Chiusi della Verna - May 5 and 6

Villa delle Rose at Chiusi La Verna, a guesthouse for those visiting the sanctuary above. Very kind nuns.

Well, I've escaped from the Creepy Convent of Pratovecchio, and am now sitting in the sun outside my next destination, Villa delle Rose, another convent guesthouse, in the little town of Chiusi della Verna, and very different from Pratovecchio.  This is a pleasant little town with a decidedly alpine feel, being set in the Casentino National Park. The forest here is one of Europe's oldest remaining in its natural state, and is considered one of the gems in Italy's crown of national parks. The bus up from Bibbiena was an adventure, a very narrow road, it felt at some points as if we were going to hurtle off into the valley, but the driver is very capable and drives this route four times a day. I was reassured by the rosaries hanging from the driver's mirror; if I died I would surely be going straight to heaven as a pilgrim of St Francis. The sanctuary of La Verna is a group of rocks that Francis used as a place of retreat and meditation, and where orthodox Catholicism says he received the stigmata. Apart from its spiritual attractions, it is a very lovely place. A footpath from the village up to the Sanctuary leaves just next door to the restaurant. Hopefully the weather will be good tomorrow for my walk. 

The beginning of the footpath up to the Sanctuary. Spring has just touched this high place; many of the trees have only just budded out, on the lowlands they are already in full leaf.

Street in Chiusi della Verna.

Found a large group of orchids on a piece of waste ground

 6 May.
Today I walked up to the Sanctuary. Funny how things are always different from what you expect. I was prepared for loads of bus parties, tourist tat and hawkers, but there was none of that. (Perhaps more on holidays and feast days). A beautiful walk up through forest to a spectacular outcropping of granite, with the chapels of the sanctuary perched on top. On the other side of the hill is a monastery and car park, but approaching along the footpath, you see none of that.

The granite cliffs with the sanctuary on top. Incredible spring green!

Lots of plants among the trees are the wild originals of our garden plants; symphytum, eyebright, forget-me-not, muscari, hellebore and ajuga.

The little church is the first on the site, on the flat top of the outcrop. It contains beautiful della Robbia terracotte.

The basilica was built later, but is still modest in size, fitting in with the wild surroundings

This is a passageway underneath the Sasso Spicco, the jutting-out rock that St Francis sat on. There is also a cave-like shelter where he first slept on his initial trip to the rock.

The Devil is reputed to have tried to throw Francis down this cliff. Flocks of swallows wheel and dive around the rocks and buildings, just as they did at Assisi. They should be called the Birds of St Francis.

The piazza of the Sanctuary. You can imagine how foot-numbingly cold this place would have been for the monks in winter-time, covered in snow.

Modern pilgrims soaking up the spring sun.

The beech forest grows out of the rocks.

A potted olive tree lit up by a shaft of light outside the original chapel

I had lunch at the monastery refectory (open to the public). It was very cheerful, and we were served by Franciscan laypeople from a great big kitchen, steamy and busy. I had globe artichokes for the first time, and they were very good, but are producing a good deal of wind! I'm sleeping underneath the nuns' rooms, hope I don't keep them awake all night.

So on this high point my adventures in Italy end. La Verna is very special and I'm glad I came here, I'll keep the memory of this place for ever. Tomorrow I go back to Arezzo, then to Rome, Singapore and home. Will I come back to Italy? I don't know, but it certainly has been a great trip. 

Pruning the roses

"Fragrant Cloud"? Or maybe "Olympiad"?

Started pruning the roses today. I've left them late this year, and because we've had a mild winter they've started sprouting. Decided to leave some of the floribundas for a summer prune instead, I don't think they will be too disadvantaged by this. One of my roses, Remember Me, has had to be cut out entirely; it has a virus and is facing competition from a large box ball. Never mind. All things must come to an end, garden plants included. It has given me a lot of pleasure, except for last year when its virus-y look was very depressing. 
  I think part of being a good gardener is to know when to let plants go. The sentimentalist in me wants to keep favourite things living but sometimes we have to except that something is diseased and dying and put it out of its misery. Garden plants are living things that partake of the life cycle, they are not ever-living. It's sort of a garden declutter, I suppose. I'll also get rid of some non-performing tulip bulbs this season, and have plans to replant my front border and take a few large pittosporums out. I'm thinking of a purple/white/mauve scheme, asters, dahlias and autumn flowerers, to provide a late show of colour. Hoping to grow some less usual annuals from seed this year, things that the garden-centres don't usually bother with - scabious, viscaria and canterbury bells.
  A house round the corner from me is having its garden professionally landscaped, and the first thing they did was take all the existing plants out!! This seems a bit harsh, surely they could have assessed what was there and left some things. I can't see what was wrong with the garden that a little care wouldn't have solved, but no doubt they will concrete the whole thing over and charge heaps for the privilege. Not a firm I would employ myself.

Pratovecchio - 3 May

Still at Cold Comfort Convent. Still raining. Oh dear, Pratovecchio has been a bit of a disappointment. I'd thought of going to Poppi (lovely name) today for a trip, to see the castle and museum there, but the weather is really too foul. I'll do what I do on rainy days at home, stay in bed all day. Wish I had another book to read though; I'm halfway through my second reading of Portrait of a Lady. Perhaps I'll become a James expert. Or not.

I seem to be the only person (guest) here. I feel like Lucy Snowe having a nervous breakdown in her Brussels lycee, or Dave Bowman at the end of 2001, all alone in rooms set up to someone else's idea of comfort. I guess the nuns here are not concerned with the ways of the world, but it seems strange to have a guest house if you don't want guests. I managed to find my breakfast this morning, in the gloom of the ancient refectory; it was hidden in a bread bin in one of the darkest corners of the room, everything still in its packets just as if it came straight from the supermarket and was stashed away here. The heating comes on at 10.00 at night, the water filling the pipes with a great rushing noise. It is efficient, but goes off promptly at 8.30 in the morning, so it gets a bit chilly by 5.00. And there are bells. My room is right underneath them, so I hear an almighty clanking and banging of the wooden bits, shaking the room, as if any moment the bell-stand will collapse. The bells chime at 12.00, 5.30, 6.00 and 6.30 (not at night, thank Goddess). The convent chapel has a vesper service, when a few old bodies from the town gather round and totter in to the church. It's such a contrast to the joyous openness of the other convents I've stayed at.

I  don't understand the contemplative orders - didn't someone say something about letting your light shine? This seems like taking your light and shutting it away for ever. Perhaps the world would be a worse place if the shut-ins were not praying for it? But if God is all-knowing and benevolent and knows what we need, why pray to him? These are the questions that were not answered at my Sunday School, so probably that's why I'm an atheist now.

One of the other enclosed convents. (Pratovecchio has three).

The nuns could be tough cookies in the medieval period, but now are largely invisible.

 Unfortunately, I'm here for another two nights. I had a shower, (surprisingly good, I'd braced myself for stone-cold water) and discovered a tick or a bed-bug attached to my stomach and bloated with my blood. Not sure where I picked it up, here or on my walk yesterday. I've never had one before. Travel; such new experiences.

Creepy convent - Pratovecchio, 1 and 2 May

Bar Centrale, Pratovecchio. All the old geezers hang out here; there is another bar on the other side of the square for young blokes and couples.

Said goodbye to Marzia and Toni at Arezzo. It's another national holiday, so the train up to Pratovecchio was substituted by a bus. Thank Marzia for looking this up on the computer for me; I would have been waiting at the station for a train that never came. Arrive in Pratovecchio about 1.30, convent quite forbidding. The nuns here are enclosed Dominicans, so I will probably see little of them. The weather is cold and raining, and because of the holiday all is deserted, which is eerie in an Italian town, usually so full of life. Supermarket opened at 4.00 though, so was able to get some food. Pray for better weather tomorrow.

My convent

2 May: The convent is very spartan, and I couldn't find my breakfast in the refectory, it was so dark in there. I did get a cup of tepid macchiato from the machine, and finished my cheese and bread from last night. Not a soul to be seen or talked to, their enclosure is absolute and they seem afraid of contamination from the outside world. I can have supper with the nuns, but fear I am not holy enough. My language skills are not good enough either, though they probably eat in silence. The weather continues gloomy, and so does my mood. In the afternoon, I dodged the showers and walked up to Pieve della Romena, a well-preserved Romanesque church about 2ks away up on the hill. I enjoyed the walk, and the church is blessedly un-tampered with. The decorations have been kept simple and minimal, so that the beauty of the architecture speaks clearly. Up in these remote places, far from the money and power of the Papacy, you can really feel what medieval faith and life was like.

An old house is hidden in the cypresses.

On the way up, there was a terrific clap of thunder, so loud that I thought someone was dynamiting up at the old castle above me, and expected chunks of masonry to come flying through the trees.

The hill-town of Poppi in the distance

Church of Pieve della Romena - 9th or 10c I think

Almost looks like a set from "Game of Thrones"

Small alabaster window

View of the church across the meadow. Pratovecchio means "old meadow", I wonder if this is it.

Old house

On the way back I stopped and fossicked around an old house that was for sale. Someone had started to renovate but it would be such a big job. I fantasised that it was mine; I would open a BandB, and call it La Pazza Straniera - The Crazy Foreign Woman.

This is the Arno, here small and wild.

Little vegetable plots by the river, I love that Italians love to grow things and use tiny spaces to do so.

It's raining again now. And my foot hurts like hell. And I've got nothing to read but Portrait of a Lady. Again. Sometimes travel sucks; you wonder why you do it.

Spring already already

A few pics from the garden

Big fat magnolia buds - look great with the sun shining through the fuzziness

Steampunk hat

Here's the hat that I made for Steampunk Runway. It came together quite nicely. I bought the feathers, had the ribbon and hair slide already and painted dried plant parts with gold, with an old pearl hatpin of Mum's. Made the light from brass curtain rings, wire and an old sewing machine bulb. This is the left side and the front.

 Back of hat

The sparkly hair-slide was one I found on a walk many years ago.

Quite chuffed at how it turned out, just all seemed to come together magically - perhaps Mum, Grandma and Auntie Etty helping from the afterlife? (Grandma and Auntie worked in the London ragtrade as a seamstress and a bead embroiderer respectively). Lots of Mum's old sewing notions stuff came in handy. I even had a compliment from a real steampunker, too. The rest of my costume wasn't as great, but no matter, I was so pleased with the hat.