AN ITALIAN JOURNEY - SOJOURNS TO UMBRIA, TUSCANY & BEYOND

It’s January 6^th 2014 – a Monday and the beginning of the first full working week of the year in the UK – but here in Italy it’s Epiphany or “Three Kings” as its popularly known. As well as being an important Christian festival in its own right, the day is also a significant public holiday, almost as important as December 25th itself and it’s a day when Italians spend time with their families and when gifts are given and received. Though I’m not used to marking it in any familiar way, for me it’s also a significant day because I’ve decided to write a blog about my times in Italy both past and present. I’ll be focussing on the regions of Umbria and Tuscany, chosen because the apartment I’ve recently acquired with my partner Jon, is located right on the border between the two areas. Other items will be added to the mix as we journey further afield. As I write this first posting I’m sitting at a table looking through a window out over the winter sun drenched Tuscan hills.

It’s almost a year since we came here to find a holiday home and several months since we purchased one; it’s taken me the best part of six months to decide how to approach writing a blog and to work out exactly what I want to do with it. So why am I doing this and what am I going to talk about? In some respects the answer to this question is very straightforward – instead of writing a diary, I’m simply going to talk about our part-time life here – what we do, where we go, what we see and experience and hundreds of others have probably done the same thing. Additionally though I find myself thinking the reasoning is a bit more complicated and I want to share it. 

Two and half years ago, in July 2011, my eighty-nine year old Mum passed away after a slow decline and come October of that year Jon and I realised we didn’t want to spend Christmas at home in Rutland looking at an empty chair and reflecting on Christmases past, which we’d happily spent with my mum after she came to live with us in 2005. We decided we needed to get away and do something different and the best solution seemed to be to go abroad and spend it in a hotel. Trawling the internet and after much research, we settled on Florence, the first Italian city I’d ever visited in 1967 when I was 17 years old. My work as a decorative arts historian and lecturer for the last 25 years had allowed me to get to know the city well, but mainly at an abstract level, so a trip was long overdue and Jon had never been there so he was keen to discover why I thought it such a special place. We chose a hotel right on the Arno between the Uffizi Gallery and the Ponte Vecchio and it turned out to be the hotel Merchant Ivory had used as a set for E M Forster’s “Room With a View” in 1985. We spent three nights there and loved every minute of it - so much so we returned a year later and did it all over again. Our affair with Italy had begun in earnest and in late January 2013 we made a return visit to look at some properties outside Florence (which was far too expensive for us and too busy in season anyway) and ended up buying a lovely apartment in the Umbrian hill town of Citta della Pieve. I’ll tell you the story of how we settled on this particular flat in this town in another posting.

View of the Ponte Vecchio, Florence from the Hotel Degli Orafi

Enough books (and more recently blogs) have been written about Tuscany and Umbria to fill an entire library (or e library) for scholars and travellers have been visiting these areas for centuries. The art and architecture alone of the region is world renowned and the Tuscan brand strong as the marketing people well know. As I write this I can’t help recalling the British ITV advertisement for a well-known brand of pasta sauce which in my minds eye conjures up the stereotyped image of a happy Italian extended family enjoying a joyous meal under an arbour amongst the vine yards and olive groves. Would we be able to enjoy the ‘dolce vita’? – I was optimistic we would.

Recently I've begun to ‘feel my age’,  discovering only a couple of months ago that I am mildly type 2 diabetic, which I suspect has been caused by having to take drugs for the control of blood pressure for several years. Open heart surgery in 2007, this recent diagnosis and the passing of my mum have all acted as a ‘memento mori’ and reinforced the realisation that life truly needs to be lived to the full. The old cliche that you never know what's round the next corner is essentially an important truism we often forget! My partner Jon, being of a more positive disposition than me (I tend towards the glass half empty view) urges we should get on with what we want to do, keep busy and savour it all. It's a pragmatic philosophy and I've decided our sojourns to Italy will beautifully put it in to practice.

The Umbrian town of Citta della Pieve 

I've spent much of my adult life working as a teacher, lecturer and author and for the last 25 years have been fortunate to work in a University and then a private college, both of which have enabled me to make the most of my passion for the visual arts. Though I still work part-time in London a couple of days a week and regularly undertake lecturing trips on cruise ships, I feel the need for something else - a new hobby if you like. I want to do something purposeful, interesting and to feel active and involved. I don't like the idea of passively sitting around reading the newspaper, making endless cups of coffee, or tending the garden, so this blog will be the very best of therapy for a restless individual who feels the need to keep engaged. So, the long answer to the original question posed is that my blogging is personal - it will more than fill the gap left by things I’ve given up, or will give up soon. It will provide me with a positive and enjoyable set of experiences during which I can continue to learn and communicate and even be a grumpy old man if I want to. I have no wish for the blog to be considered an academic work, I merely seek the rewards associated with trying to improve my Italian and of recounting and reflecting on pleasurable times spent in Italy and I’ll be partly there even when I’m not if you know what I mean. I also have the hope that I might even develop a small readership and that others might be enthused to learn more about and enjoy this beautiful country. 

A TRAVEL QUOTE I DISCOVERED RECENTLY

"Most people think they have too many responsibilities to travel, especially in the way that appeals to their fantasies. The hungry spouse, children, job, mortgage, school, army or mother needs them. This is bullshit, of course. Most people are simply too afraid to step out of the rut to do something they would like to do. Honest folks, the world doesn't end when you decide to do what you want to do, it merely begins."

FROM: ED BURYN - "VAGABONDING IN EUROPE AND NORTH AFRICA".

So, overall the adventure is centred round our decision to buy a property in Umbria and to use it as a base for enjoying everything Italian - the landscapes, the food and drink, the architecture and the wonderful, awe-inspiring art history! I hope you'll come along and share the journey!!