Tuscany, The year of the Olive

Olives, those beautiful silvery trees, have today become a visual metaphor for Italy.
Nevertheless, seldom does anyone come to Italy solely for the purpose of growing olives and making olive oil. Most foreign-born cultivators naively back into it somehow. Olives usually enter their lives on a ” bit of land ” just beyond the garden of their dream home, whether it be a humble farmhouse or a full-blown villa.
Those gnarled trunks look so expressively romantic.
The delicate leaves gently sea basking in the Mediterranean sun. The terraced groves are so suggestive of a living link across time to departed generations. Yes… but, wander into any local bar and take a look around at the old tuskers playing cards or arguing over this year’s olive crop and you’ll notice they’ve grown as gnarled as their trees.
Olive farming is indeed lovely work with long hours spent in solitary meditation, but it is also year-round hard work.
The year starts in Februarywith the cutting down of the undergrowth in the olive grove and fertilizing each tree. March and April are pruning time and burning of the cuttings. In May the trees go into bloom, dropping their tiny white flowers on the ground like a summer snow. June the undergrowth is cut again to prevent fire in the olive grove.
July and August is quit time while the olives are left to grow in the hot, dry summer. In late September, some additional light pruning and cutting undergorwth is again on the agenda.
October brings the laying of the nets. November, December and beyond is harvest time and taking the olives to the frantoio to make olive oil and January is clean up time – taking up and putting away the nets and equipment and, of course, enjoying the fruit of our labor!

Tuscany, The Soul of an Actor at Dynamo Camp

It was September 27, 2008, 1:44 pm. At the Dynamo Camp, the thatre was full up for the open-day party. Enzo Manes, Chairman of the Dynamo Foundation, was about to conclude his presentation to the attentive gathering when he said, ” I had prepared a different speech for this occasion. I wanted to thank the wonderful man who gave us the idea of setting up this camp but this morning at 7:30 I received a mail from the States saying that that man is no longer among us,” There was no need to spell out the name and surname of the person he was referring to – we all understood he was talking of Paul Newman.
The emotion stirred all the assembled guests who spontaneously stood and applauded.
Dynamo Camp is a totally free summer camp, located in the hilss of Pistoia, an hour’s drive grom Lucca and 25 min. from Florence. It is open to children aged between 7 and 16, who live in Italy and are affected by serious and chronic pathologies, currently undergoing treatment or in post-hospitalization convalescence. Here they spend 7-10 days, without their parents, lovingly looked after by specialized doctors, qualified health personnel and volunteers, whose main concern is to let the children experience a special holiday in the countryside, mixing with children with similar illnesses.
There are plans to open the camp to children coming from other European countries as well.
The idea of creating this sort of camp, called ” A Hole in the Wall “, came to Paul in 1998 and he started one just next to his house in Connecticut.
He eventually opened twenty of these camps around the world in which he invested all the million dollars gained from his food business. This one, located in the middle of Tuscany, inside a 20-hectare WWF oasis, is the only one in Italy.
When the children arrive at the camp, after long periods of boredom and surrering in hospital, they’ re quite indifferent to the beautiful place.
But within a day or two, they discard their hospital clothes in favour of Sioux costumes and get involved in the activities that have been carefully planned for them. The goal of the camp is to give them a week of fun and laughter, so once their morning treatments are over, they have a full day of games ahead. They recover energy and sef-confidence, they smile again and they want to try everything, from performing on stage, to climbing and playing Indians in a camp.
The friendly arms of the volunteers allow them to quit their wheelchairs and even ride on a horse.
Feeling safe in their protective embrace, they forget their hardships and squeals of excitement testify to their enjoyment, later reported in the daily diary they keep.
Money is the ” mother’s milk ” of any voluntary association. So we can be mothers to any of these camps but also contribute in many other different ways.
This year 230 children have been hosted in Dynamo Camp and 7 million euros were raised. The foundation’s goal for 2009 goal is to host 400 children.
Paul Newman visited the camp in May 2006 and said, ” It’s a magic place. ” He too was a magic person, not just for his aura of charm and seduction but also for the beauty of his soul. Thank you, Paul, for having started all this.

To find more about Dynamo Camp, www.dynamocamp.org. For horse riding and guided tour inside the WWF oasis, email oasi.ilcestodellupo@kme.com.

Tuscany Creative Ways to Save Money on Travel

Want to get away without breaking the bank? I share a very friendly ways to help you spend more time enjoying yourself and less time worrying about money. Incredible but ture! Just be in touch with me, rent Villa al Boschiglia or Casale Sodini and enjoy my Senior Concierge service to save your money travelling around Tuscany.

Have a look!

Want to get away without breaking the bank? I share a very friendly ways to help you spend more time enjoying yourself and less time worrying about money. Incredible but ture! Just be in touch with me, rent Villa al Boschiglia or Casale Sodini and enjoy my Senior Concierge service to save your money travelling around Tuscany.

Have a look!

Tusscany, The “Modi” Practical Joke of Livorno

My friends, to let you understand and feel the spirit of Livorno and people who lives in this incredible city, I thought about an old, very old story that for sure you cannot miss. Too funny!

This is the story of a huge practical joke involving one of Livorno’s most famous personalities, Amedeo Modigliani, and four ordinary young men, which took place 20 years ago in one of the nicest areas of the city, the Medici canal which flows in front of the indoor market.

The joke took place back in 1984, however to fully understand how it came about we must first go back to 1909 and discover a bit about the events which led up to it. It was in 1909 that Amedeo Modigliani, a young artist and sculptor who had just turned 25 years old, was hugely disappointed by the negative reviews that he had received from critics about his work and as a result decided to leave his hometown forever. His sculptures, which were completed in a figurative style of the beginning of the 20th century, that he had seen in Paris, and which were inspired by African art, were not to the taste of the local art critics and one critic even told the young artist that he would be better off just throwing them all away.

The general story goes that it was these criticisms which forced Modigliani to leave his town, dumping all of his failed works of art in a ditch in the process. His failed work actually consisted of sculptures of human heads, which were harsh and elongated in style and sculpted into the stone in a style for which his work was to become famous following his death. The ditch in which he dumped his sculptures (the name of which indicates the canals of Livorno which cross through the historical centre) would have been Fosso Reale, a ditch of the Medici Canal which goes from Piazza della Reppublica to Piazza Cavour, where you can see one of the city’s most well-known monuments: the 18th century Chiesa degli Olandesi, with its spectacular Neo-Gothic, yellow, stone facade and the impressive General Food Market with its tall, big windows which feature greek style colomns.

Now, in 1984, it is 100 years after the birth of Modigliani and Vera DurbĂ©, the manager of Livorno’s Progressive Museum of Contemporary Art, decides to organise an exhibition of Modigliani’s sculptures, to celebrate his 100th year. Her idea, however, prompted an interesting challenge: The search for the legendary heads since they had been previously thrown into the canal by a young Modi. The quest was supported by the administrative council, who approved the dredging of the works from the ditch.

The excavation work took place in the sunny month of July, under the watchful eyes of many who stood waiting excitedly for any news of the recovery of these long-awaited works of art. Their wait lasted a week and on the eighth day three stone sculptures, scultped in the harsh, elongated style for which Modigliani was by now famous for, were successfully excavated, one after the other. They were presented to the many art critics of Livorno, who claimed that the heads were the original work carved by the hands of Modigliani immediatly after examining them closely.

At first, it seems that the story has a happy ending: DurbĂ©’s dream was realised and art lovers from all over the world flocked to Livorno… but they were forgetting that Livorno is a city famous for its pranks and practical jokes and here it is always possible that things are not always as they seem. Therefore, after a month of much talk and awards regarding the three newly-recovered sculptures, three Livornese students: Pietro Luridana, Pierfrancesco Ferrucci and Michele Guarducci, came forward claiming to have sculpted one of the three heads, in the garden of one of their houses, using drills and other tools bought from a local hardware store. They presented photos of themselves in action and the splinters of stone pertaining to the sculpture in question. Then, on national television they re-enacted the creation of the masterpiece.

Not long after, a sculptor named Angelo Froglia laid claim to the other two heads. Angelo Froglia was, in fact, just an ordinary dockworker who was passionate about art and was a talented sculptor. He claimed that he came up with the idea to pretend to have sculpted these pieces as a way of showing how art critics are led more by market trends rather than their own perceptions and the true worth of each individual piece of work. Both the three students and Froglia achieved their goals as in the end the joke was on the art critics who had previously slammed the work of Modigliani.

Talk of these events lasted a while. Mainly due to the fact that too many acclaimed art critics had already declared the authenticity of the three heads. However, although it was, in fact, the three students and Froglia who had, separately, sculpted the heads which had been excavated from the canal, there were still those who thought that they were liars who had conspired together to pretend to be the true sculptors of the heads, and so continued to believe that the sculptures were the original work of Modigliani. The reality is that only in Livorno could two completely different, unrelated groups of people have come up with exactly the same successful practical joke.

Tuscany Holiday, Does Planning Your Trip Save Money? Yes.

Every traveller has a preferred travel style. Some prefer to leave nothing to chance. Everything is booked – the hotel, the car, even the attractions – booked and paid for well in advance.

The Tuscan itinerary is clear and everyone knows the game plan.

Then there’s the spontaneous traveller, the one who wants to take what comes along, good or bad.

Most of us fall somewhere in between, isn’t it?

No problem, but the question is: does planning ahead save money? Here are some of the “yes, yes and for sure yes” answers.

Yes – Planning Ahead Saves Money

If you have zero flexibility on dates, there’s no point in waiting for a last-minute deal on anything unless you have a back-up plan. Plan ahead: get the best deal you can on a Villa or an Hotel with cancellation privileges, if (and this is important) you think it’s likely that a last-minute deal will come along. Don’t forget to cancel in sufficient time if you change to the last-minute deal.

True last-minute deals can be very inexpensive, but they come with hidden costs sometimes. For example, how much will breakfast cost in the last-minute hotel as compared to the pre-booked one? Your savings could disappear pretty quickly if the last-minute place is an expensive cab ride away from the main attractions, especially if you could have pre-booked somewhere central.

You can sometimes save money by planning and paying in advance for your non-refundable accommodation. With reputable firms this is reasonable, as you usually get a better rate than if you do not pay in advance. With firms you don’t know, be very careful!

Accommodation is often the most expensive part of your trip. Once you know what it will cost you, you can be quite specific about the other items in your budget. No surprises!

Surprises are the sort of thing that can be costly. No surprises often means no overspending.

Planning ahead also gives you time to really get the value from using a travel agent, should you choose to do so. You can shop around for an agent you feel comfortable with, and then the agent can work for you and your budget. Remember, time is money. If your time is limited, let the travel agent do what they are trained to do, to find you the best value!

More of a do-it-yourselfer? Then give yourself lots of time to shop around for the deals you want, and to become familiar with the market for whatever it is you’re buying. When you buy a car, you typically research how much cars cost, and for a couple of weeks you probably know the value of one or two models fairly well. The same goes for any type of goods or services – if you study the market for a bit, you soon find out what a reasonable price to pay is. Shoes, cars, villas or hotels, the principle is the same.

The biggest benefit of planning a tour or an holiday is that you will know how much is reasonable to spend on each element of your trip and you can lock in savings when you find them.