21-24 May 2024

We left Siena late morning and after a drive of less than two hours through more lush green landscape, we arrived at the house of cousins Gabriella and Dinesh in San Casciano dei Bagni on the southern edge of Tuscany. (KITTY: You remember that Gabriella’s grandmother was a sister of Robert’s grandfather on his dad’s side of the family.)

Over the past fifteen years Gabriella and Dinesh restored an old farmstead, while Dinesh worked at WHO based in Copenhagen. Gabriella had retired from psychiatry in London to be a “diplomatic wife.” The upper floor of the main building was for the farmers, the ground floor housed farm animals. A lot of work, but restraint in the design proved to be an overwhelming success. Contemporary, with respect for the original stone structure and its aesthetics. The house, the interior furnishings, and the surrounding garden are suited to a high-end interior design magazine.

The panorama remains spectacular. When the air is crisp, you can see across the immense valley to rising thermal plumes. This is a region with many thermal pools.

The last time we were here eighteen months ago was in the fall. Think fresh porcini mushrooms sautéed in olive oil and tender as butter. This time, we hit it perfectly to see the garden in full bloom. The huge number of bees attest to the quantity and fragrance of the flowers. The garden resembles an English garden. Gabriella recalled that an Italian visitor said she had never seen an untidy garden before. This was a compliment. Italians are more familiar with gardens with clear geometric patterns. Dinesh keeps adding trees of all sorts, and he has a vegetable garden that keeps them supplied with produce all summer. We can’t wait to see how all this grows in the future.

There is an active archeological dig down the hill in the town of San Casciano, near thermal baths that have been used since pre-Roman times and are still used daily by long-time residents. A few months before we arrived on our last trip in 2022, they made one of the richest discoveries in Italy: many bronze statues and gold coins, well preserved because they were buried in the mud. The tiny commune is now preparing a museum to display the finds, which are currently on view in Naples. At the same time, local real estate sales have boomed and new restaurants are opening.

On our first night with the cousins, they drove us to a nearby trattoria, La Pace, run by three family members. We would have never discovered it without our local hosts. One pasta dish was made with nettles. Very subtle. Very good. The trattoria exemplifies the best in non-touristy Italian restaurants. They emphasize what is in season and what is local. We ordered a side dish of a dandelion green called girasole (sunflower) because it grows flat to the ground in a circular shape. They harvested it from their garden that day. They also warned us that the potatoes would be better in a few weeks. We couldn’t tell. The hand-cut French fries were fabulous.

Patrizia, Gabriella’s older sister, invited us to see her ever-expanding house nearby in Sarteano. She recently sold and bought another medieval flat adjacent to hers to house her extensive collection of art objects and books acquired over fifty years as an archeologist in the Middle East and Asia. Working as a consultant to the UN, she specializes in areas disrupted by war, such as historic sites in Cambodia. For many years she has alternated six months in Asia with six months in Italy.

The next day we had lunch in the piazza in Cetona. For such a tiny town it has a surprisingly large square with school children scurrying through. Dinesh and Gabriella conducted a long conversation with the restaurant owner about local politics and family gossip. Until recently, Valentino had a villa nearby, which attracted a stylish crowd from Rome to the village for long weekends. This accounted for a couple of shops of designer clothing and interesting furniture that were surprising to find in such a tiny place.

Two home-cooked meals. One a delicious vegan risotto by Gabriella and the other an Indian feast in all its splendor by Dinesh. He was aided by his cousin’s cookbook that captures the recipes of the Indian community in Kenya where Dinesh grew up. We were amazed, given the amount of spices he used, that they melded into such subtle, flavorful dishes.

We encouraged these two world travelers to come to San Francisco. They encouraged us to see India, especially Rajasthan.

The Garden!

Spectacular Views

Trattoria La Pace in Celle sul Rigo

Provisioning for Dinesh’s Indian Dinner!

Patrizia!

Cetona

Splendid Indian Meal!

“Come era una volta” photo for a few years from now.

Or “Once upon a time”

Bonnie Is Reading

On this trip Bonnie has finished two books about Italy by Tim Parks, a writer first recommended to us by cousin Kathy in Nevada City. This prolific British author, academic, and translator has lived in Italy for four decades and has great insight into Italians. Bonnie read Hotel Milano, a clever covid lockdown novel, and Italian Life, a novel depicting the politicized world of Italian universities in extensive detail. Bonnie suspects much of the story is autobiographical. The book helped her understand the university experiences of the younger cousins in Rome and Milan.

La Bonnie is in the midst of WWII in Val d’Orcia, the famous wartime diary of Iris Origo. Origo, a young upper-class British woman married to an Italian, recorded daily life during 1943 and ‘44 on their large farm estate south of Siena. The themes are confusion and uncertainty. At one point with Germans in charge in Tuscany, at least one thousand men were hiding in the forest near the farm: Italian men avoiding a return to the Italian army, former Italian carabinieri avoiding arrest, Italian partisans, a handful of Americans who parachuted in to aid partisans, North Africans escaping service in the German army, escaped British POWs, and random men of other nationalities from other fronts. Everyone was waiting desperately for the Americans to arrive from the south, but their progress was agonizingly slow. Robert’s Uncle Rico was at the front edge of the push.

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