The Cappella della Madonna di Vitaleta on the road from Pienza to San Quirico d'Orcia

In 2001 I came to live in Italy. I had some fun, wrote a journal and this is the blog of my story...

"Tuscany is a state of grace. The countryside is so lovingly designed that the eye sweeps the mountains and valleys without stumbling over a single stone. The lilt of the rolling green hills, the upsurging cypresses, the terraces sculptured by generations that have handled the rocks with skillful tenderness, the fields geometrically juxtaposed as though drawn by a draughtsman for beauty as well as productivity; the battlements of castles on the hills, their tall towers standing grey-blue and golden tan among the forest of trees, the air of such clarity that every sod of earth stands out in such dazzling detail. The fields ripening with barley and oats, beans and beets. The grape-heavy vines espaliered between the horizontal branches of silver-green olive trees, composing orchards of webbed design, rich in intimation of wine, olive oil and lacy-leaf poetry. Tuscany untied the knots in a man's intestines, wiped out the ills of the world. Italy is the garden of Europe, Tuscany is the garden of Italy, Florence is the flower of Tuscany." Irving Stone from my favourite book " The Agony and the Ecstacy" A fictional biography of Michelangelo



257. Montaione


In our eternal search to buy a house we have been brought to the town of Montaione... It kind of sums up the futility with which we've been subjected to.


We meet up with an estate agent at Gambassi Terme, which is in itself in the middle of nowhere and follow them up over 1,000 feet to what resembles a horrible concrete bunker!


The house is an empty shell, with no kitchen or bathroom fittings! It takes us less than ten seconds to realise that this is not the kind of place we wish even to be buried in, let alone live... oh well the search continues!
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