Tag: About Tuscany

Tuscany festival

Tuscany Festival

Fairs, festival, traditional and open air events.

LUCCA
Cartasia: Lucca is the Italian capital of paper making. As a reminder of the history that led to this distinction, and to show how paper and cardboard can be recycled, artists from round the globe will come to Lucca to compete in a cardboard statue or installation competition. Happening, theatre, concerts, dance in various piazzas in town
19 June until 18 July.

Notte bianca: open night, street artists, entertainment. Shops open 26 June

Giardino di Palazzo Bove, via di Castello 46 San Gennaro. Tango y Mas Starts 21.00 on 13 June.

BENABBIO
Victor Mee Extemporary painting competition at Benabbio. Register at La Lucciola restaurant at 8.00 and painting until 21.00
Phone Fabiana 340 3973142. On 27 June. Paintings may be auctioned and proceeds will be given to Red Cross.
Prizes will be awarded on the following sunday 4 July.

BAGNI DI LUCCA
Settimana delle Terme open days at the spas with free treatments and special discounts. Talks, poetry readings, literary events, jazz aperitivi at the Casino and Circolo dei Forestieri.
Full programme on www.termebagnidilucca.it;   5-12 June

Now the good weather is guaranteed almost every town or village organises sagras, or specialist fairs. In particular:

Gallicano Il Pane e le Rose, music and local produce, 17-27 June.

Camporgiano Local produce fair, 20 June.

Colognora medieval games. 26 June.

Ceserana (Fosciandora) Festa medievale and Maccheroni festival, 26 and 27 June.

Trassilico 19 June.

Tuscany Walking Festival

Alpi Apuane

Guided trekking  15, 18, 20 and 28 June.
Walking with mules: Stazzema, Circuit of Pruno’s mountain shelters. 18 and 28 june. Walk the Corpus Christi petal carpet at Camaiore, 14 June.
Summer Solstice events: Acqua Pendente Waterfall and the Orzale Ring. From the chestnut grove to the table, visit the chestnut groves and flour mills. Taste chestnut pancakes with ricotta.
Star gazing evenings.
Visit the Parco della pace at S. Anna di Stazzema Nordic Walking. Book 3 days in advance. Tel 0583 644242.
Consult the detailed programme on www.tuscanywalkingfestival.it

Concerts in Tuscany

Pisa Tower

Music under the Tower
Do not miss the six concerts of classical, jazz and chamber music being held in June and July in the fascinating and informal setting of the Cathedral Cloister at Pisa. The cloister can hold only a few hundred people, so music and art will combine to create an intimate atmosphere of pure relaxation and pleasure. Enjoy beautiful music in the shadow of the Tower, in the early summer evening air as the rays of the sun fade away.
This is the ninth edition of this special festival. And this year, top artists will perform music by Piazzolla, Morricone, Bach, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Chopin, Stravinsky, Kurt Weill and others.

All concerts will start at 9 pm.
Tickets euro 12,00
Dates: 21-25 and 28 June; 1-5 and 8 July 2010
Info tel: +39 050 835029
Fax: +39 050 560505
www.opapisa.it –  animamundi@opapisa.it

Tuscany events

State of Mind

Minimal Art & Paradigms

Disarmare, Irritare, Impaurire, Mettersi in gioco.
Four significant verbs which assault the mind when visiting the Minimal Art exhibition at the Lu.C.C.A. Center of contemprary Art.
Of the eight artists exhibiting, six came to Lucca to supervise the installation of their opere and entering the first sala you immediately see why. The immense white walls, the huge empty spaces and the sometimes warm sometimes cold lighting are just as much a part of the exhibition as the works on show. And so is the spectator or, better definition, utente (user). Because you don’t look, you experience.
Disarmed? Irritated? Afraid? Rethinking your fixed values? Well that’s the point.
Monochrome paanels in unique handmade acid shades, smooth or bevelled, opaque or translucent, beckon you in through a perspex outer shell or by dint of mere size and position force you to check your own vantage point.
Recycled wooden boxes, dandelion sculpture, two sided mirrored drawings. There is no one homogeneous theme in the show except your own reactions.
Although Minimal Art dates back to the 50s these works belong to the last two decades. So does that mean art is stuck in a rut and the only way out is provocation for its own sake? Where does creativity go now?
The show running parallel in the gallery’s Underground points a way. If scientific research and science fiction talk up to nine dimensions and technology leaps in ten-year bounds surely our two of three dimensional perceptions put a limit to creative experience. Maria Cristina Finucci’s mobile installation and adjacent video pulls you beyond your known sensorial self, plunging you into a frightening but fascinating unexplored area of your mind, tripping you into an Odyssey in time and space.

State of Mind – The Panza Collection of Minimal Art.
Lawrence Carroll, christiane Lohr, Emil lukas, Lies Kraal, timothy Litzmann, Jonathan Seliger, Sean Shanahan, Roy Thurston.
Paradigms by Maria Cristina Finucci.
Installation in the Underground, Design and works in metal on the ground floor. Both exhibitions run till 27 June.

Open tuesday till Saturday 10,00 – 19.00 and Sunday 11.00 – 20.00
Closed Mondays.

Lu.C.C.A. Center for Contemporary Art.
Via della Fratta 36

WEB SITE: www.luccamuseum.com

Tuscan desserts

Strawberries

Candied strawberry “soup”

Ingredients (serves 6 )
. Six cups of fresh, excellent strawberries
. 3 tbsp butter
. 4 tbsp sugar
2. tbsp lemon juice
. Salt, white pepper

Method
In spite of its name, this recipe is really a dessert. At this time of the year it should be possible to buy wonderful, juicy strawberries – if possible, choose the organic ones.
Wash the strawberries under fresh running water, eliminate the green stems but do not cut the fruit. Heat the butter in a large pan, add the fruit and move the pan around to let them braise at quite a high heat. Add salt and pepper, and the sugar and keep cooking for 5 or 10 minutes until the fruit caramelises.
Finally, pour over the lemon juice, keeping the pan moving until a sauce is formed. Serve hot or lukewarm in a bowl just like real soup, topped wwith milk, ice cream or freshly whipped unsweetened cream.