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Tuscany and women

Women who follow their instict, and strive to fulfil their dreams, who find space and time and come to Tuscany.
Tuscany Welcomes Women is designed to meet the destre of these free, indipendent and romantic women who love travelling and meeting other people, pampering themselves and living themselves a holiday, a moment of pleasure in search of emotion and knowledge.
Tuscany Welcomes Women welcomes you to a region that has come up with this possibility, making made to measure offers for women travelling alone, with children or female fiends.
The women who come here will find the care and attention of selected structures with different programmes and proposing different ideas, with special offers and discounts for beauty treatments, spa treatments and cultural events.
Think of the holiday that awaits you, of what you will experience, get an advance taste of your Tuscan experience by plucking from your imagination a name, a location, a trip, that inspires you and that has drawn your attention. Then forget all the rest.
You can count on the female entrepreneurs who care part of Tuscany Welcomes Women to organise a holiday rich in emotions.
We knew that with their help we would be alble to offer a lot: a rich and open region, welcoming and generous with women who want to communicate and rediscover the things that count.
Besides, with their sensitivity what better approach could there be to the region’s treasures than a woman’s.
You will be able to come in contact with different worlds, from the splendour of the Medici cities to the infinite number of small villages, ridde and enveloped in the charm of a never ending story.
A closely woven fabric, dense in emotions in which art leale room for the countryside and the flavours of the countryside, and the flavours of the cuisine are the cue for getting to know the territory, cultures and traditions.
In the Tuscany Welcomes Women project the rules are changed, another language reigns, the language of relaxation, rest, but also of discovery research, pleasure, all designed to fit in with your desires.

The project is arranged into several themes:
. knoledge and learning
. active holidays
. society life
. well being spiritualità and meditation
. ecology and country life

These themes are basic concepts that can be furtherexplored tank to numerous possible activities designed especially for women.
Let yourselves be guided and you will discover a unique Tuscany where harony and equilibrium reign, the colours conjure up desires and views trigger off sweet sensations.
Against this background you can experience your holiday increasingly in the driving seat, and lessa s onlookers.
Women travelling with children can find ad hoc structures and staff, with ideas designed for children. “pearshaps also in the company of female friends” you can celebrate an event, create a personalized stay, devote your time to shopping and society life, to cultural life and your healt with walking, cycling and horse riding.
The tourist packages of various kinds, from days devoted to relaxation in a spa to visiting a wine cellar with wine tasting, from a course in local cuisine to a walk in the woods or in the regional parks, a dinner in a typical restaurant to taste the flavour of tradition and play at the theatre or in a town square following the “events calendar” for the period and the city you are visiting.
In addition, there are holidays designed for those who want to learn something new: including activities starting in the morning, at a leisurely time, for you to relax and forget the frenetich rhythms of every day routine, until the evening, when you late in the many night spots that offer entertainment of all types together with typical dishes.
Tuscany Welcomes Women provides a welcoming stay in a hotels, period residences, solida farms and bed & breakfast that are taking part in the iniziative. If you want to taste dishes from the traditional cuisine you can have lunch or dinner in the restaurants participating to the project Vetrina Toscana a Tavola.

Tuscany – Lu. C. C. A. The Living Museum

As the designer dresses and killer heels strained to get a closer view of the dignitaries o fan elegant Palazzo a the Madonna dello Stellario on saturday May 9thm any tourists casually bumping into the scene would have been forgive for believing they’d accidentally driven to Milan rather than Lucca. They were in fact witnessing the opening o fan exibition of 1950s italian abstract art, Un Mondo Visivo Nuovo. Origine Balla, Kandinsky e le astrazioni degli anni ’50.
As one of the Regione, Provincia and Comune authorities addressing the crowd honestly remarked: “Lucca ha ricevuto un regalo bellissimo” ( Lucca has been given a magnificent present). And gift it is as the Lucca Center of Contemporary Art, so suitably acronymed Lu. C.C.A. is the private “10 year dream made real” of modern art lover Angelo Parpinelli. Sixteenth century Palazzo Boccella has been given a stunning revamp in which every detail reflects the aesthetic panache of Italian design, from the white windows screens to the Giugiaro fire extinguishers that could easily have been placed on the wall as exhibits. The lounge cafè with is custom designed table tops is a cool place for the happy hour and you must visit all five modern bagni decorated by contemporary artists and aplty re-named, with a clever pun, Bi-Sogni di Artisti.
The juxtaposition of old and new is most tangible in the cantine built on the base of one of medieval wall towers ( you can still see the stones) where modern sculpture stands alongside 16th century frescos uncovered during restoration. And also on the top floor which offers breathtaking peeks of Lucca rooftops.
The high ceilinged saloni on the first and second floor have been turned into sharp white containers to house exhibitions of contemporary art whilst the ground floor hosts a reception area, multi media and video space plus a photographic exhibition area. The gigantografie currently on show document the rise of modern Milan in the economic boom years of the late 50s and 60s. Architect Luigi Moretti who designed many of these modern tower blocks had an intense artistic correspondence with the painters of ORIGINE and shared their vision of urbanology and role of aesthetics in modern life. Sun bounces boldy off geometrical blocks.
It is pure form and line, with all embellishment and ornamentation banished in tune with the spirit of the paintngs upstairs.
The appreciation of contemporary art requires much more of an effort on the part of the viewer than a cursory walk past figurative paintings, and the marking of another notch on the “have done” art tourist stick. Only if you attempt to relate the work sto their sociological background and context in history will you get a real under standing of the unusual meterials, difficult images and colours.
It is 1951, and the atrocities committed by man against man in World War II have robbed artists of the desire to represent the human figure or recognizable objects. A group of psainters, sculptors, and architects with a shared sensivity and a belief in the moral and social mission of their profession, join together in Rome calling their group ORIGINE.
As the word implies a sort of return to primitive forces, to be espresse through primordial form and symbols. Hence Burri’s work in catrame (tar) and Capogrossi’s cave drawing-like ripetitive symbols.
The exhibition provides excellent commentary ( in Italian and English) on each group of paintings and i was particulary struck by the magazinenes and notebooks displayed in the foyer. Here the artists themselves explain what they were trying to archieve, often in severe manifesto style, but sometimes in great simplicity. With a real optimistic sense of starting over Ettore Colla, sculto and painter, records in his 1955 diary ( a handwritten unpublished text from the Colla Archives, Rome).
I you are not usually attracted to modern art, the artists’ intentions may seem utopian waffle, but here is the trump card of this new museum. Purpose built, the size and lighting of the rooms and the way the works are positioned seem to make you actually touch the paintings whose tones and brushstrokes establish physical contact with the viewer’s consciousness-give them a change and they speak. One emerges from Lu.C.C.A. with a clear vision o fan artistic period, and real sensory experience, unlike many an immense gallery which leale on in a state of overdose and confusion.
And to recreate that feeling at home you can buy the specially chosen music and fragrances – they change for each new show – or buy the catalogue on sale in the shop together with art books, high class custom – designed jewellery, and Lu.C.C.A. merchandise.

Lu.C.C.A. Lucca Center of Contemporary Art
Via della Fratta 36, Lucca
Tel. +39 0583 571712
www.luccamuseum.com
Entrance euro 7,00
Open tuesdays to sundays 10.00 – 19.00
Last ticket sale 18.00
Closed mondays.
Baby sitting services on request, art area specially for children upstairs.
The exhibition “Un Mondo Visivo Nuovo” runs till august 23.

Tuscany – Apuan Alps

A DAY OUT ON 13 JUNE

Let me guide you on a journey to the marble quarries in the Apuan Alps, a range of mountains blessed by a limitless topping of this wonderful stone. I’ve been living in Lucca for more than twenty years, but it was only recently that I went to visit the Fantiscritti quarry which experts regard as one of the best in the world for the pure whiteness of its marble.

One hour by car from Lucca and voilà, you are, to paraphrase the Beatles, “in the sky with marble”.
Take the motorway for Genova, exit at Carrara, go through the village of Moseglia, follow the signs for Fantiscritti and in another twenty minutes you’ll reach your destination.

Once there, the first thing you see is the open-air museum with its display of the old tools and ropes used until a few decades ago. They bear witness to the eternal challenge of mankind against nature and you immediately understand the extent of the exhausting and dangerous work. Many of the marmisti in Carrara can still hear the cries of desperation when a block could not be kept on the tracks and casualties were a frequent occurrence. When we marvel at the marble masterpieces in our museums, we don’t often think of the victims who allowed such sculptures to be made.

Those were the times when marble was wrested almost manually out of the mountains by an army of workers, like ants disputing food. In this hell of human beings and their masterpieces, the mountains were finally taken into consideration and technology was allowed to be the winner.
So now there are two quarries at Fantiscritti eating the mountain – one inside using modern excavation techniques and a traditional one on top in the open air. In the internal one, a block that used to take weeks of work to extract is now quarried in an hour by just a few workers.

A guide takes you inside aboard a small bus and describes the cutting techniques and how blocks are transported. You are struck by how enormous the internal quarry is and by the big marble pillars and arches that have been left in place to stop the mountain caving in. In this way, they have involuntarily built a marble cathedral inside the mountain.

When you leave Fantiscritti, turn left and go to Colonnata, the tiny village where the local delicacy lardo is made with processes in use since the Roman period. It is kept in marble containers and seasoned with herbs and is highly regarded all over Italy. Lardo was important in the diet of the people who transported the marble down the mountain to its destination. By the time you’ve looked around and sampled the specialities of the area, the afternoon is gone.

So, on your way back, you stop in Camaiore, a nice old village five miles inland from Viareggio.
You have dinner in one of the many pleasant restaurants and trattorias while waiting for the evening because on June 13 the traditional sawdust carpet event takes place here once again. During the night, the tappetari, the carpet makers, cover the main streets with colored sawdust carpets on which the Corpus Domini procession will take place the following morning at 10 a.m. Between sunset and dawn, a time of 10 to 12 hours, they make carpets which are two metres wide and 40 metres long.

In fact, the tappetari start working on them a few months earlier because first they have to decide on the subjects (usually religious) to be represented, prepare plywood to transfer the drawings on to the ground, and make templates. I will save most of the detail about how the work is done because it’s more fun when you see for yourself how these masterpieces – which will last only a few hours – are created. It’s a really enjoyable event that only bad weather can spoil.

Tuscany – The divine comedy

The man we know simply as Dante was Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Florentine, minor aristocrat, political activist, scholar, writer, poet husband, father and exile, known universally and for ever by his Christian name alone. Aside from biblical characters, Greek philosophers, saints, gods, godesse and a stringo f show-biz persons, not many people are remembered by their first name only. Another one, however, is Beatrice. In real life she was Bice Portinari ( Bice is still a common enough diminuitive of Beatrice) and Dante says he saw her for the first time when they were both aged nine. Over the years she became his idealo f beauty and goodness and the object of his platonic courtly love. She died in 1290, five years before Dante began his great work.
La Divina Commedia is certainly not a comedy in the modern sense of the word. Dante called it simply a commedia and explained to his patron that this was a kind of narrative poem ehere the story begins badly but ends happily. It was Boccaccio who first applied the word Divina when he was writing about Dante in 1373 and it was published as La Divina Commedia for the first time in 1550.
So what i sit? It’s a very long poem describing Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven, it’s an adventure, a love story, an allegory and compendium of late medieval thought, requiring extensive knowledge of religion, politics, clasical literature, mythology, philosophy, astrology and so on. I don’t know much about any of these but transations have notes. With Virgil as his guide, Dante goes down into Hell, a deep, squalid, stinking claustophobic pit, where he speaks to many of the world’s great sinners.
He then clibs the airy Island-mountain which is Purgatory where he meets old friends and is purged of his sins.
Finally he enters the radiance of heaven with the help of Beatrice and meets saints, Mary and God.
Lucca gets three mentions in the Commedia.
In the Inferno here is somone called Alessio Interminei, his head covered in shit, who flattered to defraud, and an unnamed seller of public offices, squirming in boiling tar.
The Purgatorio has a poet from Lucca who tells Dante that he’ll meet a young unmarried woman there called “something like Gentucca”, who will give him reason to like the place thug other people don’t.
Dante may have lived in Lucca for a year or two in the middle of the 1310s and some scholars have identified a gentucca who was a merchant’s wife.
Another thing Dante explained to his patron was that, unlike tragedy, where the language is elevated and sublime, the language of “comedy” is simple and humble. I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that it makes him easy to read but here are the first three lines:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
In the middle of the road of our life
Mi ritrovai in una selva oscura
I found myself in a dark wood
Ché la diritta via era smarrita
Because the stright way had been lost.

No so very different from modern Italian, is it? In fact, one of the long term results of the Commedia was the development of a standard form of Italian.
The first person to import something of Dante into England was Chaucer who encountered the Commedia when he was on a government mission to Italy ( he was there twice, in 1373 and 1378).
The Monk’s Tale in the Canterbury includes his version (not a traslatino) of the story of Count Ugolino of Pisa ( Erl Hugelyn of Pyze) in canto XXXIII of the Inferno.
many people have translated the Commedia into English. If you want to read some of it, i recommend a version that doesn’t reproduce Dante’s rhyme scheme since that has the

Tourism in Lucca

If you are reading this article, the chances are you are either visiting Lucca on holiday, spend some part of the year here, or indeed live here on a permanent basis. You will certainly be aware that the tourist season is in full swing.
But who visits Lucca? Some interesting information has emerged from a recent suvey conducted on behalf of the Provincia di Lucca, i.e. embracing the region around Lucca from the Versilian coast to the Garfagnana, as well as the city itself.
A sample of some 1500 visitors was polled between April and October of last year.
How Many? The first surprise lies in the volume of visitors. It is reckoned that when second houses are taken into account, the total number of person7visits over the year adds up to an amazing 12 million. This figure is far higher than previous official estimates, reflecting the additional effort that is now being made to capture data on visitors who do not use any of the formal tourist services, such as the APT offices.
Where from? Over 60% of visitors to the region are Italians, higher than the average for Tuscany as whole. This figure rises to two-thirds when confined to the coastal resorts of Versilia. The figures are reversed for the Lucca itself where over 60% of visitors are from outside Italy.
Where do they stay? Over 70% stay in hotels, while over the year, it is now reckoned that some 8 million visits are made to holiday or second homes in the region . compared to only 3 million previously reflected in the official figures.
What do they spend? When the cost of accommodation is included, the average tourist here spends a little over Euro 100 each day, slightly more at the coast, and less in the Valle di Serchio. All that adds up to an annual gross spend in the region of around Euro 1,300 million. Not to be sniffed at.
Who are they? The typical visitor to our region is a 40-something independent traveller ( i.e. not with an organised party ) with a higher than average education, travelling probably with partner and/or children, and with their own or hired car. 70% have organised their own accommodation using the internet ( especially foreign visitors ) or by word-of-mouth. The majority favour medium to upmarket hotels, with 25% in rented apartments or villas, and 11% in agriturismi.
Why Lucca? Predictably, culture and art score highly with visitors to the city itself, with 40% citing these as the main attractions. Rest and relaxation come close behind, and are more important to those who head for the coast and the countryside.
Likes/Dislikes? By and large visitors appreciate the goods and services an offer, and the quality and presentation, but find Lucca expensive and are sometimes disappointed by the level of knowledge of foeign languages and the speed of service. Clearly also there is a feeling that services for the disabled, public transport, parking and public facilities generally, especially those for children, ” could do better “.
Further studies will report in more depth on the typical visitor profileand levels of customer satisfaction. Clearly, the volume of tourism here now warrants an evergreater understanding of visitor needs.