Yesterday was our first full day in Tuscany. I had a bit of a rough night the night before; our welcoming pizza and wine (and more wine and grappa) having a bit more of an effect than I had hoped. But we were in good company, with Gabrielle, Marino, and Andrea – Andrea being the lord of the manor, which was once the summer home of the Duke of Tuscany (we’re staying in the renovated workers quarters). It’s a pretty fancy place, complete with pool and 300 year-old domed chapel, and we certainly have more room here than in Rome.
So after spending much of the day lounging around, we packed into the cars (a small van, fiat, and alpha romeo) and headed for Bagno Vignione to get a quick look at the springs in the center of town before driving to Pienza. Neat town, I can see the appeal of the place for the Tusccan tourist (luckily we pulled up just as the last tour bus was loading). The team did their research, the rest of us helped in the form of photos or other, and I caught my 2nd amazing Tuscan sunset. We ate a good dinner, loaded up again, and wound our way back through the dark countryside to our home in Dolciano, outside of Chiusi.
Once here, Rei, Jenny and I headed for the gardens just outside the main palazzo for the nightly firefly show. I had never seen a firefly in real life before this trip (saw a few on the first night), so it was a magical moment. Thick brush on either side, a few tall cypress trees lining one dge of the gravel road, and tiny blinking lights floating throughout. We caught some in a ziplock bag to show the others before setting them free.
I understand the appeal of Tuscany. When we first arrived 2 days ago, we drove through storms and pockets of sun, and much of the day continued to be variable. A group went off to the supermarket to buy some food and necessities while a few of us stayed to watch the bags and wait for the sun (Marino wasn’t home when we arrived). So we sat on the portico overlooking the small courtyard and countryside beyond, and relaxed.
I missed Rome at first, but I’m starting to adapt to this place. When the sun began to set, I was certainly pleased to have a real sunset.. in Rome, it’s basically day time, then a few minutes of orange light beams through the streets, and suddenly it’s night. Here, the rolling hills and fields and vineyards pick up the glow and the dew in the air and create such a breathtakingly saturated vista, combined with the fading layers of hills and the beams of sun through the sky, that it’s virtually impossible to capture in anything other than memory. We tried, but photos can’t see it, and words can’t describe it.
I’ll look forward to hitting the pool at some point, and visiting Montepulciano to conduct our research (we drove by it on our way there and back, and it does seem to be what I expected). But I’ll also look forward to returning to civilization when we drive up to Florence next week. – That’s one thing I’m still having a difficult time adjusting to – the scale of everything here. Everything is so close. From Rome, it was a 2 hour drive to Dolciano. It will probably be another 2 hours or less to Florence, and along the way, all of these hill towns seem to be within an hour of each other. This is the same as Rome was, where wandering for 20 minutes, we would stumble upon site after site of the places we studied. They were so grand, but so close.
That’s it for now. I need to figure out if we’re visiting Chiusi today.
rbo
