Photo by Brad Miller

Our world is full of contrasts, and the fabric of the world is shot through with metal threads of irony. Our Italian base camp was a four star villa complex situated on a seven hundred acre working olive grove and vineyard, and the beautifully appointed lodging was a result of some amazing restoration work done on five hundred year old buildings. Small villages and castles punctuate a countryside carpeted with oaks and small farms. Sunflower fields, vegatable gardens, lazy rivers, tired churches and windy roads offer amazing opportunities for photography, exploring, hiking, driving, sightseeing, and relaxing. Anxious to do some real exploring, I started with a short hike that I hoped would be a loop. I broke rule number one: always keep the ‘ten essentials’ with you, but since I was wandering country roads and not traversing glaciers, I figured I could defy ancient wisdom. Discovery number one about the Italian countryside: pedestrians are considered fair game, something akin to pest or nuisance status (like an oppossum would be here…), but not quite in the ‘hunted’ category like wild boar is there.

Photo by Brad Miller

Idyllic country road hikes should probably be undertaken a: with a map, and b: on roads that drivers who are serious and determined about their speed and destination don’t use so much. It would normally be my inclination to document this with some photographs, however I found that my attention and efforts were entirely devoted to self preservation, so hopping over guardrails and running across bridges in an effort to avoid sudden non resident status as a tourist bug on an Italian truck bumper absolutely precluded any photographic work on my part. Besides, I didn’t want my camera to get scratched. Discovery number two: Italian dogs seem to assume that all pedestrians are itinerant felons (regardless of residency) who need to be torn to shreds or at least chased to the Swiss border by any available method and by all means possible. I can offer no advice to fellow travellers regarding the transportation of mace or tazers, but such items might be very welcome should you wander into the wrong field or back road. Choose your own path, but be advised: there be monster dogs in Italy.

Photo by Brad Miller

Speaking of wild boar, these things really do exist in quantity in Tuscany. We ate pasta smothered in wild boar sauce, ate sliced wild boar as a cold cut, saw a wild boar pelt in an abandoned workshop, and heard the rooting and grunting of these tusked piggies in the oak forests surrounding our villa. I was advised by the locals that taking a cross country route on foot to a neighboring castle is not recommended because of the wild beasts. I am not sure now, however, if my advisors were thinking of the boar or the local farm dogs; obviously some more exploring is in order on this point.

Photo by Brad Miller

In high relief contrast to the astonishing accomodations and the fairly tale setting, the local property also embraces additional remains of an earlier, agrarian industry. What amounts to a tiny village of people who lived and worked on the estate (in the Italian: ‘Tenuta’) lie waiting for discovery at the end of the road, and if you appreciate dust, shadow and the slow decay of abandonment, or you love shadow and light and have a good tripod for your camera, you could spend days exploring the buildings. Today, the apartments are occupied only by pigeons, and the remains of early twentieth century lives and efforts sit in the dark corners of unseen rooms and near the shuttered light of unused windows. Remarkably, fragments remain untouched: official documents hang on one wall, production journals are stacked in a closet, chairs remain scattered about. Honestly, most people visiting Tuscany wouldn’t consider these architectural relics much of a treasure, but if there is any kind of a photographer lurking inside of you, then this would be a compelling place to produce a body of work. The Tuscan sunlight and countryside all work their magic in a dark and shadowy dimension in this place through all of the cobwebs, dust, rolled glass and broken hinges.

Photo by Brad Miller

Perched without discretion on a nearby hilltop was another relic: an ancient fortress whose glory days are perhaps six or seven centuries in the past. The building itself is fairly unremarkable, at least in the context of the rest of the continent’s countryside: castles and forts seem to sprinkle the entire Old World quite liberally. But this one was close, and compelling to me, so I drove up the road (so as to avoid too close an encounter with another dog…..) and discovered a tiny village that seems to anchor itself to the hill by building close in to the castle walls. The music of Mendelsohn echoed through the geraniums and olive trees, worked its way around the castle walls and finally drifted slowly downhill to the countryside as we neared. In a wonderful mix of unexpected ingredients, this little hilltop village brings in music students from all over the world to stay and study, to practice under the arbors and upon the stone floors polished by time, and perform in the main hall of the castle. From what I could see, perhaps less than a hundred people could be seated in this great room concert hall, but size didn’t matter: the views of the surrounding land, the music of the centuries, the flowers of the season, and the structures of the ages all blended together in a single serving world class recipe for the harmony of nature and culture.

Photo by Brad Miller

Cennina, I love you.