In a forest not far from Turin, a small village with mushroom-shaped houses is reminiscent of that of the little blue creatures.
Who has never dreamed of visiting the Smurf village? Joining Papa Smurf, Smurfette and the others on an exciting adventure to save their village from Gargamel’s evil. Or even thinking of people who would fit perfectly into the role of the lazy Smurf or the grumpy Smurf. The inhabitants of the mushroom village certainly gave us (and the generation before us) magical moments in our childhood.
And in Italy – Liguria to be precise – there is a village that makes us think that the comic and TV series may not have been as fictional as it seemed. Hidden in the woods of Bardineto – not far from Turin – hikers will find a group of strange, mushroom-shaped houses that look too much like those of cartoonist Pierre Culliford (also known as Peyo). They were once used as vacation bungalows and are therefore furnished as studios and one-room apartments with an oven, barbecue and storage room, etc.
Curiously, the village was not built in the 1970s by the Ligurian master builder Mario De Bernardi in honor of our blue friends. The province of Savona is famous in northern Italy for its mushrooms, which may have inspired the architect to build these funny houses. Nowadays, however, they are no longer used as accommodation and can therefore only be seen from the outside – which doesn’t stop many visitors from looking for Grandpa Smurf and his grandchildren here.