The journey began on the highway but then after 3 hours we suddenly turned off and were in the countryside. Wheat fields dotted with red poppies, farmhouses, the Tuscan landscape edged here and there with the pine trees that say Tuscany.
We drove and drove an drove some more and then we started to climb into a heavily forested area and then suddenly we popped out in Sorano, a city carved out of rock or tufa. The first inhabitants were the Iron age people, followed by the Etruscans and later taken over in the 1500’s by the Counts of Orsini, I had been there maybe 16 years ago with my late husband and we were stunned at its beauty. The memory lingered and I had always wanted to come back and it was halfway to Salerno, our next destination.
The heat on the mountain top town was palpable. We managed to find the fortress turned hotel but it seemed so different back then. We walked over the drawbridge, looking down over the side to sheer drops into the gully below. The woman at the desk took us to our room but it was at the back of the fortress, with no view and a tiny window. We looked and I asked if she had another room and she did. She returned with another key and let us in to a room that was like an eyrie, high up and overlooking the valley and the sheer cliffs. Swallows and swifts zooming by, swooping in the late afternoon light. She asked if it was ok, we took the key and settled in.
We went walkabout. The village itself was tiny, the shops only just starting to open after siesta. We wandered through the tiny car-less streets and found a shop run by a woman who made nearly everything. Jewellery, ceramics, adding lace and paintings to clothing. We bought. She was from Florence and came every summer to sell her work here. The streets as we walked through were empty but after we left with our purchases, a beautiful ceramic necklace of stars for me and a tiny dish with fish painted on it, suddenly there were people around. Later we found out that there was an international language school here and that kept this place alive.
We passed an old man seated in a chair by his house, getting a breeze that had just started up from the valley. He pointed to a place that he said we absolutely had to go to. It was the Jewish ghetto. We found out later that when the Jewish people were having a hard time elsewhere, the Orsinis welcomed them. The Orsinis were the ones who built the fortress to protect the area.
We went for a drink as the restaurant didn’t open till 7.30. The manager, whom we thought was Austrian for some reason, asked if we’d like something with our drink and I was worried a) the cost and b) if we ate too much we wouldn’t eat dinner. None of the above happened.
A plate of cheeses, bread, prosciutto and olives arrived - free and we found out the guy was from New Zealand, had come for a holiday, married and stayed.
We then went to the only place open on a Monday night and that’s when we realised that there were a lot of students from the school and most of them arrived during the evening. I ate home made gnocchi with porcini mushrooms and we had the the best greens - and then tiramisu and then of course, the free limoncello as the sun set slowly through an arched walkway.
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