66. The Hills are alive ...

The sound of two women laughing ...even if there's no one else in the restaurant to hear it, they're laughing, trust me.

Umbrian time seemed to flow from one day of mellow fruitfulness to another. I’d wake in the castle, pad across the stone floor and throw open the shutters to look onto the forests below where hunting dogs yapped, excited at the fact they’d found a jogger to bite: one morning a guest limped in, bandaged behind the knee. Signs in the forest warn of hunters and wild boars,  but seeing the boars stuffed and trussed, processed and smoked with wide jaws and ghastly fangs in the local food shops, I wonder why people would want to eat them.  

Castello della Oscano

The fields stretched in patchwork colours over the hills and far away: laborers toiled their vines and orchards, crops turned yellow and others became green and every day more sunflowers prepared to burst onto the landscape in July.  Silky grey groves of olives dropped their bounty with abandon to produce some of the best extra virgin olive oil I have ever tasted .... Yumbria ... dipped into the local breads and sprinkled with rock salt and peppers.

Just me and my Vespa

Wandering around the ancient towns among the quiet of the cobbled, narrow lanes, thankfully the 21st century seemed very far away - if only I could ignore the shoe shops!  But looking closer into tiny arcades and there’d still be a cobbler, or tailor, a old man watching the world from his balconette, another tending their tomatoes in their window boxes. 


We drove to several hill towns over the few days, each with its own personality and style. We were happily lost in Montepulchiano for a few hours, when we went one way and Virgilio went another, but it gave us a chance to see streets off the regular track beaten to death by tourists. Food tasting is everywhere:  when peckish, we’d sip a glass of wine, sample the pomodoro or provolone, discern the difference in flavour, density and colour of the local olive oils.  

The town is named after the Mount of Publicianus, and Etruscan ruins prove that a settlement was already in existence in the 4th - 3rd centuries BC.  Little seems to have changed since then,  when it was the seat of a garrison guarding the main roads of the area. Instead of soldiers throwing boiling oil on suspects, the bases of the buildings are crammed with shops selling shoes, bags, belts, and food. 

  

In typical Italian style, we spent several hours at the regionally iconic Fontanella restaurant at Campello del Clitunno, where no matter our protests of being close to bursting, the food just kept on coming .. and coming ... and coming - varieties of meats and cheeses, home made tagliatelle with truffle and a typical regional tomato sauce. We walked off our meal down a snaking road to get closer to the fortified town, where few things stirred, barely even a ghost or old lady. 

The sunny town of Cortona was built 273 years after the great flood, and  is supposed to be where Noah entered the Valdichiana via the Tiber and Paglia rivers, preferring it to anywhere else is Italy because it was so fertile.  He lived here for thirty years.  Now it’s more famous as the setting for Frances Mayes Under the Tuscan Sun, and the fountain that was built for the movie was later removed, because it wasn’t part of the original architecture. Cortona is larger, and was obviously far wealthier than some of the other towns because the streets are wider, the churches larger and the fortifications even more impressive.  A wedding was in full swing in the cobbled square when we arrived, but that didn’t deter one of the guests who wore her killer shoes to match her fabulous frou frou red dress, and carried a pair of brown Birkenstocks which she changed into as soon as she could.  

Just as important as the hill towns were the stops at shoe and cashmere outlets we nagged Virgilio to take us to.  But we spent so much time buying buying purple and orange and olive twin sets,  that feel like silk, but are warm as wool and light up a room, that we arrived in Corciano too late for our tour.  Archeologists have found the earliest traces of human presence here, in fragments of flint tools on blades,  and pieces of vases dating to Neolithic times that have turned into dough. We arrived as the sun was setting, and the only activity over the din of pealing bells were the locals who’d pulled their chairs outside the front doors into the squares,  under the clocks and near the fountains to chat about the day.  

The boot of the Mercedes was stacked with shoes and cashmere, the camera with hundreds of photos. Italy couldn’t be better. That night we stopped for pizza on the way back to the Oscano, preferring to sit on the terrace than eat formally in the the grand dining room - after our enormous lunch - with its painted ceilings and five course menu. The slipping sun slowly darkened the sky as we sipped a local Chianti,  and ate the local pizza with skinny crispy crust, lightly basted with melted cheese and a light topping of salami, artichoke and anchovies. The pizza outlet was crowded with irate customers trying to get their pizzas home before they cooled, thinking that shouting and gear grinding would help. Some customers staggered out under six boxes, but we were more restrained considering our long lunch, and enjoyed the languid night only only when the mosquitoes (zanzare) decided to join us. 

San Gimignano

One of the most impressive hill towns is San Gimignano, built by the rich residents who always tried to out do each other with the height of their stone work. I visited it a few times with my Latin lover A, many years ago. He wore a cheeky red hat and an enormous cream cashmere shawl, and he kissed me passionately in one of the medieval towers, then shouted down to the people in the square that he loved me. Ah, these Latins. I love their outpourings of passion, so much more exciting that the Australian version: “are you done yet?”

The gelato shop is one of the busiest in the region, its windows plastered with photos of its owner draping his arms across the shoulders of famous people, gelato cones in sticky hand. I sat in the sun at the base of the fountain, eating my pistachio gelato surrounded by tourists and wondering what it must have been like, 900 years ago, living in this city where everyone was so terrified of being invaded they had to protect themselves with impenetrable walls, and tall towers from which they could fire and shoot. Daily activity was around the well, but in those days people also feared water because they knew it could bring disease. People drink water from plastic bottles the world over now, but we filled ours from the many fountains and streams every day.

Needing a loo stop, I followed signs to a public toilet, a concrete block near an olive orchard. I circled it twice, unable to find the door, touching the walls like a blind person unable to find the secret code to open.  There was a machine that looked like those in parking garages, where you insert your card and it takes your money and gives you back your car.  I stuck in my lire. A green light flashed and things grunted as I waited for a coupon  - or something. I pressed the red cancel button, but I didn’t get a refund.  When I pressed the green button,  an enormous metal door, the width and height of the concrete block, began grinding open.  Like Lara Croft in Tomb Raiders, I peered in nervously, one foot still outside on the grass.  Inside this stinking tomb was a frighteningly stained stainless steel toilet, its floor scattered with dead insects in a scene from one of Harrison Ford’s movies.  Lights flashed (in Italian)  “automatic cleaning in progress - please wait”.  The door began to grind closed,  supposedly with me behind it, trapped forever in one of my worse recurring nightmares. With a bursting bladder intact, I leapt out with seconds to spare before the door sealed, terrified that if there was a power failure of any sort, I’d be trapped in this stinking, pitch dark tomb, unable to find any buttons, just a pile of rotting bones when I was finally - if ever - found.   Later I begged the use of a loo in a pasticceria, and all it cost me was a bottle of water. 

There was a wedding at the Castello while we were there.  Ivy arches had been set up across the paths, red and white flowers were planted overnight, tables spread with fabulous food, the string quartet played near rose bushes.  The English bride arrived in a horse drawn carriage, the groom wore a Valentino embossed silk jacket. Her family wore Birkenstocks, his wore Armani. Her mother wore a purple Royal Wedding hat and shoes without stockings, his parents wore Haute Couture and back fishtale gowns with kiler shoes. We stood upstairs deciding which side of the family the guests came from.  When the ceremony was over, the happy couple climbed into their horse drawn coach for a celebratory lap around the grounds.  The horses set off at a sensible trot, but when they reached the ivy arch, they whinnied, pulled at the reins, yanked their heads away and to the delight of us watching upstairs, and the shock of the guests, the horses bolted down the same stairs that Hitler went up with his car during the war, dragging the coach and the terrified horseman and stunned married couple behind him, and tore off back to to the stables at the speed of a highwayman.

Before any more harm could come to the couple, the photographer took them off into the forest for photographs.  The bride struck elegant poses in her long silky gown, lit by a pale Italian light on her pale English skin so that she glowed nymph-like in the trees. The photographer, a very short stocky man made clumsy by his cluster of cameras around his neck, manouvered the bride for the best light.  Dawn and I were watching them from behind a tree as we just weren’t properly dressed to be blend in the wedding guests. 

Gubbio

The photographer tried to explain to the bride that he wanted her to lean against the groom and look up at him, with her head on his shoulder.  To explain further the photographer waddled up to the groom, and put his head on what should have been his shoulder, but the groom was tall and the photographer was chest height. As he leaned against the groom, the ground started sliding.  So did the photographer, down and down and down, his feet splayed out backwards in the mud behind him, until his nose was touching the groom’s groin. The photographer grabbed the groom’s legs to stop himself from sliding further, the groom held onto the tree trunk, the bride rushed up to the groom to protect him from an unknown fate, the photographer re-erected himself and dusted off the dirt from his cameras and the hubris from his face, and resumed shooting as if nothing had happened. Dawn and I were so completely hysterical with laughter by this time that we were holding onto each other and our sides, and had to flee our hiding tree to recover.

Sienna

In Sienna, place of the palio, much wind, plenty of postcards and wonderful restaurants, I had a confirmation call with Giorgio that my apartment is arranged; that he and Sylvia are looking forward to my return. Until now, I’d been a little worried that it was a knee jerk invitation - but Dawn continually assured me that this is the way things are done in Italy. A promise is a promise, and to have asked for confirmation of any sort would insult.  I felt so relieved, so happy, with so much to look forward to.  I skipped through the town, and when Virgilio and I were leaning against an ancient pillar while Dawn was getting a macchiato, he told me that I am a flower, a sunflower - a golden face with a dark centre.  I asked him what he was - I am a tree! he said.  What kind, I asked.  ANOAK he replied, puffing himself up to twice his very decent size. He asked if I would come and visit him from Venice, and was aghast when I told him I’d go to the Venetian School for Stranieri, as I’d get a terrible Venetian accent. He asked if he could pant me. Pant Me? Si, he said, with brushes! I asked if he was an artiste. For you, he said, I am an artiste.  I want to pant you, on my canvas.  Oh! Ahhh!  When we left Umbria, he gave me an apron of a map of Italy. You like cooking? he asked. For you, I thought, I’ll like cooking even more.  

Gubbio

The last town I visited was Gubbio, famous for the insanely spectacular candle race from the main square to the church on the top of the hill, where thousands of men take turns running with 10 metre high candles on top of balance their saints.  The idea is to get the candle to the church without dropping it or losing its balance - both of which have points deducted. Groups of twenty or more men at a time run with a sort of bier on which the candle is balanced, in a relay race where other men rush in at strategic points to take over before anyone can have a heart attack.  The town is distinctly medieval with beautifully maintained 14th and 15th century houses toppling onto each other in the narrow cobbled lanes. We rode the cablecar to the top of the town for a birds eye view of the amphitheatre and colonnades, squares and churches, and wandered down the Sunday deserted streets. Walls were were plastered with posters of those who’d died in the past few days, with photos and their dates of birth and death, austerely designed with Catholic crosses on black and white - quite an antidote from the adjacent artistic posters advertising dance, music, opera or art.  

I left Umbria heavy with gorgeous knitwear and sexy shoes, ignoring the fact that I'd have to lug my wardrobe on and off trains before our next stop. But I didn't care - this warm travelling woman was a far different spectacle from the ghost that arrived in Nepal months before.