La Toscana

Stairs

Italy has many flavors, not only for it’s culinary delights, but it’s also a feast for the eyes. At times it can be overwhelming to take in all the vistas, but after a while you’re casual glances become stares, focusing in on the details that truly make up the landscape. In the constant rumble of the Florentine streets you can suddenly find peace at a cafe rest stop and while sipping espresso, like it was a fine wine, you realize the map you have hardly shows the true nature of the place, so you decide to put it away and tuck it far from reach in your nap sack and explore this ancient place as if you were digging for gold. Many of the buildings have never been touched, with the exception of the occasional face lift, but still in keeping with the traditional look, using traditional materials. It’s hard to believe that in this day and age such a place can still exist, in keeping with traditions that supersede the time of Christianity and that just a couple of steps outside of the bustling city of Florence, you find yourself in a vast and lush countryside. The cultivated land, rich in nutrients servicing the olive grooves and vineyards that encapsulates the city, bounded by fortified walls, once serving as a protective barrier, built by the Romans, who built their cities on the foundations laid by the Etruscans.

Florence

The Etruscans where the original natives of Tuscany, who built their cities on the tops of the valley mountains, often trading goods with the neighboring Greeks, and still to this day the local farmer may come across a shard of pottery, while tilling the hard worked soil for the following years harvest, and turn out to be, that the shard is a relic, but a piece of a hand crafted vessel, made by a Greek artisan from around 800 B.C.. This relic could be an indication that somewhere bellow the farmer’s feet, once lived a vibrant city, who’s legacy, both in the culinary and artisan tradition, still lives in the people who inhabit this land today.

BarberinoThe Farm House