Bella Tuscany

Bella Tuscany! It’s a marketing image. A glossy brochure media hype that the Travel Industry is selling. My wife and I bought into it, but what does it mean?
Picture Postcard Perfect: Beautiful Tuscany.
Beauty? How do we define it? Is it lip-stick, gloss and air-brushing? Is it the fancy packaging that we wrap around the product? Is it all only skin deep and if so what lies within? So much of the world we inhabit is manufactured and distributed on the internet. Like it on your favourite social media, rate it on a trip review site and help them to sell it.
Having been inspired to live our dream after watching the film “Under the Tuscan Sun” we had talked for so many years about visiting Tuscany. Earlier this year a relative died leaving us an inheritance which would allow us to finally visit.
We had bought into the myth but discovered a deeper reality. We uncovered the beauty in the heart and soul of the region. And like all epic journeys we had to travel through darkness to find the light.
Landing in Rome there was a thunderstorm. We couldn’t find the car hire company. We had to take a Taxi to the Hotel. We rang the car hire company who said, “Ok. Collect it tomorrow.” The car hire company didn’t have a car reserved. The car hire company wouldn’t hire a car as we don’t own a credit card. We queued for an hour for a train ticket. We were harassed and badgered to spare a few Euros. We journeyed for over two hours on a hot and sweaty train. And then we couldn’t find a taxi because it was siesta. We were still 13Km from our holiday cottage 21 hours after touch down.
At this point we wanted to go home.
And at this point we discovered Tuscany: The beauty of the country is in its people.
A kind souled lady at the supermarket phoned a local company. On the journey through the winding hills the driver told us of his family run business. There was a sense of pride as he described the history of the area’s Etruscan past.
The winding road consumed us and in no time we were in Bagnolo and in the warm welcome of our hosts. They didn’t seem ruffled by the fact that we were two hours late. And nothing was too much trouble. As we stumbled in an unfamiliar tongue to arrange for the Taxi to pick us up in a week to return us to the train station, they offered to take us. Even when we found we had to be there for 7 o’clock, it was “No problem – I take you.” They came knocking with freshly picked cherries and new laid eggs. They brought us pizza still hot from the outdoor oven. Having only meagre rations they told of a local baker who came to the village and they also took us the 13Km to Cortona to stock up with essential supplies like the local Chianti.
Tranquillity and tradition, golden and flowing like sun embalmed in olive oil, pools in the valleys between these hills. Time stands still. It is a lost, all but forgotten world and humanity is diminished without it.
There is a sense of connection to family, to neighbours, to people. And this is a beauty we have discarded in our media soaked technological society. It is a beauty waiting there to be re-discovered.
Go! Savour it! Fill your glass. That you may return to your home enriched.