SHARRYLAND
Where is
What it is and where it is
We arrive at sunset. The outer walls of the west-facing buildings take on that orange-pinkish glow characteristic of every sunset. All around is absolute silence. There seems to be no one living there in these winter months. We walk up the main street and arrive in the old village at the top of the town. Here stands the Romanesque church of San Nicolò, a reminder of the tragic earthquake event of 1887. The gate is open and we, in respectful silence, enter....
Why it is special
The verdant terrace on which the remains of the church stand is not only a testimony to what happened during the "Ash Earthquake." In fact, it provides an opportunity to rediscover the passage, in these very places, of the ancient Celtic peoples and to delve into the mythical legend of the Druids. Not only that... exiting the left side of the church leads to the panoramic part of the hill, a balcony oriented toward the majestic Ligurian Alps.
Not to be missed
The most touching experience is undoubtedly to enter what remains of the Romanesque church of San Nicolò and listen to the roar of silence as one's imagination returns to that tragic morning when a quarter of the village's population was crushed under the slabs of the building's main nave. And what the sign placed near the entrance invites us to do: "You postero, think of them. If it is not your prayer, it will at least be your thought that you address to them."
A bit of history
As we leave the church with tear-filled eyes, we meet an elderly lady, the only resident we meet during our stay. She is petting a cat near the doorway and with her other hand she is holding onto the dry stone wall of the vegetable garden to her right. "You are here on the day of the earthquake. My mother used to tell me how lucky she was that morning, since she was not in church. All the books in the world would not be enough to describe the tragic nature of that event. Yet everyone writes about the war, no one about the earthquake," she said regretfully. Then she went back into the house.
Trivia
Antonio Rubino, a well-known San Remo cartoonist and illustrator born in 1880, was a child when the earthquake destroyed the areas where he grew up. In the very square on which the ruins of the Romanesque church of San Nicolò stand today in the old village of Bajardo, we find a memorial plaque in his honor. "In memory of Antonio Rubino, who understood and practiced art as an escape from reality to bring young and old closer to a more beautiful and better world."
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