Montelcino
Once again we had a slow morning and laughed at ourselves for being
ready to set off at noon again. We were heading into Tuscany proper by-passing
Sienna. I had chosen the WOOFer farm because of its proximity to
Montelcino, a medieval walled town, which I had been reading about since
before we left Ireland, in a wonderful book given to me for our trip by
my LaLeche friends. (Vanilla Beans and Brodo by Isabel Dusi). We got to Montelcino about 3 with all the shops and
restaurants shut, but we weren't too starving and had a wonderful walk
exploring this spectacular place. It was really great to have so much
background on it from the book, but also the location is almost beyond description, as
the height affords views from the medieval walls in every direction over
what seems the whole of the Tuscan valley. The little streets had even
littler lanes which my book told me to go down in order to discover gardens
behind each terrace. There we could see a peculiar yellow orange fruit
ripening on huge trees, as well as vegetables and olives. There were old
ladies both in the alleyways chatting and up ladders picking olives. We
walked back to the piazza Garibaldi where we parked our car, and found a
little bar open, selling pizza slices.
WWOOF host
Sated, we phoned our WWOOFer host and headed, not knowing quite what
to expect, as we were not offering any help, just looking for a place to
stop over. The drive there, down through the valley, was equally amazing
, as was the sunset over the Tuscan hills, but we had pushed the kids
with the driving to get there, and they were very ready for a stop.
We had a bit of difficulty finding the farm but the host Gianvi Baptiste
drove out to find us. His wife Ilaria was waiting with their little
nearly 1 year old Antonio. Gianvi immediately insisted we come inside
and that we would sleep and eat with them in their house. We couldn't
believe our luck in finding this generous warm couple, who by the way,
both spoke English. Guianvi extremely well, but we discovered Ilaria
also did
well when Gianvi popped out for an hour before dinner. Antonio
was also a gorgeous baby, who took us all in with great big eyes and
serious expression, which little by little melted into little grins and
great giggles, at the children. During the evening we learned how they
had escaped from Naples first Gionvi, to work for his sister in
agritourism, and later when he found he wanted to stay and had met
Ilaria, they bought a former industrial zoned area that had been
designated for development as a town dump. The locals had protested and
stopped the dump, but
when Gionvi bought it, it had already been dug up into many holes.
They took this mess, leveled it, built a most amazing house and planted
vineyards that are organic and are in their first year of production
towards
certified organic wine. We were able to sample both a first year's wine
and the first press of this year's olive oil. Both were incredibly
delicious.
In the morning we could see more Tuscan views, but the weather had
changed. A wind had followed us and there was even a hint of rain.
Looking outside we saw another part of this farm's story; 4 ancient olive trees
stand on
the four corners of their garden. Gianvi told us that he had hoped to
transport some fairly big olive trees from their grove a few miles away,
but a digger operator said he had even bigger ones that he had
permission to remove from his land and all he wanted was payment for
transport. So these massive trees were able to move. They are roughly
120 years old and really add to the character Gianvi and Ilaria are
creating. It's hard to believe just how much work they have achieved
from what they tell us was there before.
Having gained advice about our route to Bari, we decided to set off for
one more long run. With many many grazies to them for sharing their home
with us. The children too were very grateful and had really enjoyed
Antonio's company, home, and toys. Sammy kept talking about his first
Italian friend. We headed off again, this time making for
Rome, Naples and then across country towards Bari. We barely stopped,
just for toilet breaks, feeding everybody on the way. The wind seems out
to get us on these highways, but at least being Sunday, the traffic was
lighter and there were no trucks. |
Long drive up with low petrol to try and
find WWOOF family Suzie had rung earlier. Had to ask them to come out and meet
us as we couldn't find the place. It was down a long windy road but
still on a hilltop. They were lovely and very welcoming, insisting we
stay in the house and share dinner with them. I talked to Gianvi a bit
about the Olive business - the best organic oil sells for 24 euro for 3/4 litre!
We also sampled his own wine and an after dinner "digestive" alcoholic
drink.
The in the morning I was stunned to see that despite coming down a long
hill to his house we were still looking down over a valley through large
windows. I wanted to help with something and tried to fix Gianvi's
Internet connection but in the end my conclusion was that the distance
from his house to the local switching station was just too far to get a
decent reliable connection (this is what the phone company had also told
him. Just before we left they asked us if we wanted to try olive oil and
salt on bread. I had been a bit dubious of this, but the earthy aroma
and taste of olives on fresh crusty bread was delicious. Doing the same
with the clear purified olive oil at home would have been awful but this
was a real surprise.
We left to lots of grazie's and ciao's, leaving our contact details in
their guestbook and promising to get in touch once we had internet
connection.
Long drive down then across country towards Bari.
Very sleepy, so got off highway to tiny village. Suz asked some
musicians coming out of the back of a building if we could stay, they
said no, ask at restaurant (around front) but shook our hands and said
welcome to southern Italy. The man in the restaurant said "no problem" so we parked up.
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