I live in Tuscany. Sometimes it seems so unbelievable that I live in Tuscany. It is a wonderful and beautiful place, full of history and art. I am glad to have the opportunity to live here. This weekend we took a trip to Val d’Orcia, which is still in Tuscany. The Val d’Orcia is the valley of the Orcia river. It is full of quaint little Tuscan towns. The Val d’Orcia is the place to find perhaps the most picturesque Tuscan landscapes and scenery which come to mind when thinking of Tuscany.
We visited La Foce first. The villa of La Foce was built as a hostel for travelers in the sixteenth century. La Foce is located at a convenient crossroads linking several Tuscan towns, including Montepulciano. The word “Foce” actually means meeting place in Italian. Antonio and Iris Origo bought the estate in 1929. The villa is located on a hillside and overlooks a valley. The Origos had an architect make the house larger and built a school for the farmers who lived around the main villa.
Iris Origo was born to an American father and British mother. Both of them were wealthy aristocrats. When her father died, her mother decided to move to Italy. Iris married Antonio and the couple bought La Foce. La Foce is famous for being the setting of her diary, War in Val d’Orcia. She recounts the events of 1943 and 1944. During this time, the Origos housed refugee children from Italian cities that were being bombed. They also aided British troops. The fighting moved through the Val d’Orcia area after the Allies took Rome in 1944. In Val d’Orcia, many civilians were killed and buildings destroyed. The Origos had to leave La Foce and head to Montepulciano when Germans commandeered the villa. She had to get 60 children she was responsible for through the battle line. We walked around the villa and visited the graves of Iris and Antonio Origo before driving down the same road that the Origos led the children through the battle line to Montepulciano.
We saw so many different little towns on the trip:
-Montepulciano-a lovely hilltop town best known in the United States as the filming location for Twilight New Moon
-Montisi- a small town in the area with no tourists and only one hotel
-Bagno Vignoni- a town with geothermal hot springs where we stopped to eat and put our feet in the water
-Montalcino- a hilltop town with a fortezza (fort) and some amazing views
-Buonconvento- a town with a wonderful museum about the lives of farmers who worked in places like La Foce
-Siena- the medieval rival of Florence. We visited Il campo, the duomo, the baptistery, and the crypt.
One of my favorite parts of our trip to Val d’Orcia was the place we stayed in. We stayed near Pienza in a agriturismo called Santa Anna in Camprena. It is a former monastery, and now is an agriturismo. Agriturismi are rural bed and breakfasts that were started as additional income for small, independent farms. Agriturismi keeps small farms in business. Santa Anna in Camprena was a wonderful place to stay. It was where much of the film “The English Patient” was filmed. It closes in the winter because it has no heat. However, there is an old kitchen with a large fireplace. We enjoyed sitting around the fire each night of the trip. The agriturismo serves dinner for all its guests. We enjoyed eating dinner in the dining room with some kind people from Vicenza who told us about their town in Italian. Somehow, I think through John Rose’s doing, we ended up singing the national anthem for them. They sang the Italian anthem to us! We also met a couple from Singapore.
Back in Sansepolcro, life is continuing as usual. I got my first haircut since arriving in Italy this week. I asked Dr. Andreini to write some directions on a card for me to take to the hair stylist so that I would not have to worry about saying the wrong thing and ending up with the wrong haircut. I wanted the exact same style with just the ends trimmed. Brianna and I went together and made appointments in a shop right next door to the Palazzo Alberti. I was feeling a little nervous when we realized that the woman cutting my hair had blond and purple hair. Now I know that you really trust a person if you let them write directions for your haircut in a foreign language!
The haircut was wonderful and I got exactly what I wanted. Brianna decided to get some really cute bangs. I enjoyed getting to talk to the stylist. Her name is Sara and she is 24. It was a fun conversation. I try to talk to local people in Italian for practice even though most of them speak a little English. The Italians always want to speak in English to practice. I would ask Sara a question in Italian and she would answer in English! This way we both got to practice foreign languages. I was able to communicate to her in Italian that I would like my hair straightened and not curled. At first I could not pick up what she was saying, but then I caught the words “lisci” and “ricci”, which mean straight and curly respectively. “Ho i capelli lisci” (I have straight hair), I said. It was a fun experience and my hair is the right length again.
I am excited to be about to travel to Poland next to visit Krakow and Auschwitz with Brianna. I was accepted into a program at the Auschwitz Jewish center for students from North America studying abroad in Europe. I have been studying World War II in Italy and I am thrilled to be able to have this experience. We will be touring the Krakow ghetto and the Auschwitz camps. We are also meeting an Aushwitz survivor. I know that I will remember it forever.
Ciao,
Meredith
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