Category: About Tuscany

Below the village of Collodi Castello i san old stone road. Some say it was built on the foundation of a Roman road no one is quite sure. The stones were straight and true. I always fondere where they had been quarried as they were creamy in color, not at all like the brown shale-like rocks that are always in a state of downward movement in our part of Castello.
Laid down over a thousand years ago, it was a miracle the road had lasted so long.
After the “Great War” it had been the principl passageway for farmers to bring their wares – wine, grain, olive oil to Pescia to sell while avoiding the dogana (custom station) on the Via pesciatina down below the village. The fermers would tie thick cloths over the feet of their mules or horses so as not to make any suspicious clip-clopping noises on the stone surface that might give their secret passage away.
The road had always served the villagers of Castello and neighboring San Gennaro as the short cut to the city of Pescia. Yet, with all this traffic the road remained straight and true.

Scansano is a small town  of medieval origin, in the Tuscan province of Grosseto, Italy. The area which Scansano lies within is called Maremma.
The small town of Scansano is notable for Morellino di Scansano, a type of wine.

Pienza, a town and commune in the Siena province, in the Val d’Orcia in Tuscany , between the towns of Montepulciano and Montalcino, is the “touchstone of Renaissance urbanism.”
In 1996, UNESCO declared the town a World Heritage Site, and in 2004 the entire valley, the Val d’Orcia, was included on the list of UNESCO’s World Cultural Landscapes.

Annually on december 8 the AILO ( International no-profit association holds) a Christmas bazaar in Florence, donating the earnings to support various charities in the Florence region. Each year many English language second hand books from this bazaar, and also from St. James Church in Florence, are left unsold.
Two years ago Democrats Abroad delivered these book sto Lucca and they were donated to the Melograno Library, which now has a huge collection.
To reach out to a wider geographic area, this year more than 600 books have been given to the Jaqueline’s  second hand bookstore and internet point in Bagni di Lucca ( Ponte a Serraglio) 165 additional books have been earmarked for two local projects.
The aim i sto finance, with the help of Grapevine, a scholarship to pay a year’s tuition ( approximatly 600,00 euros) for a student at Lucca’s Boccherini Music school.
The other charity we wish to supporti s Silvana Sciortino, an association of Lucca women dedicated to helping in the fight against breast cancer. Lucca’s Campo di Marte Hospital is in the farfront of breast cancer research and has been chosen by the European Parliament for a special breast cancer unit.

Following the terrible events around l’Aquila at Eastertime, there is still an enormous need for funds to support the ongoing work of re-housing famiglie and returning the community to some kind of normality.
In Italy donations can be safely made to Red Cross Italy (CRI) either.
1.  By credit card on line through the CRI web site: www.cri.it/donazioni.html ( or any Red Cross site)
2.  By bank account Donation s to Conto Corrente Banacario n° 218020 at the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro filiale di Roma Bissolati, Tesoreria via San Nicola da Tolentino 67, Roma. Payments should be made out to Croce Rossa italiana, Via Toscana 12 – 00187 Roma. IBAN: IT66 C010 0503 3820 0000 0218 020. Indicate that payment is Pro Terremoto Abruzzo.
3.  Through the Post Office Donations to Conto Corrente Postale n. 300004 made out to Croce Rossa Italiana, Via Toscana 12  – 00187 Roma. IBAN: IT24 X076 0103 2000 0000 0300 004. Indicate that payment is Pro Terremoto Abruzzo.