Aah, Tuscany!

It’s been decades since I travelled in a lightning fashion on a bus tour through Tuscany, but this time I am doing it in leisurely style – staying with good friend John Lawrence in his house high in the hills in the tiny village of Guzzano http://www.ownersdirect.co.uk/ (Enter IT3469 as ref)

But first we took time in Florence to lap up its unique glorious combination of art and architecture, that ranges from medieval times through to the great richness of the Renaissance. Here you’ll find some of the greatest art works in the world – Giotto, Piera dello Francesco, Michelangelo, Leonardo, and some of humankind’s greatest architectural achievements like the Duomo, the great cathedral of Florence, which dwarfs its onlookers and boggles the imagination with its size and multi-coloured marble cladding.
And of course, I have to stand on one of the most famous bridges in the world – the 14th century Ponte Vecchio.

A personal highlight of Florence was visiting the English Cemetery, where, among other famous English poets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning is buried.

 

now I’m tootling around twisting mountain roads in an open-top Mini Cooper surrounded by rolling hills, green valleys, mountains, rivers, and everywhere a profusion of wild flowers – yellow buttercups, pink daisies, scarlet poppies, blue chicory – overhung by white-blossomed acacia trees.

Guzzano is 100km southwest of Florence, so now I’m tootling around twisting mountain roads in an open-top Mini Cooper surrounded by rolling hills, green valleys, mountains, rivers, and everywhere a profusion of wild flowers – yellow buttercups, pink daisies, scarlet poppies, blue chicory – overhung by white-blossomed acacia trees.

Two nights ago there was one of those unexpected moments when travelling that becomes an instant highlight.
We go off to a choir concert in a local church. Hardly, one would have thought,  something to hold your breath for.
But the music was sublime. A famous all-male choir, the Coro Alpi Apunae, which has been singing together for nearly half a century, had come to sing.
Sitting in a Tuscan chapel, listening to 40 voices raised in perfect harmony – rising, falling, booming, whispering - was a timeless experience. It could be now, decades ago, or centuries ago. The voices – old, young, deep, high – soar to the multi-coloured panelled ceiling, as a very large statue of gentle Jesus raises his hand in blessing behind the rose-bedecked altar.

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