We don’t need to go back dozens and dozens of years to answer this question, as the habits of the children have changed so rapidly that even my childhood’s toys differ from the ones from today. Isabelle, my Dutch fellow blogger, has discovered a beautiful museum that can help us in answering this question: Museogiocando in Piticchio. This temporary museum, that we hope can become permanent within next year, is run by Antonia and Giovanni, two old friends of Isabelle and the Cupra walking group.
One of the members of the walking group arranged a walk 5 years ago with the ultimate goal of Piticchio. Antonia and Gianni invited the whole group for a drink, which turned out to be an entire buffet. The group was given a tour of the changes in what would once be the toy museum. 5 years later Isabelle couldn’t help herself but going back and see the changes. She went along with Elke and their husbands.
They were warmly welcomed by Antonia who already gave a lot of explanation, waiting for Gianni, the specialist himself. As a retired reporter of international press agencies, he used to travel around the world, enabling him to supplement his toy collection, which he started very early in his youth; the first felt doll, the first belly speech doll (meant for a newsboy to better sell his newspapers) lots of tin toys …..
The visit turned out to be a travel into nostalgia for my fellow bloggers: mopeds, marbles, a fort with Indians and cowboys, a Carrera racetrack, trains with railroad tracks, dollhouses viewmaster. However, surprisingly enough, also the children of today, despite the computer games, became fascinated by the railroad layout.
Each toy was provided with a number and would be discussed one by one on the website in the future! 1000 or even more cars lined up all share an interesting history: many were made on request, such as the Volkswagen bus that Gianni once drove to India, or the car with which he ended up with friends at the North Cape. The car of Al Capone, the car with which the Belgian queen Astrid died. The Formula 1 racing cars that were originally only colored, according to the origin of the country and not yet sponsored.
The fire trucks and other rescue cars were all red, except for those driving around the airports, which were then yellow again for visibility.
The miniature military ships originally intended as teaching materials for the Marines in the war to recognize enemy ships, the same for the model planes. After the war they could serve as toys, but to make it cheaper, they decided to deliver them as kits.
And so Gianni could go on for hours and hours, and indeed the visit lasted almost 3 hours!
Gianni and Antonia are planning to open again in 2020 Spring, with some interesting projects on the shelf, we should definitely come back 🙂
Plenty of time to find seats and enjoy the local dishes!
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