In Castelluccio di Norcia, drought has turned the flower paradise into an arid plain
Every early summer, the small village of Castelluccio di Norcia, in central Italy, witnesses a magnificent natural phenomenon: a multicolored wildflower bloom, which attracts thousands of tourists each year. This summer, however, the drought spoiled the spectacle and “erased the colors,” much to the dismay of a region still weakened by the damage of the 2016 earthquake.
Here and there, poppy-red patches. From time to time, a few acres covered with cornflowers. All around, the ochre yellow of wheat fields, but also strips of arid, burnt-looking earth. Forget the white daisies and golden daffodils, the gentians, wild mustard, buttercups, asphodels, violets, sheep sorrel, and crimson clover. The hives are deserted and the bees are starving. The drought has taken its toll on the beauty of Castelluccio di Norcia, a village reduced to rubble by the 2016 earthquake , and today still invaded by rubble and endless construction sites.
The astonishing blooming of flowers in the lentil fields—the most prized in the world—which, at the beginning of each summer, gave rise to a magical spectacle attracting tourists by the thousands, did not take place this year. Gone. Vanished. Almost. No rain, instead a furnace and cracking earth. Even the precious white frosts of dawn, beneficial for the flowers, were not present. The plain stretching at the foot of Mount Vettore, often compared to Monet's irises, has the parched appearance of seasons without water, arid land as far as the eye can see, stubble, and extinct vegetation.
Courrier International
