Autumn Song

Our Italian town of Citta della Pieve is the perfect place to recover– from anything. It’s peaceful and beautiful, surrounded by stunning and serene Umbrian landscape: Stone Pine [“umbrella”] trees, olive groves, vineyards, “pencil” trees, wineries, ancient stone dwellings…along with some of the friendliest people on earth.

Church bells toll over settings that look like movie sets– too perfect to be real, where huddles of Italians gather around little tables in the street of the piazza, chatting over glasses of wine or frothy cappuccinos while women carrying produce, bread, and cheeses greet you with “Buon giorno!” as they pass you in the cobbled street.

We’ve shared our Italian home with more than 30 friends by now, and nothing makes us happier than the enthusiasm of our guests who eagerly jump right into the Italian culture as best they can, fully embracing the calmness of it. Our most recent friend, Larry, is a case in point.

Like we did, Larry fell in love with the village from the moment he stepped foot into it. Within no time at all, he was out wandering the narrow streets and alleys, exploring the nooks and crannies, visiting as many of the duomos (cathedrals) and churches as he could. 

“Buon giorno!” he immediately learned to greet shopkeepers when he entered their domain and became immediate friends with several of them, introducing himself as “Lorenzo.” In no time at all, he was a regular at our favorite cafe, Matucci’s. By that second week, “Lorenzo” was acting as a tour guide to other American friends who arrived to stay with us. 

Dan took Larry and his wife Sharon to watch olives being harvested at a friend’s estate, and returned home with a tin of fresh pressed olive oil. During harvest in late October, huge nets are spread under the olive trees in the groves to capture the falling ripe olives that are shaken or agitated from the trees. Our friend Flavia tells me that newly pressed olive oil is best eaten fresh on breads or salads, as the flavor is stronger and most acute when it’s newly pressed. As it ages, the cloudy oil clears in appearance, the taste becomes milder and it’s best used to cook with. Patrick, on the other hand, believes that the taste of olive oil reaches its peak when it has aged for about a year. They’re both right.

As with most of our guests, we took these friends for a cooking class with our Italian friend Christian. Christian is animated and highly interesting as he explains the history of regional foods in Italy. His class includes a tour of his huge wine cellar, as well as a tour of the underground tunnels threaded below the city, and culminates with lunch in his lovely little bistro. 

Christian’s bistro reminds me of an old television show of a local bar “where everybody knows your name, and they’re always glad you came…” Bistro del Duca is small and out of the way, and therefore it tends to be the place where locals gravitate to. Pretty much every time we’ve ever been there, we’ve run into local friends to chat with.

Our house is located only a 12 minute drive to the train station right between Rome and Florence, conveniently situated when we learned that friends from Tennessee had arrived in Venice and wanted to meet us for lunch in Florence, an almost-two-hour train ride for each of us. Our houseguests eagerly hopped on the train with us, and enjoyed a day in the beautiful city of Florence (“Firenze”). 

We met up with our Tennessee friends, Phil and Dallise, at Eatily– a favorite Italian restaurant chain– for a leisurely lunch, then together we all wandered through the city for the afternoon, seeing the sites: the ancient Ponte Vecchio (“Old Bridge”) on the Arno River; the renowned leather market; the huge indoor Mercato Centrale (“Central Market”); the Piazza della Signoria by the Uffizi Museum; and of course the stunning Duomo di Santa Maria del Fiore (“cathedral”) where Brunelleschi’s famous dome, constructed from 1420-1436 rises majestically into the sky. Florence was perfect that day– normal, with tourists crowding the streets and vendors selling leather goods, jewelry, and souvenirs. 

By the next morning, after we’d returned to our home in Citta della Pieve, we were stunned to see videos of shopkeepers in Florence boarding up windows in anticipation of protests that they feared would follow the looting and vandalism that had taken place in Milan the week before. And by midday, there was a massive crowd of protestors in the streets of Florence. In theory, they were protesting the economy, but in reality the flags they carried were not Italian ones. Agitators had infiltrated the city, like other cities in Italy, France, and Spain. Thankfully, no real damage was done in Florence as there had been in Milan and, to a lesser degree, in Rome, and certainly in Paris. 

Meanwhile, Citta della Pieve– like the scores of medieval hilltop cities scattered around Tuscany and Umbria– remained blissfully peaceful and quiet, and our guests continued to savor the rejuvenation it provides. The contrast between the big, iconic cities and the quiet medieval hilltop towns couldn’t be more stark. 

Our house has hosted quite a few friends who needed rest… a pastor friend and his wife who enjoyed time away from the pressure of his responsibility; a healthcare provider who was exhausted after the covid fiasco; and many friends who just needed a break from the normal and abnormal stresses of life. For me, I needed a quiet place to recover from major surgery, somewhere far away from the procedures, appointments, labs, monitors, and tests.

And what pleases us the most? When our guests like Larry so totally embrace the Italian culture, the daily routines, the morning cappuccino in the quiet outdoor cafe on the piazza, the pleasant shopkeepers, the olive groves, the cooking classes, long and lingering dinners at our many favorite bistros or restaurants, and the connection with so many of the local people who transform them from being merely “tourists” into being lively participants of the local Italian culture. We’re most pleased when these friends of ours find rest. From anything.