The chestnut, the Queen of the Apennines.

Autumn is not a season but a state of mind, the highest magic that nature can express in its circularity, and in this palette of colours, chestnut reigns, the Queen of this territory during the autumn season.

The chestnut is the undisputed symbol of autumn, with its brown color and its scent when roasted and its unmistakable flavour, in short, a real feast for the senses!

At the height of the chestnut season, the entire territory comes alive in the collection of the latest delicacies that the forest grants before the silent winter arrives. When the days are still warmed by the tender autumn sun and the forest is filled with intense colours and scents, immersing yourself in nature is the most relaxing and intoxicating thing that nature can offer us.

In the past, the arrival of autumn brought great excitement in families, throughout the year the undergrowth was kept clean, where there was a chestnut tree, the soil was cleared of weeds and carefully mowed. The wood had to be in place to be able to collect the fallen chestnuts, the harvest began between the end of September and the first week of October and continued until November; it was a job that was done in the family, by hand, collecting them in baskets and wicker baskets.

Each family collected chestnuts in the woods, no one collected those in the property of others, but after the large harvest, the woods were made available to all those who did not have a wood where they could collect them.

The collection was done several times a day, the boys went to collect before going to school and continued on their return; today chestnuts are harvested with the help of nets, especially in modern intensive fruit chestnut groves or even through mechanical harvesting with vacuum cleaners and harvesters but not in this place, where the tradition where the tradition of manual harvesting are still alive despite the difficulties.

Once the daily harvest is finished, the selection process begins, the bad chestnuts are completely discarded while the smaller ones are set aside and sold at lower prices.

Fortunately, after years of suffering, due to poor harvesting, due to a killer-insect, the chestnut gall wasp, the chestnut groves have returned to produce an important quantity of fruit of excellent quality.

However, the problems are certainly not lacking, the depopulation of inland areas, with masses of the population, mostly young people who move to the cities, has taken away labor from the collection, and this leads the older generations to additional efforts or, in alternative, foreign labor.

A legend tells that in a mountain forest where, next to a huge tree full of chestnuts, lived a family of hedgehogs made up of mum, dad and their children. Daily a group of hungry squirrels approached the tree to eat its fruits, but one day, the little family thought about taking a walk in the woods and, hearing many complaints, curiously approached the tree to see what was happening. He noticed that the chestnuts were complaining because those spiteful inhabitants ate them. Together, then, they came up with a nice plan: when the squirrels arrived, the chestnuts would hide inside the hedgehogs. So they did and, since then, the small rodents, stinging each other, never came near the chestnuts and they, to protect themselves, kept their husk.

The chestnut plays an important role in this territory as well as in many hilly and mountain areas of Italy, not only for the production of fruit and wood, but also for the protection of the territory and for the protection of the environmental and hydrogeological structure.

Traveling in an original way, beyond the usual destinations, with a spirit of discovery, allows you to find unexpected surprises: places, stories and flavours of inestimable value.

This little journey that focuses on chestnut is intended as an original, different proposal, an opportunity to get to know territories rich in history, nature and culture.

Getting lost in the beauty of these centuries-old woods makes us feel the sweetness and grandeur of Nature.

Behind the scene of a decadent giant

This is the sad little story, like so many scattered throughout the Italian territory, of a slow and inexorable decline of a noble palace and of the people who lived there, taken as an example to bring to the attention of the reader, a much wider phenomenon and which, as mentioned, involves our historical heritage throughout the Italian territory.

This palace was built in the seventeenth century by the noble local family, in whose hands it will remain until the early years of the new millennium.

Over the centuries, there have been numerous renovations, due to external events such as earthquakes, Unfortunately, arriving at the present days, in conjunction with the decline of the family, in recent decades, the building has suffered serious and irreparable damages, mainly due to neglect, which inevitably marked its fate.

The house is fully shored up, to avoid structural collapses, and today it is totally unusable. Completely emptied of any element of value, left to collapse in general indifference, today his sheltering pigeons and cats who have found the comfort of a house among its noble rubble.

As anticipated in the first line, this is a fairly common photo story in Italy, where, growing abandonment and wild overbuilding, they leave our territory with hundreds of thousands of forgotten buildings. The numbers are frightening, and trace the profile of a nation that is slowly crumbling, about 6% of all Italian real estate assets are on the way to becoming ruined, a percentage that continues to grow year after year.

Only for statistical purposes, here are some data: About 50,000 buildings are now in a state of neglect, including noble palaces, villas and castles . Approximately 20,000 between ecclesiastical buildings, churches, abbeys and convents in disuse.

The rediscovery of these places, excluding the romanticism of memories, hides a serious social problem: the erosion of the territory. Suffice it to say that it is estimated that over 10,000 square km of territory already occupied by abandoned buildings, in addition to a constant and increasing overbuilding, only in 2018, about 2 square meters per second were cemented, the equivalent of 15 football fields a day.

Today We let concrete devour the territory, the overdevelopment of suburban urban areas, the countless building abuses in protected and at-risk areas, new and useless commercial areas, forgetting the numerous abandoned places that could be redeveloped.

But to us all this seems to leave us indifferent, continuing to build and abandon, following the consumerist logic that has long governed our lifestyles and that will soon lead us to the dissolution of our natural and historical beauties.

The Thames's hidden treasure

It seems that almost every day there is another story about pollution of one form or another, in the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe. Very often our own actions lead to that pollution and in many cases we can do something about it. This essay shows just a little part of the “treasure” trapped on the bottom of the Thames but, It could be, easily, find even in others rivers around the World.

Fly-tipping is a major cause of pollution in urban rivers in the UK.

Motorbikes leak toxic fuel, polluting the river directly, oil enters a slow-moving river it forms a rainbow-coloured film over the entire surface preventing oxygen from entering the water. On larger stretches of water the oil contaminates the feathers of water birds and when they preen the oil enters the gut and kills them.

Besides, other regularly fly-tipped items such as car parts, trolleys, safes, bicycles, bathtubs and armchairs trap silt and smother the natural gravels on the riverbed where plants and animals live and fish lay their eggs.

Only in UK’s rivers are also polluted by companies and agriculture and fewer than 15% are deemed to be in a favourable condition.

Over 97% of all the water on Earth is salty and most of the remaining 3% is frozen in the polar ice-caps. The atmosphere, rivers, lakes and underground stores hold less than 1% of all the fresh water and this tiny amount has to provide the fresh water needed to support the Earth's population. Fresh water is a precious resource and the increasing pollution of our rivers and lakes is a cause for alarm.

Each of Us should feel the responsibility to safeguard this treasure, so precious to the world and all its living beings, Plants, Animals and Human Beings.