EU bankrolls return to la dolce vita for villages

Calascio, with a population of less than 140, is one of 20 settlements to benefit from post-pandemic restoration

A TABBY cat pads down a quiet cobbled alleyway while an elderly lady tends the crocuses that are just emerging in her tiny garden.

They are about the only signs of life on a chilly April day in the stone and timber village of Calascio, high up in the Apennine mountains of Italy.

But all that is about to change dramatically. Calascio, a tangle of houses and lanes surrounded by snow-capped mountains, has hit the jackpot.

Italy is about to lavish €420 million (£350million) on a select group of abandoned or depopulated villages.

The money is a portion of the €200billion in grants and low-interest loans that the EU is giving the country to help it recover from the post-pandemic economic slump.

Italy is comfortably the biggest beneficiary of the €800billion that Brussels plans to disburse across the Continent.

All of Italy’s 20 regions were asked to choose one village or hamlet that was worthy of receiving a one-off payment of €20 million to restore abandoned buildings, attract new residents and reverse decades of neglect.

In Abruzzo, a region in the centre of Italy known for wind-blown uplands, tangy pecorino cheese and flocks of sheep, the winner was Calascio.

The village is emblematic of the demographic decline of so many villages in Italy, from the Alps in the north to Sicily in the south.

A century ago, it had a population of 2,500. That has now dwindled to less than 140.

Grinding poverty and a lack of jobs meant that families emigrated to the US and Canada at the end of the 19th century and later to Belgium and northern France to work in coal mines.

The village school is closed as there are just three children living there.

There were once four grocery shops; now there is none. The health clinic is closed and the winding cobbled streets are largely deserted.

But a wide range of projects now promise to breathe new life into the village, which is overlooked by the ruins of a 1,000-year-old castle, perched on top of a 4,790ft-high rocky crag, known as Rocca Calascio.

Named by National Geographic as one of the 15 most beautiful castles in the world, it has featured in films such as the 1985 movie Ladyhawke starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Rutger Hauer.

“We were very pleased to be nominated the winning village but not entirely surprised. We are not just any village – the castle is the defining symbol of Abruzzo,” said Paolo Baldi, the mayor of Calascio.

“I’m hoping that directly and indirectly, we can create around 100 jobs in the village.”