THE RED BRIDGE

This is Il Ponte Rosso, the centuries old Red Bridge, which crosses the innocent looking Fredanna river. At one point the local authorities were keen on demolishing it and replacing it with something nice in steel. It has a preservation order on it now and they can't.

I feel a great kinship with this little bridge because it survived the same flood I did.

We weren't living in Italy yet and were here on a spring break. It rained and rained.
We were driving a hired car and were oozing our way to town one day, hubcap deep in water. Bits of plastic and broken tree branches were whizzing past on the swollen river which was way over its banks. When we were passed by a wardrobe and a plastic barrel we decided to turn back.

We were only a few hundred yards up the mountain road when a tree fell across the road, just missing the car ahead of us. My husband said that I would have to get out and walk.

What? Walk over three miles straight up 1,000 feet in lashing down rain? I set out while a place was found to leave the car. The countryside was teeming. Tiny streams were roaring down the hills. There were waterfalls where none had been before. Half way up the mud slides began. My feet sunk in almost to the knees at each step and had to be pulled out again. I thought my knees would come unstuck.

At one point a trickle of brown water rushed across the road. For reasons I don't understand I sprinted ahead. When I turned around a mountain of mud with an olive tree in it filled the road. It hadn't made a sound. Worse was ahead. Our bridge had been washed down the mountain side and nothing remained but a raw cliff. I waited for my husband. A neighbour appeared with a giant golfing umbrella and held it over my drenched being. He said we could not go on, too dangerous. I looked at his big brown eyes and uttered my first full sentence in Italian, "I want to see my house." The three of us inched along the cliff, clutching at roots and not looking down.

Puffing and panting we reached the house, which had not slipped down the hill as I'd feared. I sat down on the steps and let the rushing water clean the mud off my sneakers. To tell the truth, the whole experience had been exhilarating.

Down along the raging river, other old bridges were either swept away or damaged beyond repair. The red bridge, submerged by the flood, survived.

An enormous flood control plan went into effect. High walls were built, ugly bridges replaced the old stone ones. It took about ten years to complete. It has not rained that hard since. The area has, in fact, moved into a drought period and the river is often bone dry.