When the Roof Fell In: A Morning of Alpine Drama in Sopramonte
The Morning After the Storm
This morning started with the kind of Alpine drama you don't usually expect outside of a Netflix disaster documentary. A storm barrelled through Sopramonte in the early hours, and by the time the thunder had rolled away, part of the roof of the old abandoned osteria on Via del Regolin, just feet away from our house, had collapsed.
For those unfamiliar, an osteria is a traditional Italian tavern or inn, the kind of place where locals would gather for wine, simple food, and conversation.
It looked like what had once been the stables, or whatever passed for them back when the building was still alive, gave way under the battering. The vigili del fuoco (fire fighters) turned up, had a look, and promptly closed off half the road. The building has been vacant for years, and as far as I could see, nobody was hurt. Unless you count the dignity of the poor old building, which has been quietly disintegrating for years.
Spider-Man in a Hard Hat
The fire brigade were soon on the scene, and after poking and prodding the structure, they decided there was only one safe solution: remove the whole roof. Not by carefully dismantling it tile by tile, mind you, but by undermining the supports and letting it collapse in on itself. It worked. Now the roof lies in a heap inside the shell of the stables, like a house of cards knocked flat by one final flick.
Getting it down, though, was no simple job. It took hours of delicate manoeuvring, with one firefighter suspended from a cable like a local Spider-Man, chipping away at danger from above. It looked risky from where I stood, but they handled it all with quiet professionalism.
Full credit to the vigili del fuoco, they pulled off a tough and dangerous operation with calm efficiency.
Our road remains blocked. The vigili say there's no immediate danger, but they want the stable walls inspected before reopening the way. In other words, we'll be taking the scenic route for a while.
The Three Brothers' Stalemate
But this morning's collapse was just the final chapter in a much longer story of neglect. As for why the osteria was left to rot in the first place, well, the rumour is depressingly familiar in Italy. The building is owned by three brothers, and none of them can agree on what to do with it. This stalemate has stretched into decades, until the osteria simply gave up the fight.
What We Lose When Buildings Fall
Whether it was neglect, bad luck, or the storm's brute force, the result's the same: another slice of Sopramonte's past has literally crumbled away. And while part of me shrugs and thinks "that's progress", another part feels the loss. I often looked at the osteria with a certain amount of affection, thinking about the lives lived before ours, the laughter, arguments, and stories that must have echoed off those walls.
Now, all that's left is a pile of tiles, a partially closed road, and the uncomfortable reminder that nothing, not even stone and timber, lasts forever.