Enchanted Places with children: Campsirago (and dramatic readings for them, too!)

Last week, on Sunday October 20, we went to the traditional Burollata in Campsirago. Campsirago is the smallest medieval village you can imagine in the middle of Brianza's hills, set at about 650 meters high, among hundreds-years-old woods hiding many many paths, easy, good for all types of families, to be walked upon amidst autumn colors.

Campsirago is also a theatre residency, where Scarlattine Teatro creates shows that it takes to various parts of the world and where often plays are performed for adults and/or children.
We went there for the first time in occasion of this year's burollata, that is a sort of fair of the chestnut, although we'd been intending to vist the place for a long time already. But last Sunday it was also the occasion to take part once again in a short training in dramatic readings for children held by professional actors trainers of the company Scarlattine Teatro.

The short and intense training was then followed by readings aloud, being books read aloud by voluntary readers, who could read whether they had taken part in the training or not, on the corners of the tiny roads of the village or in the woods nearby, for a project called Liberi di leggere. Readings for children, that is, seen that the initiative was born within the larger project Leggere per gioco, Leggere per amore.

During this day of partying, there are theatre representations for adults and children and live music,

chestnuts cooked on fire in the open air and vin, cooked on fire in the open, too.

The place is enchanted and enchanting, there also are ancient buildings hiding pieces of fascinating history for both grown ups and children; the snow cellar used as a refrigerator in ancient times,

the oven to cook bread in the village, under a porch,

enormous fireplaces within the main palace (Gambassi Palace)

the shed. And then the new things, the improvements and the inventions of the theatre company: the Yurta for the training and for the shows, colorful and almost incongruous in the middle of the wood panorama and the old local stone buildings,

 

while other things, like the fire for the chestnuts (burolle) 

 

and for the vin brulé, with its old cooking cauldron, fit well in the ancient look of the place.

Every voluntary reader read a book among those that they prefer to those who wanted to stop and listen, books for children, in line with the project Leggere per Gioco, Leggere per Amore. Somebody reads better, somebody reads well, but the important is being passionate about reading and making this passion thrive in children of the youngest age, and the chance to do it in the open in such an enchanting place, in the middle of the marvelous autumn colours and maybe going for a walk in the woods before the readings, and then after nibbling at an entire paper cornet of roast chestnuts, is a different way of spending a very nice afternoon and tasting seasonal fruits.

And finally we managed to go there, to listen to some very good music live, to read, to play, even if the weather wasn't really at its best. There were also some 
stands by local producers, charity associations, selling products or offering labs for children and adults on a free offer. 
And what matters if at the end of the afternoon we had to go back to the parking marching down the hill and faster and faster because of the rain that started pouring heavier and heavier. We were lucky that it started raining only at the end of the afternoon!
 
For sure we discovered another very beautiful place and we'll soon be back there to walk in the woods and enjoy some fresh and very little polluted air. And we'll soon be back for theatre shows, when there's one fit for our children There also are dramatic readings for children in the libraries in the Merate area, for those who can go there.

The Italian Version is here.