Etruscans, Tuscans and Americans

                                                                                Pitigliano 

As our early-morning flight back to the United States banked over the Monte Pisano, I caught sight of Pisa's Cathedral with its Leaning Tower - a fitting goodbye from a town we have come to love. Our last week in Pisa for this year spanned two holidays - April 25, which celebrates the liberation of Italy from the Fascists at the end of World War II and May Day, the international labor day. 

The week began with an evening in Buti at the Trattoria Paccì, one of our favorite restaurants that specializes in Tuscan and Pisan dishes. Dinner was at 7:30 p.m. - very early by Italian standards - but we had tickets for a play at Buti's beautiful Teatro Francesco di Bartolo. Although it is a small town, Buti was very prosperous in 1842 when the theater was built by 12 local wealthy families. It's typical of Italian theaters of that time with an elegant entrance and a horseshoe-shaped interior surrounded by two rows of individual boxes. Regional theaters abound in Tuscany and Buti's company is particularly well-known.  

The next day, we left Pisa with three friends for a walking tour of the Vie Cave, the ancient Etruscan roads found primarily in the area surrounding the towns of Pitigliano, Sovana and Sorano in the Maremma area of southern Tuscany. 

The Etruscans, from whom Tuscany takes its name were a rich and powerful pre-Roman civilization. Based on the varying features of the Vie Cave, it is estimated that 40 generations of Etruscans worked on the roads, many of which are lined with burial niches. The roads were connectors for the three towns, but some historians think the Vie Cave also were sacred routes within a religious area.

Dug deep into the local rock, known as tufo, the Vie Cave wind for miles through the hilly Tuscan countryside. The oldest road connecting Sovana and Sorano dates to 700-500 B.C. The towns themselves, set on high tufo promontories, are breathtakingly beautiful. All three towns have been inhabited for thousands of years and each is rich in history and culture.

Inside the Vie Cave, it's cool and shady. High above your head, you can see the roots of trees and the clear blue of the sky. At one point, we walked out of a Via Cava and into fields thick with wild orchids and delicate, fuschia-colored cyclamens.

Our trip began in Pitigliano, where we left our car. After a visit to the town, which is a warren of narrow, winding streets atop several subterranean layers, we set out in the beautiful sunshine for Sovana.  By car, it's only about seven miles from Pitigliano to Sovana, but we took a circuitous 16-mile route that passed through several, narrow Vie Cave. For the next three days, we walked in the footsteps of the Etruscans and almost everywhere we looked, we saw caves, burial niches, walkways and ancient rural habitations dug into the rock. 

One day's walk took us across vast vineyards and olive groves. It was hot going and we came to our own, albeit unsubstantiated, conclusion that the Etruscans built the Vie Cave as a way to get out of the blazing, hot Tuscan sun.

We stayed in Sovana and in Sorano, where our hotel was in the old castle of the town. At night, we sampled local specialities, including wild boar, rabbit and grilled meats. And we feasted, morning and night, on the region's most famous speciality - ricotta cheese - fresh ricotta cheese for breakfast, ricotta cheese cakes, ricotta cheese yoghurt and on the last day, a wonderful ricotta cheese and fig gelato. When you walk 15 or more miles a day up and down steep hills, you can indulge yourself.

We got back to Pisa just in time to attend what we have begun to unofficially call the Annual Pisan Italian/American Barbecue. It's held in a friend's garden, hidden behind a tall stone wall right in the center of Pisa.  Guests make a dish to pass. JR and Gaetano grill hamburgers, lamb and pork over a wood fire. Everyone contributes advice.

We expected to spend our last full day in Pisa - a cloudy, rainy May Day - doing errands and packing. Instead we got an invitation to have lunch with some new friends at their beautiful Cosimo Maria Masini winery near San Miniato. (Click here to visit their great web page.) Naturally farming vineyards and olive groves on an estate that dates back to the 1600s, Cosimo Maria Masini produces great Tuscan wines and high-quality olive oil. We lingered a long time over lunch, eating, talking and, of course, enjoying a selection of the vineyard's fine wines. At the end of the afternoon, the sun came out and we walked out into the beautiful Tuscan countryside.

It was a perfect end to this year's Italian adventure.

For more photos, click here.

A presto, 

Geraldine

A Tuscan Weekend

                Click here or at the end of the text for more photos.

"Andiamo nelle belle colline toscane," said Fabrizio as he, Roberta, JR and I left Pisa for a weekend trip.  While I was waiting for our friends to arrive, I had glanced at the day's newspaper headlines about reductions in Italian pensions, the general economic crisis and gas prices that are hovering at about 1.89 euros a liter (that translates to about $9.00 a gallon! Yes, $9.00 a gallon).

For the moment, however, we were leaving all that behind as we headed for "the beautiful Tuscan hills." The plan was to spend Saturday in Siena, stopping first in Monteriggioni, where I had reserved rooms in the Bed and Breakfast in Piazza. It's about an hour and a half drive from Pisa to Siena on the autoroute. We opted, however, for the slower back roads that wind up and down the Tuscan hills. The entire route was a post card come to life as we passed by or through the picturesque towns of Peccioli, Volterra, San Gimignano and Colle di Val d'Elsa. 

We stopped at a cafe in the small, hillside town of Montaione. There, to my surprise, we found a luxury resort, complete with a 27-hole golf course. With the opening of the European Union, foreign development is evident all over Tuscany. Half of Montaione seemed to be covered in scaffolding, turning decaying dwellings into pristine rental units. Some towns, like nearby Tonda - which was abandoned after the Second World War - have been bought up by foreign development companies, closed off to the public and turned into stage-set resorts. 

Monteriggioni, on the other hand, is a place where many movies and commercials have been filmed, but it's as authentic as they come. It was built by the Republic of Siena as a defensive outpost in 1214 and Dante, himself, in the Divine Comedy, talks about the menacing power of Monteriggioni's towers. 

After checking into our Bed and Breakfast - which was located, like everything else in town, in an beautiful, old building - we set out for Siena. We had hoped to bike there on the Via Francigena - an important Medieval pilgrimage route - but bike rental wasn't available this early in the season. So, we hopped in the car and 20 minutes later, we were in Siena.

Siena, was bursting with tourists, including, it seemed, every high school student in Italy. They filled the Piazza del Campo, laughing, eating and, of course, talking. We joined them with our picnic lunch (JR's now-famous panini) and stretched out, enjoying the noonday sun.

It's not surprising that tourists flock to Siena. It has a beautifully-harmonious center filled with churches, museums and palaces. In 1995, Siena was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We visited the museum in the Palazzo Pubblico with its famous 14th-century frescoes and magnificent early 15th-century altar stalls. The rest of the afternoon we spent walking the hilly, winding streets of the town, taking in its medieval atmosphere and seeing its magnificent cathedral complex.

We got back to Monteriggioni in time to put our feet up before heading out to il Pozzo, a restaurant on the town square. After an excellent dinner of local specialities, such as wild boar and pork with porcini mushrooms, we decided a walk was in order. To take a little stroll in Italian is fare quattro passi  - to take four steps. In Monteriggioni, you don't need much more than that to cover the entire town since there are only three streets inside the walls. We walked them all in just a few minutes, so we took a second turn around the town, this time in the opposite direction. The towers were bathed in moonlight and I don't think even Dante would have called them menacing.   

The next day after breakfast we went to see the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey of San Galgano, located about 20 miles south of Siena. The abbey sits in the middle of a flower-strewn plain, but when it was built in 1324, its location was an important crossroads for two ancient routes. Above it on a nearby hill is the Chapel of Montesiepi with its famous Sword in the Rock. San Galgano, then known as Galgano Guidotti, is said to have thrust his sword into the rock in 1180 when he gave up his warring ways and turned to a peaceful hermit's life. Studies on the sword's age were not conclusive, but analysis did show that its chemical content is not inconsistent with medieval metal. Whether it's authentic or not, giving up war in favor of peace is a worthwhile pursuit in all ages. 

Judging from the place names in the region, peace was not the norm in Medieval times. Every town that isn't named after a saint seems to have some form of the word fortress or castle in its name, such as Castele, Castello, Castelletto, Castiglione, Rocca, Massa or Forte. Most of these fortified towns are located on the tops of hills, not only for defensive purposes, but also because in medieval times, much of the lower ground was covered with marshland. 

In the afternoon, we visited three of these towns - Roccastrada, Roccatederighi and Massa Marrittima. None of them are on the heavily-traveled tourist route and all are beautiful. Roccastrada has extensive remains of the Montemassi Castle. In Roccatederighi, you walk up through narrow, dark streets only to burst into the light at the top. There the church of San Sebastian is built right into the rock and the view stretches all the way to the sea 30 or 40 miles away. The biggest surprise of all was Massa Marrittima, a sizable town that we had never visited. Probably of Etruscan origins, it was a rich and important mineral center well into the Middle Ages and it is full of beautiful public and private buildings. The view into the piazza from the steps of its graceful cathedral, looks much as it must have looked in the 13th and 14th centuries. 

It was too late to visit any of the town's museums or public buildings, so we bought an ice cream and walked about the city. As we stopped to look at one of the town gates, a man sitting in front of his house told me to be sure to continue up the hill to see the town walls and the view of the countryside from the walkway. I thanked him and told him he lived in a beautiful town. He smiled and said: "Signora, you're in Italy." 


For more photos, click here.

A presto,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Discovering Tuscany

A friend from Lucca, a beautiful and well-known town just over the mountain from Pisa, asked me recently if I'd ever been to Monte Carlo. "Yes," I responded, "several times. We lived in Nice and Monte Carlo is nearby."  "Not that Monte Carlo," she said, "Montecarlo di Lucca."  

Montecarlo, it seems, is a town perched on an isolated hilltop in the Province of Lucca. Its medieval center is well-preserved and it is still surrounded by its splendid wall. It is one of the seemingly hundreds of small, beautiful Tuscan towns unknown to me, even after all these years of visiting and living in Tuscany. Every year though, thanks to Italian friends, we discover more of these hidden treasures. 

Many travel writers have described Tuscany as passé, with nothing new to discover. They need to go traveling with our friends. If they do, they'll find - to name just a few - places like Montecarlo, Camaiore, Populonia, Peccioli, Vicopisano, Giglio Castello, Celle di Puccini, Sarzana, Fosidinovo and Barga, a medieval town with a modern-day jazz tradition. 

There is enough beauty, interest and culture in each one of these town to merit its own article, but it's a bit of a Catch-22. If I take the time to write about every beautiful town we see, I won't have time to visit the towns. Instead I'll use this post to share with you photos taken all over Tuscany.

Pisa, Florence and Siena may be the crown jewels of Tuscany, but there are plenty of other Tuscan gems waiting for you to discover. So if you come, don't be afraid to wander off the beaten track.  

In the meantime, click here to see my photos.

Ciao,

Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor

Italy

PARIS NOSTALGIA

It was a cold, rainy two months in Paris. No matter what the weather, however, Paris is a hard place to leave.

The sunshine of Tuscany will soon chase away the grey clouds, but, as always, we left Paris with nostalgia in our hearts. 

The French poet Paul Verlaine captures the sentiment in his poem, Il pleure dans mon coeur, which first appeared in 1874 in the anthology Romances sans Paroles. The photos of Paris are mine. They were taken through the windows of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs on a day very much like the one that inspired Verlaine to write:

  Il pleure dans mon coeur

  Comme il pleut sur la ville;

  Quelle est cette langueur

  Qui pénètre mon coeur? 

It rains in my heart

Like it rains on the town;

What is this languor

That penetrates my heart?

For an audio reading of the poem, click here.

To see the complete set of photos, click here.

                                              

                                           

                                   A bientôt,

                                   Geraldine

Photos by Geraldine Calisti Kaylor