Bilbo Stopped in Bucchianico: The “Gentile Shire” Project

The great gathering of Tolkien enthusiasts ended on April 28th in Bucchianico, on the occasion of the event called “welcome home”

Uno scorcio della contea gentile

Rome, April 30, 2025

Dr. Marco Matteoli

Radiologist, Journalist, CRI Volunteer.

A land of mountains, waterfalls, forests, castles, and warm-hearted people—Abruzzo looks like a place J.R.R. Tolkien might have drawn himself to house the Shire of the Hobbits.

Within this landscape, between the ordinary and the fairy-tale-like, a project was born a few years ago in Bucchianico, a small town near Chieti, which aims to reproduce the “shire” in Tolkienian style.

The mind behind this vision is Nicolas Gentile, a pastry chef with a deep passion for fantasy—especially The Lord of the Rings. His project, affectionately called "La Contea Gentile", seeks not to escape reality, but to heal it, using imagination and community as tools for reconstruction.

The idea came to life in 2018, when Nicolas reclaimed a piece of neglected land and began transforming it into something out of Middle-earth. Slowly but surely, he's been building real Hobbit homes, true to Tolkien’s vision—not just in architecture, but in spirit.

During the presentation of his book “In viaggio per la Terra di Mezzo” (Travelling Through Middle-earth), published by Electa Junior, Nicolas spoke candidly about the personal journey that sparked this adventure. A serious illness, he explains, changed his entire worldview. It made him realize just how disconnected and hollow the world had become—especially after the pandemic, which amplified social isolation and emotional detachment.

<<The magic of the Shire doesn’t lie in the Hobbit-holes,

or in the clothes we wear while we’re here.

It lies in the people, and in the relationships we build.

We are drifting apart—from each other and from everything around us.

The Shire is a return to being together,

to uniting under a shared passion.>>

— Nicolas Gentile

Far from being a utopian escape, the Gentle Shire is a call to reclaim the beauty in what already exists—in the natural world, in community, and in dreams too long suppressed by hyper-rationality and cynicism.

So what can be done to survive an increasingly hostile and nihilistic reality, and what day after?

day freezes our minds and souls through a nailing rationality?

What can fill this existential void if not our dreams , our desires and our hopes?

Quoting Michael Ende in the book “The Neverending Story”:

<<Wishes cannot be summoned or silenced at will.

They rise from the deepest parts of our being,

more hidden than any conscious intention—

be they good or bad—

and they come to us without warning.>>

In Bucchianico, they’re learning to listen to those wishes again.

To follow the journey and support Nicolas' dream:

www.laconteagentile.it