in 1644, is open to visitors (Municipio Bedigliora,
Bedigliora 6981, Lugano).
The fishermen
Over a ridge, another lake straddles the border between
Switzerland and Italy. Lake Maggiore is a deep, wide, blue ribbon of water
twisting from the Alps to the plains. North of the industrial city of Arona on
the western side, its shores are thickly wooded and dotted with elegant but
sleepy towns. Maggiore is less flashy and more sedate and charmingly
old-fashioned than Como. It’s dawn, and mist clings to the surface of Lake
Maggiore. The still waters reflect the sky: a pale duck-egg blue above and
below. Daniele Ruffoni steers his little boat out of Belgirate’s harbour. His
mate, Stefano, stoops to catch the end of a net before hauling it in. Wild
whitefish flop and twist in the morning light as the delicate net drags them
into the boat. With a thud, Stefano heaves a fat silver perch in after them.
‘It’s sad,’ Daniele muses, ‘but fishing on the lake is going to die out.’
Beside him, Stefano finds a clump of weed in the net and lobs it back into the
water with a splosh. ‘I began 20 years ago, when I was 21. Now, the youngest
fisherman on the lake is 35. The working day begins at 2am. Young people today
don’t want to do it.’ Daniele’s family is from the Isola dei Pescatori
(Fishermen’s Island), one of the three inhabited islands in the Italian part of
Lake Maggiore. The fabulously wealthy Borromeo family, who built enchanting
palaces and gardens on them in the 16th and 17th centuries, owns the other two
islands, now open to the public. Isola dei Pescatori remains a warren of
crumbling fishermen’s cottages, though restaurants and shops catering to
tourists have popped up along the main avenues and lakefront. Fishing also
accounts for a large population of feral but conspicuously well-fed cats. ‘It’s
sad for me that this is going to end,’ admits Daniele, ‘but times change. Most lake
fish are farmed now.’ He docks at the stone quayside in Belgirate, next to a
lean-to beneath the lakeside road dedicated to the Amici della Barca, or
Friends of the Boat. Here, Daniele, Stefano and the lake’s other remaining
fishermen meet at night to drink beer, eat prosciutto and tell tales of the
past. Stefano leaps off, and the two men set about preparing the day’s catch
for sale.
Motorboat rides to the Isola dei Pescatori and other
Borromean islands can be arranged from Stresa
via CMA (Piazzale Marconi 28838).
The sculptor
Further around the shore and up again towards the Ossola
valley, another of the region’s historical industries is flourishing. Candoglia
marble – a distinctive pink and white stone streaked with grey – has been taken
from the hills here for centuries. In 1387, the Visconti family declared its
quarry the property of the Duomo, the cathedral in Milan then just beginning to
be built. After an impressive 579 years of construction, the final gate of the
Duomo was opened in 1965. The cathedral now requires constant maintenance. In
the village of Candoglia, Lino Rossini has pieces of the Duomo’s Gothic
embellishments lying around his atelier. There is a length of one side of a
200-year-old arch turned black and porous with pollution. What once were
precisely carved vine leaves are reduced to charred, indistinct lumps. ‘See
this?’ says Lino. He takes out a chisel and taps lightly on the old piece. A
brittle lump splits off as if it were moulded from sugar. Lino crumbles it
easily in his hand. ‘Don’t worry,’ he says. ‘I will make a new one.’ He
gestures to a new block of marble, half-carved into a perfect replica of the
old arch. New, sharp-edged vine leaves emerge from the stone as if they had
just grown there. Drifts of sparkling white marble dust surround the block. In
the warmth of an Italian day, it looks incongruously like freshly fallen snow.
‘The Duomo is like an illustrated sculpture book,’ he says. ‘In its design you
can read the history of Italy.’ He points to a sculpted panel of a pumpkin.
‘When new things were imported from America for the first time in the 15th
century, they were commemorated with a panel in the Duomo. There are exotic
flowers. And potatoes. They were very exotic then too.’ Lino has been working
with marble since he was just 15 years old. And now, half a century later, he
appears to have lost none of his enthusiasm. ‘I love everything about my job,’
he enthuses. ‘Each restoration piece is different. My son Nicolao works with me
now. He will keep the Duomo looking beautiful for many years to come.’
Guided tours are available of the Candoglia quarry, which is situated 9
miles from Stresa (Antica Cava di Marmo, Ornavasso).
See Lino Rossini’s sculptures first hand by visiting the Duomo di Milano (Piazza del Duomo 20121,
Milan).
The baker
On the road back from
the quarries is the picture-book town of Mergozzo. Down a back-street from the
pastel-coloured lakefront square, the sweet smell of baking leads to Al Vecchio
Fornaio Pasticcere, established in 1957 by Patrizia Baroni’s mother and father.
Today, Patrizia still runs this bakery, making traditional fugascina biscuits
from butter, flour, sugar, egg, lemon and Marsala wine with her husband,
Giordano Pavesi. ‘I’ve been a baker since I was 13 years old, but at another
shop,’ says Giordano. ‘In 1976, I met Patrizia, and three years later I started
to work at her parents’ bakery. We’ve been married for 28 years.’ The recipe
for fugascina biscuits is a folk tradition, first written down in 1857 but
undoubtedly much older. ‘At the beginning of July every year, we celebrate the
feast of St Elizabeth,’ says Giordano. ‘All the families living here make
pastry for these biscuits. Then they bring the pastry here and I bake it in the
oven. When you walk around the town on that day, everyone shares their biscuits
with you.’ ‘We don’t have children,’ says Patrizia, ‘but we hope the boy who
works with us will take over the shop one day. It’s very important to us that
this carries on. It’s handmade, so it’s good!’ She passes round fugascina
biscuits with a tiny cup of strong espresso. The biscuit is light, crumbly and
still warm from the oven. It’s impossible not to take another. Patrizia and
Giordano smile at each other. Here in Mergozzo, and across the lakes region,
there is no doubt that things have changed. Yet the locals, it seems, aren’t
ready to give up their traditions just yet.