Home again. The Dolomites in the autumn.

AURONZO

I have a four hour wait for the bus and so I pop into Venice for a few hours, as you do whilst living in Italy. I pinch myself as I wander through the markets looking for the newest seasonal vegetables because I can’t believe how lucky I am to be here.

Back in our little town, shops are starting to either close until Easter or are on holidays after their busy summer season. The streets are almost empty, the trees are starting to turn, the lake is being emptied slowly to release water for the communities downstream. It’s so different to Australia where in a lot of places the seasons aren’t that different. Woodpiles here are growing and I see people starting to take their geraniums and other flowers inside.

Friends arrive with the daughter and her partner and we walk along the lake and eat at the Agriturismo (a local restaurant that makes a lot of their own produce so the menu is small) and then we find all sorts of funghi and mushrooms, edible or not, we’re not sure but they are like little fairy houses of old.

And we make pumpkin shaped pumpkin flavoured gnocchi with sage butter which was fun but they slightly lost their shape in the cooking.

And then our friends go to Venice and we celebrate Halloween or All Saints Day, Italian style. Pumpkins appear in the square, after school the little kids are all dressed up and looking for sweets. When they’ve had their fill and the sun has set, it’s time for the adults. The chestnut fire drums come out, the mulled wine is heating and an accordianist alongside

a man with some sort of small guitar starts playing. The kids dance their sugar out as we adults have cones of hot chestnuts with the mulled wine.

And then we’re told that there’s a mass in the church the next afternoon for the saints and people who have passed and then there’s as procession up to the cemetery where both my late husband and his sister are buried. We arrive to a church of mainly women and a couple of men. Most of the mass is sung by a woman with a beautiful voice and because this church has such a high roof (built in 1209), the acoustics are incredible. We spot one of my late husband’s relatives, a doyen of the community at 82 and a character and as she informs us, my late husband’s favourite cousin.

Afterwards, she takes our arms and we follow the priests up to the cemetery that overlooks the lake where other prayers are said for those who have died this year. Then we have a tour of the families burial sites and then get taken for coffee. I get up to pay before she does and when she realises, she shouts out in the crowded cafe that they are not to take my money. She bounds off her chair and shakes her finger at myself and the barman. Next time I will definitely let her pay. She still works full time with her daughter, they run a photography and gift shop. Her sister is 84 and still runs a hotel in the town. Strong stock.

An order comes from my favourite online store - #Loberon and I spend the next day arranging everything, from deer pillows to deer linen kitchen curtains and I find some bobbly braid to glue onto the little lamps that I've painted. Another order turns up of some lovely linen curtains for the bathroom so that I can remove the polyester ones that have been there for many a year. And on our walks, we collect the small fallen apples and make strudel and apple cake and the old lady up the hill with her garden gifts us kale and big red Tropea onions. Bring on autumn.

And every day I look out the french doors and think how lucky am I?

Places to go in Tuscany.

FLORENCE.

I’m meeting old friends in Tuscany for a couple of days but from here to the town I’m meeting them in, is a trek, so am stopping overnight in Florence (as you do when you’re ‘living the life’ overseas). Up in the mountains it’s cooling, Florence still is in late summer mode but the light is autumnal. The crowds are still there but I’m staying out of the city a bit as it’s cheaper.

I have friends in Florence and the idea of that blows me away. One friend is the daughter’s whom I’ve stolen briefly for a catch up drink and the other woman I met briefly last time I was here and we’ve become Instagram buddies. We meet for a drink at her partner’s tiny outside bar and the sun is warm and so is the company. My daughter’s friend brings a lovely Australian guy who’s been living in Rome and is thinking of relocating here. It’s negroni and stories time. The woman I met is a Scottish photographer and just before the pandemic, she moved to Florence and then the city emptied of people and she was able to photograph empty spaces in previously always touristed areas. She also began photographing ancient traditions in other towns outside of Florence. I’m inspired! And also by the beautiful artworks in the main square.

We all move in different directions and I dine in a square I’ve never been to before. I ask for a table for one in Italian and the handsome waiter uses his Italian charm and says: Perche? Why are you alone? You are beautiful! I shrug and he says smilingly: Meglio - better that way. And I nod. But he has made an older sixty year old feel good. I have spatchcock and spinach and a glass of wine as twilight falls slowly and the greens and creams of the church in front of me are lit up by the street lights.

Arezzo is a train trip away and I arrive early and walk into the centre to find my quaint hotel, run by a interior designer and welcomed by her father who is very complimentary so much so that when he has shown me all the freebies in the room, I make sure to lock my door. The room is very Italianate and I open the windows and look out into the street.

Then I go walkabout, past an amazing marble sculpture of a man battling serpent but with modern orientalist coloured tattoos on his shoulder and torso. He is battling the devil obviously outside the Basilica di San Francesco built in the 13th century. I wander in and everyone has gone to lunch so I get a free viewing of the famous frescoes of Piero della Francesca. It is stunningly simplistic and beautiful, wood and stone.

I had been here maybe thirty years ago but didn’t appreciate it’s beauty. The only thing I remembered was having my first taste of Pannacotta in the main square and we visited with my late husbands family in a beautiful old apartment and they had a pet turtle. I look at it now with different eyes, the buildings are grand and many with frescoes, the street lights are exquisite; the restaurants warm and inviting, even the modern door knobs are beautiful. On many street corners are Madonna frescoes, my eyes are everywhere.

It’s my late husband’s birthday today and so I find a lovely restaurant, Il Saraceno and order a wine, some chicory and porcini and toast him in my heart. Watching a family across from me talking about life. I finish with a Tuscan favourite, Cantucci (dry, almond biscuits) dipped into Vin Santo, a sweet wine.

Wandering back to meet my friends, I pass a deli full of the most amazing cheeses and salamis, the perfume of truffle and ageing cheese is warm and welcoming. Another church is again simplistic and beautiful with a timber roof, so different from the overly ornate Italian ones we have come to know.

I find the main square with it’s restaurants and ancient wooden doors with incredible brass locks where twice a year they had the Joust of the Saracen, a traditional medieval festival that I should come back for. It dates back to the middle ages and was a practice run for knights against the enemy of the time - the Moors.

I meet up with my friends and we sit and people watch in the square and then we wander up to the fortress and admire the view and the “finger’ hand. We dine at Il Saraceno again and toast to meet ups in Europe, on the other side of the world. A pear gelato is a good digestive after my rabbit in a translucent delicate tomato sauce.

The next morning we breakfast at Gli Svizzeri, (dating back to 1857), I eat an amazing croissant, injected on the spot with pistachio cream. Then we’re off to Cortona - the fabled town of Under the Tuscan Sun.

CORTONA

We get a small bus up to the hilltop town and we understand why it’s a small bus. The narrow road snakes up the mountainside and drops us at the top of the perfect fortress town. I go off to find my hotel and trying to follow the map on my phone, I hear: Is that you Vanessa, for the hotel? You can tell it is a small town. The host takes me up to a large old green door with leonine doorknobs and up five flights of stairs and through another two doors and then opens the door to my room. It’s huge! Part of an old palazzo with frescoed ceilings, a fireplace and a beautiful old mirror with birds painted on it. There’s a bottle of wine next to a huge round bed, which is slightly odd when put into use as you have to climb off the mattress and over a side shelf but who’s complaining. When she leaves I open the windows and look down on the square and over the terracotta roofs. I wonder if Frances Mayes (author of Under the Tuscan) stayed here when she found her house.

I’m off and out to explore, cute little side streets, arches and artisan shops. I find a craft shop where the woman makes pyrex glass jewellery. I buy a necklace. We meet and find a restaurant, sit down and wait. No one looks at us. There are two people tidying up and ignoring us. Finally a menu is plonked down on the table, we look, we decide, we wait. Fifteen minutes later we get up and walk past the guy behind the counter. He says nothing. I look up the google reviews, everyone has had this problem. It is either the end of the season and they are sick of all the tourists who come looking for Under the Tuscan Sun experiences or it’s a front for something sinister.

We find a tiny hole in the wall place a bit further up that a woman runs solo and we are welcomed, orders taken almost instantly and fed not long after with a smile. I have fried artichokes with garlic with the unsalted tuscan bread (once long ago there was a salt tax and they couldn’t afford to put salt in their bread, they haven’t added it since).

That afternoon I go to the Museum as my friends meet someone who is delivering bikes for their bike tour of Tuscany. The Museum is in an old palazzo and I get lost in the maze of rooms and luckily towards the end, the woman who gave me a ticket comes by and directs me out. It’s full of artefacts from Bronze age to Renaissance, with an incredibly old library, rooms of old shoes and clothes, painted ceilings and lots of small bolted doors. I feel like people way back then must have been a lot shorter than now.

When I find my way out the square is crowded with the older people from the village, the men sitting and chatting, people with their dogs and their aperitivo hour drinks. Life in Italy at five. And then my friends are off on their ride and I’m off back to Venice and home.

Tre cime di Lavaredo.

Things to do in the Dolomites.

Home again and I decide it's time to buy a coffee machine. It arrives vintage and red and we are very happy. We go down for the last Club sandwich and Spritz by the lake, it's that time of the year when the two lake bars sadly close. But if you're here in the summer, try out Bucintoro, a great thing to do in the Dolomites.

We walk everywhere, following the river, crunching autumn leaves underfoot, noting the softening of the autumnal light. The funghi are multiplying, the flowers decreasing along our pathways. The lake is full and still, reflections of clouds make you feel like you can jump into the sky.

A friend took us up to see the sunset at the famous UNESCO Tre Cime di Lavareddo. On the way we stopped at his friends bar (this guy knows everyone you need to know and was a great friend of my late husband). It has a beautiful mosaic of the three peaks and we are given free Cumino (cumin grappa) which warms you from the inside to the out!

It was spectacular, like a Martian landscape, 3300 metre up. We walk along pathways with fairly sheer drops to the side and the famous three peaks on one, where every year up to ten people die trying to climb them. The air is clear and still, the sun slowly setting.

An incredible experience, definitely something you have to do in the Dolomites.