I seem to see the Pila Valley that sunny, it passes to the denser mists. And Uber down there on an embankment with the boatman “Adolfo” that tells him: “Who knows, at midday it could also open”. And the flights of wild birds, How many!!! And ducks of all qualities, from the colorful “German” there dark “Folaga”, from the little one “Teal” to the blue ones “Marzaiole”. And then channels, many canals flanked by thick high reeds that allow you to see only the sky on which the boatmen not to get trapped in that labyrinth, they make particular signs. And the canals lead to the sea on beaches where among old uncultivated bushes and brambles old houses made of reeds rise as if by magic, where only the inevitable fireplace is made of stone. They were already almost abandoned then, as they only lived there for two months a year during the eel fishing season. And how to explain the interior of the valley, made of huge expanses of water and banks with the traditional ones “Casoni di Valle” where the hunters came out at dawn for the “barrel hunting”, they came back in and cold or numb and around the central fireplace they spent hours waiting to return outside in the late afternoon

Raffaella Bertani, Manuscript, 1996