Spring in the Tuscan hills

Chaos and carnevale

Is it safe to come out yet? Has the rain stopped?

So we have broken cover from the rains twice over the last few weeks and been rewarded with spectacular glimpses of spring. Today I’m writing about our little village and the three very different towns which triangulate around us.

Our villa sits behind its walls in a lively little village/town. If you were driving through your concentration would be focused on tackling the speed limiting obstacle course installed by the local commune. The passenger might see low rise ugly modern buildings. I often wonder if holiday guests hearts sink, frantically jab at satnav’s praying for a mistake and the villa is somewhere, anywhere, else.

They soon discover that behind the protective shield of ugliness lies the delightful old heart of this village. Every time I check the history or the origin of its name there is a different answer. Was it founded in the bronze age? Or by Romans, pausing on their march up the Aurelia (the Roman road which clings to the west coast of Italy) no doubt tempted to sojourn a while with the ‘fireflies’, the lovely ladies of the night whose cultural ancestors still haunt the nearby routes? Is its name derived from the Greek word for ‘Control’ given its proximity to the Serchio river which thunders past? Is it the name of a Roman legionnaire who stayed behind? Or is it an old bastardisation of a word for Happiness?

It nestles at the crease where the flat lands become rocky olive groves hills that buttress against ancient lost volcanoes. The modern sprawl is on the flat part. The historic heart rises gently rises sitting in the sheltered lee of the mountain. On one hill we have a thousand year old castle. Its fortifications are clear from afar, but nearby it looks like a wall of pastel painted houses. The next hill over is a Bishop’s palace with a double apex baroque staircase that descends to the old church whose clock is permanently painted 3 o’clock and whose bells strike three minutes early.

Then, behind creaking gates is our villa which basks in the Tuscan sun at the foot of hill three. Here is the constant sound of water from the fountains, and birdsong. This time of year that means wooing birds. In the day this is melodic songbirds. At night the screech owls sow terror.

So many of the picturesque villages have become mere backdrops for the Instagramati. Our village though still has its beating heart, children scamper around, neighbours gather at the Circolino in the village for a coffee and pastry, to jostle at the supermarket or bakery. The year is peppered by street processions, be it the Virgin Mary on one of her airings around the village, the Befania witch chasing screaming children and delivering stockings of sweets, or as this week, Carnevale.

Our village sits in the middle of a triangle between Pisa, Lucca and Viareggio. We sit close to a vast lake, the thundering Serchio within a bike ride to the sea. The town are as different as the water they sit beside.

To my mind Cinderella Pisa is an underrated gem hiding in plain sight. Tourists stream out of the airport/railway tick off the tower and depart. In doing so they miss the beauty of a Medici built town straddling the Arno, miss a student town with all the energy to be found in the clash of restless youth and congealing wisdom. I’m actually quite glad they do, I do not want to share Pisa, for she has a taken a chunk of my heart. She reminds me of the Rome I once knew.

Before I was torn away from Rome, I almost had SPQR tattooed across my heart so I could declare forever my love for this place beloved by so many. SPQR translates to ‘The senate, the people of Rome’ That is all very well, but it is dry, with meaning, but without heart.

Pisa is beautiful too. A bit tatty it bubbles with the vitality of youth and adventure, rammed with history and stories, so old it doesn’t care. And yet it does and that it is in its vulnerability that Pisa has stolen my heart.

Pisa’s mottos are more wistful. There is something unhealed, haunting in the mottos of the city, distant injuries hide in the words.

‘Urbis me dignum pisane noscite signum’ – ‘Know that I am worthy of the city’

‘Oltre di silenzio’ -‘Beyond the silence’

‘Magis aspera hora magis animosa voluntas’ – ‘The harder the hour, the stronger the will’

Pisa is real and chaotic, raw, scarred, with battered nobility, romantic, wistful, musical. And on the first day after the rains, when the sun was warm and the sky an infinity of blue we found everyone spilling on the streets, peeling off jumpers, turning their faces to the sun, eating sweet pastries and Carnevale biscuits, chatting and watching toddlers dance to street musicians.

Pisa’s arch enemy Lucca is elegant, Medici, musical- operatic, big name bands musical. A sleepy offshoot of the Serchio passes through the town, contained and walled, a pretty bubbling ornamental curated canal. That is the epitome of Lucca. Examine Lucca from above and it has order, definition, discipline and distinction. Its Renaissance fortress structure intact. Its Roman amphitheatre lives on too bordered by a lumpy skyline of different building heights. Buildings whose balconies peer over spilling geraniums to umbrellas below. These in turn shade the tourists and Instagramati who nurse expensive Aperols and clutching wallets out of reach of the ‘Lookie-Lookie’ desparados. I like to think I am a bohemian romantic, but I think to the Lucchese eye I am a scruff.

Lucca’s motto is as simple and refined as the town. ‘Libertas’ – Freedom.

But freedom from what?

Expats are readily available in Lucca. They gather to walk the walls, do yoga, sip apperitives and complain about Brexit and Trump.

Viareggio is standalone bonkers and I say that as someone that hails from Brighton. I am used to seaside resorts; more, I love them. For the first few years our attempts to visit were thwarted by not being able to park. Trawling the streets for gaps, we had noticed that Viareggians have their own sartorial style, clownlike. Look out for red trousers, coloured hair and large footwear. But Italians are like cats, they don’t go out in the rain, so to assess ones chances of finding parking check the weather report.

Viareggio is wide sands backed by the distant haze of Cinque Terre cliffs to the north, by snow covered mountains to the east. The west is Ligurian blue, a sea that churns or laps depending on its quickly changing mood. These are the sands where Shelley’s body was washed ashore and burned, apart from his heart which resisted the flames. It was (finally) given to his widow and she kept it wrapped in silk and a copy of his poem Adonais. It is a heartbreaking read. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45112/adonais-an-elegy-on-the-death-of-john-keats

Then, after a fire in 1917, Viareggio was rebuilt in the Stile Liberty (Art Nouveau) It is hard to imagine that such beautiful buildings arose on a tide of fascism. But none the less it is a joy to turn a blind eye and enjoy a pot of Whittington’s tea sitting in a light an airy hall with views over an orangery, listening to the chatter of Viareggians and the chirp of sparrows who have somehow got in. Here the expats are travellers with one eye on the Maritime horizon - sailors, divers, international NGO peeps coming into roost with Italian wives.

On a dry run a couple of weeks before we met an Italian gentleman. He refused to give his name saying that he wore at least five different hats, one of which was as a publisher of academic works out of the Villa Blu museum in Pisa. He said to call him Il Professore.

That is so Viareggio- living life behind switching masks of identity.

The locals wouldn’t dream of going to the Viareggio Carnevale, they rub shoulders with the locals at the Darsena carnevale, a short stroll across one of the canals. But we have never been to Viareggio Carnevale, so we, and some friends did it like tourists.

It was crazy. The nearest thing to this in the UK would be the Notting Hill carnival. I went in the 1980s, it was dangerous even then. Viareggio was entirely devoid of any undercurrent- everyone was dressed up, from tots on shoulders, to people being pushed in wheelchairs, there was no argy-bargy, no sense of pickpockets, just everyone out dancing under the bluest sky possible.

Vast, scary, grotesque floats preceded by squadrons of brightly costumed dancers inched slowly past. So many videos and photographs taken that my phone battery died. After a couple of hours my neck hurt from craning up, my ears were pounding along with my ribs from too loud music. We moved up into a narrowing street- a bad decision. Hordes of teenagers becoming lubricated in mating rituals blocked the path, the music contained by the building became louder, I wasn’t sure if the sound of demonic screaming was in my head or the next float. It was time to escape the mounting claustrophobia and break out for the sand and sea.

After a restorative stroll buffeted by on shore breezes we stopped for tea and apperitivi in the wonderful Café Margherita, browsed the bookstore and then mooched back to the Molo, the jetty, where three boats plied freshly fried fish and chips. There is something wonderful about scorching hot just fried fish and chips eaten with the boats bobbing around in front of you and sharing the moment with our Tuscan friends.

Viareggio, doesn’t have a motto which is somehow both funny and completely apt. It is a mysterious place of switching masks, it is anti-establishment, it can no more be pinned down by a few words than a wave pinned to its sand.

Until next time.

Thank you for reading. I do hope you have enjoyed my little bloglet. Do subscribe for vignettes about life between Tuscany and Surrey and follow for more everyday chat.

No AI was used (apart from spellcheck)